Far-right terror threat on the rise in Britain

LONDON — Stung by an attack on Muslims in London a year ago, Britain is facing a growing threat from farright extremists fuelled by online hate speech, forcing the authorities to react.

In a country hit by five attacks in the space of six months in 2017 that killed 36 people, "the biggest threat is from Islamist terrorism," Home Secretary Sajid Javid said earlier this month.

But "extreme right-wing terrorism is also an increasing threat," the interior minister added as he unveiled a new counter-terror strategy.

A government report found that four attacks have been carried out in Britain over the past five years "by lone actors motivated to varying degrees by extreme right-wing ideologies."

Among them was Darren Osborne, a 48-year-old from Cardiff, who a year ago on Tuesday drove his rented van into a group of Muslim worshippers near Finsbury Park Mosque in north London, killing one man and injuring 12 others.

The father-of-four's radicalization ramped up in a matter of weeks, fed by compulsive reading of hate material online.

In February, Mark Rowley, the then head of counter-terrorism policing, said that four extreme right-wing plots were foiled last year and described the trend as "worrying."

Matthew Henman, from the Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Centre database, told AFP: "There is a clear increase in both the tempo of attacks conducted by right-wing extremists and in the seriousness, lethality, of such violence."

In recent decades, extreme rightwing activity in Britain had been confined to small, established groups with an older membership, which promoted anti-immigration and white supremacist views but presented a low risk to national security.