The MI5 says the country is facing a resurgence of international terror threats, as well as assasination plots.
Director-General Ken McCallum adds children make up one in eight of the people being investigaed, adding the far-right skews towards young people. Report by Alibhaiz. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
Director-General Ken McCallum adds children make up one in eight of the people being investigaed, adding the far-right skews towards young people. Report by Alibhaiz. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00We're facing resurgent overseas terrorist groups alongside self-radicalised lone actors
00:07and alongside sabotage and assassination plots backed by nation-states.
00:13All that against the backdrop of a major European land war and a highly unpredictable situation
00:18in the Middle East.
00:19So I guess what that adds up to is that MI5 has one hell of a job on its hands.
00:23Over the last year or two, the terrorist threat has continued to notch upwards.
00:29Sadly, we don't today face an Islamic State that is as strong as it was a decade ago,
00:34but they have resumed their efforts to export terrorism, as we have seen, for example, tragically
00:39in Moscow.
00:41Alongside that, we have in the last year in MI5, the number of state threat investigations
00:46my teams are running has shot up by 48%.
00:49So we are indeed stretched and having to make tough decisions about what we prioritise.
00:53Of the people that we are currently investigating for involvement in UK terrorism, 13%, so about
00:59one in eight, are under the age of 18.
01:01And I think the biggest factor driving that is that the extreme right-wing terrorist crowd
01:08skews particularly heavily towards young people, often driven by meme culture and people generating
01:14material that shows quite a savvy understanding of what can be attractive to some young people
01:19online.