Amazon must alert terror chiefs over suspicious orders
MAJOR retailers such as Amazon will be ordered to alert MI5 and police to suspicious purchases in a crackdown designed to prevent a repeat of last year’s terror attacks.
Under the Government plan, businesses must raise the alarm more quickly if they fear a person is buying goods or equipment that could be used to carry out an atrocity, such as stockpiling chemicals or knives or acting strangely when hiring a vehicle.
It comes after the Daily Mail revealed that Manchester bomber Salman Abedi was able to buy the materials for his suicide device on Amazon.
The 22-year-old jihadist is believed to have used false names to buy key components yet had them delivered to the same address. He assembled the bomb before detonating it at an Ariana Grande concert in May last year, killing 22 people.
The measure is part of a ‘step-change’ in the UK’s counter-terrorism strategy, which aims to prevent extremists bringing bloodshed to the streets.
Home Secretary Sajid Javid will use his first keynote speech on security today to unveil radical plans to bolster the war on terror and keep the public safe.
They will include MI5 sharing sensitive information about suspects more widely with local police, longer sentences for terror offences and calling on firms such as Google and Facebook to do more to tackle extremist content. MI5, MI6 and GCHQ will also recruit up to 2,000 spies to help survey more potential terrorists, while police and security services will be handed tough powers to arrest suspects before they have finalised their plans.
The Government launched a shake-up of the UK’s counter-terrorism strategy, known as Contest, after extremists carried out atrocities in Westminster, Manchester, London Bridge and Finsbury Park, leading to the loss of 36 lives.
An official inquiry by David Anderson QC in December found only three of the six terrorists were among 23,000 extremists on the security services’ radar. Only one was under active investigation by MI5. He concluded the Manchester bombing ‘might have been averted’ if two pieces of ‘relevant’ intelligence about Abedi had been interpreted differently by MI5.
He also said there needed to be increased co- operation between MI5, police and the private sector ‘to improve the detectability and even the preventability of purchases of potential explosives precursors by would-be terrorists’.
Mr Javid will say stricter standards will be expected of firms to close down ‘safe spaces’ exploited by terrorists, adding: ‘That includes faster alerts for suspicious purchases.’ Currently, firms must alert the authorities if an individual attempts to purchase regulated chemicals or poisons.
But Mr Javid is expected to stress that other products, including household items, can be used for bomb-making or as weapons, and the importance of tipping off the authorities faster. Whitehall sources have specifically said they want web giants such as Amazon to alert the security agencies when customers are ‘filling up their baskets’ with suspicious materials, such as unusual quantities of chemicals, fertilisers or gas cylinders.
The latest drive reflects concerns over a sharp reduction in the time between the conception and execution of plots. It comes as a deluge of convicted terrorists are set to be released on to the streets.
Analysis by the Guardian found more than 80 of the 193 sentences for terrorism offences between 2007 and 2016 will run out this year. On BBC1’s The Andrew Marr Show yesterday, Mr Javid confirmed MI5 will be expected to share more intelligence. He said: ‘Not just with counter-terrorist police but neighbourhood police, with local government ... to make sure that there’s a much higher chance of ... disrupting plots a lot earlier on.’ He will add that public and private organisations must ‘unite against the menace of terrorism’.
Sajid Javid will today say he ‘absolutely supports’ the Prevent counter-radicalisation programme. He will say the reporting strategy – criticised by some as a ‘Big Brother’ operation – is ‘vital’ in stopping the vulnerable being brainwashed.