CST says new UK counter-terrorism strategy ‘highlights need for all to remain vigilant’

Suella Braverman has warned of the “increasingly unpredictable” threat from terrorism in this country.

The home secretary was speaking as the government published a review of its counter-terrorism strategy, CONTEST, which has been updated for the first time in five years.

The Community Security Trust said the report highlighted the “need for all of us to remain vigilant is clear.”

The year’s review highlighted how the “primary domestic terrorist threat” comes from “Islamist terrorism”.

But it also said the next most serious threat is from right-wing extremism.

On Islamist extremism, the review said there is a “diminishing” link between involvement and “explicit affiliation and fixed ideological alignment” with any one group.

This was due to the “relative decline” in al Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS), also known as Daesh.

Responding to the report the CST said in a statement: “The revelation by the home secretary that Al-Qaeda and Islamic State are both continuing to plot attacks in the UK should surprise nobody.

“These are vicious terrorist organisations with a long and deadly record that continue to pose a serious threat, both to the Jewish community and to wider society.

“The sheer number of cases being investigated by police, and the number of plots they and the security services manage to foil, give an indication of the scale of the challenge these terrorist groups pose.

“The need for all of us to remain vigilant is clear.”

Rather than formal groups with a leadership structure, the report says extreme right-wing groups tend to consist of “informal online communities which facilitate international links”.

Announcing the report Braverman said: “We now face a domestic terrorist threat which is less predictable, harder to detect and investigate; a persistent and evolving threat from Islamist terrorist groups overseas; and an operating environment where technology continues to provide both opportunity and risk to our counter-terrorism efforts.

“We therefore judge that the risk from terrorism is once again rising.”

She added that the rise was from a “lower base”, and the risk is “not as high as a few years ago”.