Terrorists plotted 40 attacks and planned to kill thousands since July 7 bombings
Terror campaign: police are warning businesses in crowded places to be vigilant (File image/PA)
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Published: 24 November 2014
Updated: 13:01, 24 November 2014
Terrorists have sought to kill thousands in around 40 plots targeting Britain since the July 7 attacks on London nearly ten years ago, Home Secretary Theresa May revealed today.
Calling for MPs to back tougher anti-terror emergency laws, she stressed that Islamist fanatics were determined to bring “death and destruction” onto the UK’s streets.
“The threat that we face is greater now than it has been at any time before or since the attacks in the United States on 9/11,” she said.
“We must have the powers we need to defend ourselves.”
Schools, shopping centres, universities and businesses across London are being urged to be vigilant against the growing terror threat as a Scotland Yard chief told how several recent plots were foiled in their “final stages”.
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Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, Britain’s top anti-terror policeman, also revealed that half of all those joining Islamic State from the the UK were only recently radicalised and had not been on the radar of police or the intelligence services.
More than 3,000 police officers are being deployed in an anti-terror campaign in the capital this week to raise awareness of the danger from a “lone wolf” or organised attack.
Cinemas, sports stadiums and airports are also being briefed.
High visibility patrols are being mounted around crowded places, including rail and bus stations, as well as churches and mosques.
Amid warnings from security officials that a terror attack is now almost “inevitable,” Ass Com Rowley said: “If we look back over the last decade then we can see, however hard security services and police work, we do find that terrorists from time to time succeed.”
In a speech in central London, Mrs May said that more than 750 people have been arrested for terrorism-related offences since April 2010, with 212 charged and 148 successfully prosecuted.
“The Security Service believes that since the attacks on 7th July 2005, around forty terrorist plots have been disrupted,” she added.
“There have been attempts to conduct marauding ‘Mumbai-style’ gun attacks on our streets, blow up the London Stock Exchange, bring down airliners, assassinate a British ambassador and murder serving members of our armed forces.”
Emphasising the threat from home grown extremists as well as from overseas, she highighted “plots that aim to kill hundreds and even thousands of people.”
The latter is believed to refer to the “liquid bomb” plot to bring down Transatlantic airliners.
Under the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill, being presented to Parliament this week, schools, universities and prisons will have a new duty to prevent radicalisation.
Insurance firms will be banned from footing the cost of terrorist ransoms.
Internet service providers are also to be forced to retain information linking IP (Internet Protocol) addresses to users, and jihadists face being stopped from returning to Britain unless they co-operate with the authorities.
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has also agreed to the reintroduction of relocation powers to force terror suspects to move out of London, or another town or city, to stop them plotting with associates or from absconding.
But Mrs May has accused the Liberal Democrats of blocking other measures in the so-called “Snooper’s Charter” despite the security services saying they need greater powers to spy on suspected terrorists’ electronic communications as technology evolves and extremists become more expert at avoiding detection.
A new independent privacy and civil liberties board will be set up to support the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, David Anderson QC.
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