The head of British counterintelligence (MI5), Andrew Parker said that in 34 years of work in the secret service never faced so many terrorist attacks and attempts in the Kingdom. About it reports The Independent.
According to him, the UK is experiencing “unprecedented and relentless terrorist offensive.” To confirm his words, the head of MI5 gave the statistics: in seven months of this year, his office and the police prevented seven terrorist attacks, 379 suspects detained.
At the same time, counterintelligence investigates 500 cases of extremism and terrorism, the figures of which are three thousand people. Another 20 thousand are in the field of law enforcement. While Parker admitted he did not have precise data on the number of potential jihadists who can attack.
He noted that modern terrorist attacks are fast the time span between planning and implementation attacks may be only a few days. In addition, the attacks can be implemented nearly spontaneously.
“Extremists of all ages, sex and origin are combined with toxic violent ideology that leads them. They use crude, but deadly methods of attack with a knife or a vehicle or a more complex scenario,” stated Parker.