Anti-terror police: Scotland is the safest part of UK
BY PETER SWINDON
ANTI-TERROR police have revealed that Scotland is the safest part of the UK amid an increase in Islamic State-inspired attacks across Europe. Assistant Chief Constable Steve Johnson, Scotland’s top anti-terror officer, insisted there are “no known threats” at all north of the Border after a month on the continent that has seen hundreds killed and injured.
He offered the reassurance after images were posted on jihadi messaging app Telegram threatening an attack in the UK.
Intelligence agencies said this week that a terror attack on British soil is “highly likely”, but Johnson insisted people in Scotland need not “feel directly alarmed”.
Speaking exclusively to the Sunday Herald, Johnson, who heads up Scotland’s Organised Crime and Counter-Terrorism operation, said: “While we want people to be alive to the risks and threats, there is no cause from the intelligence I have and the information I have for people to feel directly alarmed. I don’t have something that tells me to focus in on a specific location.
“In terms of what [IS] say, they are saying lots of things about lots of places and I’m going to focus on where the information and intelligence takes me, and we’ll try and prevent things from happening.
“But we don’t have any specific intelligence – there is no known threat to the people of Scotland at this time – and we will work hard to maintain that position.”
A series of recent terror on attacks on the continent began on Thursday, July 14, when Tunisian Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel ploughed a truck into a crowd of people celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, leaving 84 dead and more than 300 injured.
Four days later, five people were seriously injured in an axe attack on a regional train in Germany by a 17-yearold migrant described by an extremist group as a “soldier of the caliphate”.
On Friday, July 22, German-Iranian David Ali Sonboly, 18, shot dead nine people at a Munich shopping centre before shooting himself. The attack was not, however, linked to or inspired by IS
ast Sunday, a Polish woman died and three others were hurt in a knife attack by a Syrian refugee in the south-western German city of Reutlingen.
On the same day, a suicide attack by a failed Syrian asylum seeker saw an explosive device detonated near an open-air music festival in the southern city of Ansbach, injuring 12.
Also last Sunday, Catholic priest Father Jacques Hamel was killed during an IS-linked siege on his church in Normandy, in northern France.
Johnson said his team of armed officers is ready to act if there is a similar attack in Scotland.
“What I can tell you is when one of these events takes place, police officers will be moving towards the threat to neutralise it as quickly as we can,” he said. “Police officers will be putting themselves in harm’s way to protect the community. When it does happen we will be doing everything we possibly can to try and mitigate or reduce the impact of these incidents.”
Police Scotland announced in June that the number of officers attached to armed response vehicles (ARVs) is to increase from 275 to almost 400 in the coming year.
Johnson said it is “regrettable that we’ve got to this point”. but insisted the increase isL“absolutely essential in a modern era”. He also admitted he “would like more” armed officers.
“We are seeing uplifts in areas around armed response policing,” he added. “All of counter-terrorism policing would say they’d like more but we understand our position. If we had the threats increased to a level that we needed more resources I’m fairly confident that we would get those resources if a request went in.”
The country’s top anti-terror officer has also reached out to faith communities amid reports of a three per cent increase in hate crime, year-on-year.
Scottish Government figures show that racial crime remains the most commonly reported hate crime, with 3,712 charges reported in 2015-16. However, that figure is down slightly.
Johnson, who spent much of his policing career in Cumbria before he joined Police Scotland in May, said: “We’re certainly not seeing the increases that have been seen in England in Wales. I think, in part, that is down to the engagement we have. I think it is also indicative of some of the levels of tolerance in Scotland towards differences in our community.
“So, we’re not seeing that increase. I think anecdotally people are concerned and are bringing issues to our attention. The nature of the incidents are some verbal abuse rather than extreme levels of violence or aggression manifesting in violence.
“However, we know that hate crimes are under-reported. I would encourage anybody if they are victim of hate crime that they report it to Police Scotland. We don’t tolerate hatred in any sense.”
We asked Justice Minister Michael Matheson to comment but a Government spokesman said: “I’m afraid Mr Matheson isn’t around this week.” Photograph: Martin Shields