The threat of a terror attack is rising as more people are being radicalised and “thinking about terrorism”, Britain’s most senior police officer has warned.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley admitted being “concerned” about how extremists are reacting to the war between Israel and Hamas.
Sir Mark revealed more terrorist propaganda is being published online, with growing numbers of suspected extremists being referred to the Government’s deradicalisation programme – Prevent.
Detectives fear extremists could be inspired by events in the Middle East to commit atrocities, with lone-wolf terrorists posing a particular threat as they often slip under the radar.
Sir Mark told LBC: “We’re seeing more intelligence leads suggesting people have been radicalised and thinking about terrorism.
“The number of online investigations that the counterterrorism teams has gone up. Several hundred have come in over recent months, where the sort of potentially terrorist propaganda and things going on online that are of concern and potentially linked to the UK.
“So we are seeing an effect of this. It hasn’t justified yet a rising of the threat level, but we are concerned about it.
“And those teams are dealing with both that and also a big part of their work is the threat from hostile states, which we’ve talked about in the past as well, which links into this because of countries like Iran.”
Sir Mark added: “What we are seeing though, we’re seeing increased numbers of referrals into Prevent.”
MI5 has warned that while ISIS previously prompted terror attacks in the UK, the recent “the trend has been towards self-initiated terrorists largely fuelled online”.
One counter-terrorism detective told the Daily Express Islamist extremists consider Israel a “unifying element”.
He also warned the war between Israel and Hamas will “inevitably drive more, previously ambivalent, folks into wanting to take action against Jewish interests”.
The detective added: “This will range from low level ‘resistance such as boycotting brands that are associated with Jewish companies, through to active protest and up to terror attacks on Jewish communities and interests across the World”.
Home Secretary James Cleverly earlier this week revealed an extremist Islamist group behind some of the pro-Palestinian protest is to be proscribed as a terrorist organisation.
Concern over Hizb ut-Tahrir intensified after some of their supporters chanted for “ Jihad” during a protest in London.
Sir Mark said that “they’ve been looked at several times a year” over the past 10 to 15 years.
He added: “The main ones they did were, they did some demonstrations between the Turkish and the Egyptian embassies, and they made some statements outside.
“They’ve been a group of concern as a radicalising group for many, many years. They’re banned in several other countries.
“Over the last 10 or 15 years, they’ve been looked at several times a year and the Home Secretaries of the day haven’t felt there was enough evidence to justify banning them. They’re now banned under terrorism law. What that means is they can no longer exist as a group.
“So not just protesting, you can’t be a member of that group. Anybody supporting that group would be seen to be supporting a terrorist organisation.
“So it’s very, very draconian, the terrorism legislation. So that group needs to dissolve immediately, and people not behave as if they’re part of it or support it because there’ll be arrested if they do.”
