ISIS and al-Qaeda Planning Attacks in UK, Braverman Warns

Suella Braverman will warn that Islamic State and al-Qaeda are both still trying to organise attacks inside the UK, with the threat of islamist terrorism in Britain remaining ‘most severe’.  

The UK’s counterterrorism strategy, CONTEST, will receive an update from the Home Secretary tomorrow, with The Times reporting that Ms. Braverman will discuss how a whopping three-quarters of MI5’s activity is still related to Islamist terrorism.

CONTEST was last updated in the wake of the horrific terrorist attacks in Manchester and London in 2018, when Theresa May was Prime Minister. Since then, Islamic groups, particularly ISIS, have slipped from headline news, with ISIS generally viewed to have ‘disappeared’ since the evil group was forced to abandon its so-called Caliphate in Iraq and Syria.

However, ISIS and al-Qaeda still remain a large threat, with the groups continuing to carry out barbaric attacks overseas and promote Islamic extremism online.

Last year, counter-terror police foiled eight ‘late-stage’ terror plots with a number of them described by Scotland Yard as ‘close calls’ and ‘goal line saves’, and the Metropolitan Police revealed earlier this year that they are currently handling 800 live terrorism-plot investigations.

Ms Braverman is also expected to use the CONTEST update to warn about the threat of hostile countries, including Russia, using terrorism to sow division in the UK.

She will say that ‘terrorist narratives are also exploited by hostile actors such as Russia, which is seeking to promote divisive and polarising narratives in the West’, and warn that ‘this is likely to increase in the future’.

For years, Russia has used bot farms and dubious online accounts and organisations to amplify divisive debates and anti-west conspiracy theories online, with many sharing such toxic posts completely unaware that they are essentially helping the Kremlin.

Meanwhile, ISIS, known for its implementation of harsh, oppressive forms of Sharia law and gruesome torture and execution of innocent people, continues to carry out its operations, and on 16th February 2023, senior ISIS leader Hamza al-Homsi blew himself up in a U.S.-led raid in Syria.

A Whitehall source told The Times: “This is the first [report] of its kind for five years and is a comprehensive update for the UK’s response to terrorism. It’s about how the fragmentation of Islamic State and al-Qaeda is now posing a very different threat to our people, while state actors like Russia and Iran will increasingly try to capitalise on terrorism here in the UK. We can’t be complacent, the terrorists are morphing and we have to keep our vigilance up.”