Islamist terrorism still the UK's greatest threat 20 years on from London Bombings

The threat of Islamic terrorism remains high 20 years on from the attacks on the capital which claimed the lives of 52 people. The last two decades have seen UK and coalition forces withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan, the rise and military defeat of ISIS and the Arab Spring, but despite the seismic changes, the threat remains, albeit in modern form.

Last year, MI5 Director General Ken McCallum said that the threat of Islamist extremism continues to make up 75% of his service's counter terrorism work. He said: "The terrorist trend that concerns me most is the worsening threat from Al-Qaeda and in particular from Islamic State. Today's Islamic State is not the force it was a decade ago.

"But after a few years of being pinned well back, they've resumed efforts to export terrorism.

"We and many European partners are detecting IS-connected activity in our homelands, which we are moving early to disrupt."

A recent report by Pool Re, the UK's leading terrorism reinsurer, found that it is highly likely that the Islamic State is using, and will continue to use, the conflict between Israel and Iran backed proxies to bolster its propaganda and encourage individuals to conduct attacks domestically.

Whilst the threat remains, the means by which extremists recruit, train and operate has changed markedly, providing significant challenges for the security forces.

In the early 2000s, the group who would go on to wreak havoc across London were known to security services, having travelled abroad to Pakistan and Afghanistan to receive training in building explosives and counter-surveillance.

The advent of the internet and social media means that the need to travel to learn skills that can be used in nefarious ways has reduced markedly, fundamentally altering the way in which extremist organisations operate.

McCallum added: "We're encountering more volatile would-be terrorists with only a tenuous grasp of the ideologies they profess to follow.

"People viewing both extreme Right-wing and Islamist extremist instructional material, along with other bits of online hatred, conspiracy theories and disinformation.

"Today, an attacker may have no connections to other terrorists. They might not be on our records."

The UK has been hit by terrorist attacks linked to Islamic fundamentalism since 7/7, with the Manchester Arena bombing, execution of Lee Rigby and the London Bridge attacks just some examples.

Similarly, across the world, the United States, Germany, France and Russia have all been targeted by groups linked to or inspired by Al Qaeda or the Islamic State.

The change in how terrorist organisations recruit and disseminate propaganda and training material increases the difficulty of intelligence services to identify and disrupt attacks.

It has also radically altered the time taken for potential terrorists to be radicalised according to research conducted by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP).

Steve Killelea, Founder and Chairman of IEP told the Daily Express: "The time it takes for people to radicalise is decreasing and that creates all sorts of issues for intelligence services.

"In 2002, it was generally about 16 months, by 2015 it had dropped to around six months and sometimes today, people can be radicalised within weeks.

"But lone actors are three times more likely to be successful when they launch an attack than a group, simply because of the minimum footprint that they leave behind which makes it hard for the intelligence services to track, particularly if they are self-radicalised in a short space of time."