UK to launch new crackdown on terrorism

LONDON: British security services are preparing a new crackdown on terrorism as the threat against the UK continues to grow.

Details of the strategy oficials are calling “Contest 3.0” will be made public early next year, a minister announced while revealing that yet another plot has been foiled.

Ben Wallace, the security minister, said a total of eight planned attacks have now been thwarted since the Daesh-inspired massacre in Westminster in March, bringing the total to 21 since 2013.

“Nearly 600 investigative leads are ongoing, covering about 3,000 people and approximately another 20,000 people who we have at some stage had concern about,” he told the Westminster Counter-terrorism Conference.

“It is not a spike in the threat, but a shift that we are now facing, and that is something we all have to deal with.”

Wallace said Daesh posed the greatest threat to the UK but cautioned over Al Qaeda’s continued aspirations to hit the West, as well as the danger from neonazi terrorist group National Action.

Speaking to oficials from international military, security and research institutions gathered at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), Wallace said there was a “long campaign” ahead despite the destruction of Daesh’s self-declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq.

“Some of these threats are here to stay for a considerable time,” he added. “We are going to launch the government’s new counter-terrorism strategy in the new year, building on what we’ve learned … And keep one step ahead of the terrorists.”