Three terror plots foiled in past year

Islamist, far right stopped | Kids watch horror online

- MATTHEW YOUNG

COUNTER-TERROR chiefs say the current threat of an attack on British soil is "smouldering", with children as young as 10 found to be researching atrocities.

Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Vicki Evans said yesterday that three late stage attacks, targeting mass casualties, had been foiled in the past 12 months.

Two were Islamist plots and one far-right.

And 43 late stage terror plots have been stopped since 2017, some of which she described as "goal line saves".

She said the current threat is classed as "likely" amid the fallout in Syria, where dictator Bashar al-Assad has been overthrown.

Evans, who is also senior national coordinator for counter-terrorism policing, said: "History tells us that any instability creates space for extreme violence and acts of terror.

"You would expect me to be rightly concerned that we could have a void that's growing and could and may create that in those spaces." Evans said ISIS is not the force it once was but that groups like it capitalise on chaos and galvanise support which can lead to a change in threat level.