‘Self-radicalised’ terrorist bigger threat than ISIS attackers

Chief Superintendent Nik Adams has warned that terrorists who ‘self-radicalise’ using online material are a now a greater threat to the UK than those directed by ISIS.

The national coordinator for the government’s Prevent programme told The Independent that young and vulnerable people, including those with mental health issues, were being exploited, with police concerned that such groups of people ‘may go on to become lone actors in the terrorism space’.

Adams said that an ‘international explosion of propaganda’ has enabled material inciting violence accessible from anywhere in the world, and, in terms of volume, this now poses a ‘far greater risk’ than individuals who are directed and mobilised by a terrorist organisation overseas to come and attack people in the UK.

Terrorists who are thought to have self-radicalised include Darren Osborne, the Finsbury Park attacker, and an autistic teenager who planned an ISIS-inspired rampage in Cardiff.

More than 5,700 people were referred to Prevent in 2018-19 over concerns they were being drawn into extremism.