The terror threat to the UK is currently “smouldering”, according to one of the country’s lead Counter Terror officers.
Speaking to reporters at New Scotland Yard in London, Assistant Chief Constable Vicki Evans revealed three late-stage attacks have been foiled in the last 12 months alone.
In some cases, counter-terror officers pulled off “goal-line saves” to thwart the plots, which were potential mass casualty events. Two were Islamist plots and one was from the far-right.
A total of 43 late-stage plots have been disrupted since 2017, when the UK saw five serious terror attacks, including the Manchester Arena bombing, Westminster and London Bridge.
Evans, Senior National Coordinator for Counter Terror Policing, described the “increasingly aggressive and shameless tactics” used by individuals, with a “rapidly increasing fascination with extreme violence” in the material officers are finding.
“The type of material we are encountering is absolutely staggering and horrific – it’s a pick and mix of horror,” she said.
ACC Evans said children as young as 10 are being identified in Counter Terror investigations and are found to have searched for such material, including misogyny, gore, extreme pornography, depictions of school massacres and mass violence.
The national threat level officially remains at substantial, meaning an attack is likely.
She also confirmed officers are proactively reviewing casework to assess whether there are any new threats following the fall of the Assad regime in Syria.
“Events in Syria are a focus and a stark reminder we need to focus on old enemies as well as new”, she said.
“Any instability globally creates space for extremism violence and acts of terror. We could have a void that is growing and may create that. Today’s Daesh not the force they once were, but they capitalise on chaos”, she said.
Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, which helped to overthrow the Assad regime remains a proscribed terror organisation in the UK, and expressing support for them would still constitute a criminal offence.
Speaking six months in to her tenure, ACC Evans said the “complexity of our work is like never before” and officers continue to adapt to the digital world, with almost every investigation involving thousands of downloads.
She welcomed the government’s review of the PREVENT programme, saying it was “designed to deal with a very different threat to what we have now”.
