Britain-beheading-alert-security-stepped-police-Jewish-schools-fears-grow-new-jihadi-strike.html

Jewish community buildings will receive extra police protection after Paris
Intelligence sources fear fanatics will launch their own UK terror attacks
The country's 70 Jewish schools have been placed on high alert
Britain's senior anti-terror police chief warned of increased risk of attack

Published: 23:20 GMT, 16 January 2015 | Updated: 08:57 GMT, 17 January 2015

Security was dramatically stepped up for police officers and the Jewish community in Britain yesterday amid fears of a terror attack.

Intelligence chiefs are worried that Islamist fanatics could try to copy the atrocities in France last week that cost 17 lives.

Four Jewish people and three police officers were among the dead.

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Heavily armed police officers have been deployed in greater numbers because of the ISIS terror threat

Fears of similar carnage in the UK intensified on Thursday after commandos in Belgium killed Islamic State fanatics who wanted to behead a policeman or a judge. The plot held chilling echoes of the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby outside his barracks in Woolwich.

In other developments:

David Cameron and Barack Obama pledged to stand shoulder to shoulder in the fight against terrorism;
Intelligence sources said as many as 20 sleeper cells with 180 fanatics could be ready to strike in Europe;
Nearly 800 people have been put on a Home Office programme targeting potential extremists;

The Duchess of Cambridge has reportedly been given enhanced security on a public appearance.

Mark Rowley, the UK’s senior counter-terrorism officer, said: ‘The global picture of terrorist activity does give us heightened concern about the risk to the Jewish community.’

The Met assistant commissioner said the murders at a kosher supermarket in Paris, coupled with a rise in anti-semitic rhetoric from extremists, justified more patrols in areas with large Jewish populations, including London, Leeds and Manchester.

Some 263,000 people in Britain describe themselves as Jewish. The country’s 70 Jewish schools have been put on high alert.

The Community Security Trust, which advises Jewish institutions and groups on safety, said: ‘We spend an inordinate amount of money on security, particularly on our schools – as we should. Obviously there’s a change in the threat level because there could be people who might be perversely inspired by what they saw happen [in Paris].’

Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, pictured, confirmed that extra officers would be available to protect high-risk locations such as Jewish schools as well as potential threats against police

Met Police on UK terror threat following Paris shooting

Mr Rowley added: ‘We are also considering what further measures we might put in place to enhance the security of police officers, given some of the deliberate targeting of the police we have seen in a number of countries across Europe and the world.’

He said the authorities were also looking at the safety of other minority communities.

Speaking after talks with President Obama at the White House, Mr Cameron said: ‘It’s very important to learn the lessons from anything happening elsewhere in Europe.

‘Could that happen here? What steps should be taken? So the police have announced today that they’ll be stepping up patrols, particularly to protect the Jewish community.

‘We have to be incredibly vigilant and look at all of these risks, particularly risks to police officers themselves and take every action that we can.’

The Prime Minister used the talks to press for tougher action to require internet firms to join the fight against terror by alerting authorities to suspicious exchanges online.

An official report last year concluded that Facebook failed to pass on information that could have prevented the murder of Fusilier Rigby and the site was a ‘safe haven for terrorists’.

Investigators across Europe are working around the clock to target returning Islamic State fighters.

The UK security services believe around 600 British Muslims have travelled to Syria and Iraq to join the so-called jihad, with around half now back home. Counter-terror chiefs fear they may carry out ‘lone wolf’ attacks.

Professor Michael Clarke, director-general of the Royal United Services Institute, a defence think-tank, said the chance of marauding attacks by armed gunmen was ‘likely to increase’.

Last year 3,934 potential extremists were referred to a Government deradicalisation programme and 777 were assessed as such a danger that they needed to take part.

We can't monitor all 300 fanatics say deluged security chiefs

ANALYSIS BY JAMES SLACK

Top of the list of EU countries whose citizens have travelled to fight in Syria and Iraq stand France, Britain and Belgium.

In the past week, two of those have witnessed terrifying scenes as jihadis swearing allegiance to Islamic State fought gun battles with the police. So is Britain next?

According to the security services, 600 extremists have travelled from the UK to fight in Syria. This compares with around 700 from France and 400-plus from Belgium.

Edward Snowden, pictured, inflicted huge damage on the capability of the security services to track fanatics

Of the 600 Britons, half are now back home. Thirty have been arrested and charged. It is not practically possible for MI5 to monitor the rest round-the-clock. More than 200 are known to be living in and around London.

A surveillance operation of this level requires 30 officers per suspect, plus manpower to monitor their electronic communications.

Such resources do not exist. David Cameron recently announced an extra £130million for the intelligence agencies, but it takes up to two years to train an MI5 agent.

Case managers will have to make hugely difficult decisions over which to watch most closely. In the majority of cases, they will get the judgment right.

At least four major plots have been foiled in the past year and since July 2005 there has been only one successful attack – the gruesome murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby.

Inevitably, MI5, like its counterparts in France and elsewhere, will sometimes call it wrong. Fusilier Rigby’s killers had appeared repeatedly on the Security Service radar but weren’t considered a priority.

So had the 7/7 bombers. And Mohammed Ahmed and Yusuf Sarwar, both 22 and serving 12 years in jail for terror offences, were arrested on their return to the UK from Syria only after Sarwar’s mother had reported them to the police.

Terrorists are increasingly aware of how to avoid the attentions of the various international security services

The threat from the jihadis takes two forms. Some remain in contact with Islamic State and Al Qaeda leaders in Syria who are directing their attacks.

These groups are believed to be planning ‘spectacular’ mass-casualty attacks, such as bringing down an airliner or a Mumbai-style bomb or gun attack.

The second type of threat is far more crude and likely to be attempted by a lone individual or a pair who will have either returned from Syria or been inspired by jihadi propaganda. Attack methods could include a hit-and-run, the beheading of a ‘high-value’ target or a mass-stabbing. The Lee Rigby-style scenario is the one that security officials consider most likely.

Already, one plot has been foiled and is before the courts. Such attacks are fiendishly hard to detect. Trying to buy explosives or an automatic rifle is likely to alert the security services. Grabbing a kitchen knife from a drawer will not.

In these instances, the best hope of foiling such a plot is if the protagonists talk about their intentions online.

However, in the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations, fanatics increasingly know how to avoid giving their secrets away on the internet. Indeed, it is hard to imagine a worse time for Snowden – now hiding in Russia – to inflict such huge damage on the capabilities of the security services.