Police counter-terror chief Neil Basu has revealed the British authorities are struggling with a record 700 live terrorism investigations — and they are “not matched” to the threat.
“My predecessor Mark [Rowley] when he was in front of you a year ago said ‘despite our best endeavours we’re not yet as well matched to the threat as we were a year ago’,” Basu told the Home Affairs Select Committee in Parliament.
“So one year on I’d like to tell you we are matched to the current threat, but the reality is we are not,” he admitted.
The senior Metropolitan Police officer claimed 13 radical Islamic terrorist plots had been thwarted since Khalid Masood’s attack outside Parliament in 2017, expressing concern that his simple vehicle-and-knives based tactics had “lowered the bar” for jihadists, in terms demonstrating how a very simple plan could be executed effectively.
“It generated in the minds of some extremists an intention that brought their capability forward,” Basu explained.
“The greatest concern to me comes from simple attacks on softer targets that are cheap to mount, easy to disguise and therefore harder to see and stop.”
More Than 1,000 Europeans Murdered, Maimed in Attacks by Islamist Asylum Seekers Since 2014 https://t.co/qmxP2wDkoX
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) June 17, 2018
In reference to the spate of terror attacks Britain suffered in 2017, including the Westminster attack, the Manchester Arena bombing, and the London Bridge and Borough Market van and knives attack, Basu warned: “Those attacks were not a temporary escalation in that threat. They were a sustained shift in that threat and the UK [counter-terrorism] machine to this day continues to run red hot.”
He added: “The attacks demonstrated both the breadth of targets and methodologies employed have increased. The weapons used by attackers now range from homemade explosives to a family car or an everyday kitchen knife.”
The Met leader was at pains to also stress “disturbingly rising extreme right-wing activity” and “hostile state activity” — but had to concede that some 80 percent of the counter-terror workload was Islam-related.
“The overriding threat to the UK remains from those inspired by [Islamic State] and the resurgent al-Qaeda,” he said.
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