Rise in people simply fascinated by violence

[Pelican Press 0]

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Rise in people simply fascinated by *********

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==Metropolitan Police/PA Media

Anjem Choudary has now been jailed for life, to serve a minimum of 28 years

The threat from international and domestic ******* presents a “breadth of challenge greater than it has ever been”, according to senior US and *** police officers who oversaw the successful prosecution of Anjem Choudary.

The Islamist preacher from east London is starting

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, and encouraging support for it online.

The officers say his case highlights the continuing danger posed by radicalisers – and the violent groups they support.

But they also say counter-terrorism forces are now battling a wide diversity of threats – including from a worrying number of people who don’t support an underlying ideology, but are simply drawn to *********.

Young people being attracted to online extremism through *********** theories, the actions of “hostile states” such as Russia, and the “toxicity of our political environment” are also concerning, they warn.

Following Choudary’s trial, the BBC spoke exclusively to Matt Jukes, the ***’s head of counter-terrorism policing, and Rebecca Weiner, Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism at the New York Police Department.

They told us that alongside extremist groups energised by events in the Middle East, the new security threats were sparking multiple investigations.

It is a “palpably different picture than it was,” says Assistant Commissioner Jukes.

Deputy Commissioner Weiner singles out online extremism as probably the most important aspect of what she terms an “everything, everywhere, all-at-once threat environment”.

Suspects with ‘no settled view of the world’

With two wars – *******-Gaza and Ukraine – being fought in what Ms Weiner calls “a tsunami of disinformation”, she says it is hard for people to understand what is true and what is not – “and that is playing out in the realm of *********”.

People are being “overwhelmed with false narratives” and fed *********** theories, she says.

A disturbing aspect of this, says Mr Jukes, is the increasing number of those turning to terrorism because of a fascination for *********, rather than ideological fanaticism.

He says in 20% of cases his officers now handle, ******* suspects have no settled view of the world: “We are seeing people literally flip from searching for neo-***** material online to searching for Islamist material.”

This is a real shift, he says, with people having previously gone from a single ideology, to extremism, and on to *********.

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Rebecca Weiner and Matt Jukes spoke exclusively to the BBC

Young people are viewing “dehumanising content”, including extreme ************ – says Mr Jukes – and being asked in online groups “to prove themselves by producing more and more extreme content”.

This includes ********** material created using artificial intelligence, he says, with gaming being one of the “gateways” into extremism online.

The age profile of those drawn into this extreme environment is coming down – and he worries about “very young people who only need to take up a ****** or use a vehicle as a ******* to carry out a deadly *******”.

Nearly one in five of those arrested as ******* suspects in the *** in the past year were under 18.

Counter-******* police on both sides of the Atlantic have also been kept busy since last October’s ******* by ****** on *******, in which about 1,200 people were ******* and 251 taken ********. More than 39,000 Palestinians have been *******, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

Fifty police investigations have been launched in the *** into support or encouragement of terrorism. There has also been a big increase in antisemitic and Islamophobic hate ******.

Government statistics for the year ending in March 2024 show *******-related arrests in the *** were up by 23% on the previous year (although they were lower than the ******* between 2013 to 2020).

‘Determined and shameless’ state actors

Five years ago, says Mr Jukes, he would have been kept awake primarily by fears of an IS ******* in the ***, but now he says one of his main concerns would be the growing threat from “determined and shameless” state actors.

For many years, he says “hostile actions of states” formed only a very small part of police and MI5 investigations. But this has grown more than fourfold since the 2018 Salisbury poisonings, says Mr Jukes, when a nerve agent was used to try to ************ a former Russian spy and his daughter.

The spy, who had defected to the West, and his daughter were badly injured – but a British woman ***** after coming into contact with Novichok. Russia has always denied involvement.

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==Getty Images

Specialist officers in protective suits in Salisbury in 2018, where an attempt was made to poison a former Russian spy

There has also been an increased threat from parts of the ******** state, he adds, and at least 15 foiled plots by Iran in the past two years to either kidnap or ***** those in the *** it considers enemies of the regime.

“If these authoritarian organs of the state feel like the *** or the US is fair [game] for them to pursue their adversities, then everything we stand for in terms of being a safe, ******** democracy is challenged,” says Mr Jukes.

The two police chiefs also point to “toxicity” in the political environment, which has led to politicians becoming targets of ********* – including two British MPs murdered in ******* attacks, and the ******* ************** of Donald Trump at a campaign rally on 13 July.

I ask if there is any reassuring news amid this scary picture of dispersed danger.

People can “take a degree of comfort”, says Mr Jukes, that since the attacks in London and Manchester in 2017, “that terrible year”, police have disrupted nearly 40 “********** plots”.

“And we are doing that month-in, month-out, with real efficiency and effectiveness.”

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