MI5 CHIEF TELLS WEB GIANTS: STOP AIDING THE TERRORISTS

WEB giants must help stop the terrorist bloodshed on our streets, the head of MI5 demanded yesterday.

Andrew Parker said extremists were using the internet to learn bombmaking and were hatching plots in ‘online safe spaces’.

‘We all rely on a myriad of brilliant technological advances in everyday life, but an unintended side effect is that these advances also aid the terrorists,’ he warned.

The security services chief said ‘dark edges’ of the internet were giving an advantage to ‘terrorists and spies who mean us harm’.

In his first major speech since a wave of four terror attacks across Britain, Mr Parker admitted fresh atrocities were inevitable.

‘It is at the highest tempo I’ve seen in my 34-year career,’ he said.

‘Today there is more terrorist activity, coming at us more quickly, and it can be harder to detect.

‘That threat is multi-dimensional, evolving rapidly, and operating at a scale and pace that we’ve not seen

before.’ In his speech in London yesterday, Mr Parker revealed that:

Twenty UK attacks have been foiled since 2013, including seven this year;

A record 379 suspects were arrested in the year to June;

Security agencies are running more than 500 live operations involving 3,000 known extremists;

MI5 is to swell its ranks from ,000 to 5,000 over the next few years.

Mr Parker, who was appointed director-general of the spy agency in 2013, said there had been a ‘steady drum beat’ of attacks across Europe.

He admitted atrocities could not be completely prevented, and warned more were likely, saying: ‘Attacks will occur sometimes because this is a free society, a liberal democracy, and we do not monitor everybody all the time and I wouldn’t wish to live in a country that was like that.

‘So it is likely that attacks will occur in the future sometimes.’

He added: ‘We have to be careful that we don’t find ourselves being held to some sort of perfect standard of 100 per cent, because that just isn’t achievable.’

He said attacks could now accelerate ‘from inception through planning to action in just a handful of days’.

He added: ‘This pace, together with the way extremists can exploit safe spaces online, can make threats harder to detect and give us a smaller window to intervene.’

He said the upshift was driven by Islamic State’s ‘murderous strategy and online propaganda’ – with the group directing and encouraging extremists in the UK to kill.

Warning that IS fighters were taking root in other countries as it rapidly lost ground in Syria and Iraq, he said: ‘Tackling it as a movement will require sustained international focus for years to come.’

Mr Parker said plots were being devised online and carried out by ‘extremists of all ages, gender and backgrounds, united only by the toxic ideology of violent victory’.

He said: ‘These threats are sometimes now coming at us more quickly, whether crude but lethal attack methods – for example using a knife or a vehicle – or more sophisticated plots when in today’s world terrorists can learn all that they need online to make explosives and build a bomb.’

More than 100 UK fighters had been killed in foreign fighting so far, he said, adding: ‘Some will simply never come back at all and may try to move on to other areas.’

Major technology firms have faced growing calls to step up efforts to detect and take down terror-related videos and web pages after attacks in London and Manchester.

Ministers are furious at the widespread availability of hate-filled propaganda online. Mr Parker said the ease of buying materials online, the propaganda potential of social media and the ability to send encrypted messages were all problems.

‘Addressing these challenges is about partnerships and ethical responsibility,’ he said.

‘No company wants to provide terrorists with explosive precursors.

‘Social media platforms don’t want to host bomb-making videos and communications providers don’t want to provide the means of terrorists’ planning beyond the sight of MI5.’

Last month the Daily Mail revealed manuals on how to build a ‘fairy light’ bomb were available online after the Parsons Green attack in London.

‘Extremists of all ages and gender’