The UK terror threat level has been raised to 'severe' for the first time since 2021 after a man was arrested and charged with attempted murder of two Jewish men in Golders Green.
45-year-old Essa Suleiman, a British national born in Somalia, has been charged with two counts of attempted murder and one count of possession of a bladed article after Shilome Rand, 34, and 76-year-old Mosche Ben Baila were stabbed on 29 April.
Police said they were treating the incident as terrorism and the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre yesterday (30 April) announced that the terror threat level in the UK was going to rise to 'severe'.
It means the authorities believe a terrorist attack is highly likely within the next six months and the government said: "The increase in threat comes following yesterday’s stabbing in Golders Green in North London, but it is not solely a result of that attack.
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"The terrorist threat level in the UK has been rising for some time, driven by an increase in the broader Islamist and Extreme Right Wing terrorist threat from individuals and small groups based in the UK.
"While the UK National Threat Level set independently by JTAC reflects the terrorist threat in the UK, it comes against a backdrop of increased state-linked physical threats which is encouraging acts of violence, including against the Jewish community.
"This is an independent, systematic, and rigorous process, based on the very latest intelligence and analysis of internal and external factors which drive the threat."
The UK's terror level had last been raised to 'severe' back in November 2021 after the assassination of MP Sir David Amess and a homemade bomb being detonated outside Liverpool Women's Hospital.
In February of the following year the threat level it had been reduced to 'substantial'.
The only stage above 'severe' on the terror threat level is 'critical', which means authorities believe a terrorist attack is very likely in the near future.
Laurence Taylor, head of Counter Terrorism Police, said: "As we have seen, the UK has been experiencing a gradual increase in terrorist threats for some time, driven by a rise in both Islamist and Extreme Right-Wing terrorism.
"Our casework is increasing across a number of ideologies and within that we are seeing an elevated threat to Jewish and Israeli individuals and institutions in the UK.
"We are also working against an unpredictable global situation that has consequences closer to home, including physical threats by state-linked actors."
As for what this means in terms of a change in approach, Taylor explained that while 'in some areas, you will already be used to seeing more officers than usual', in other parts of the UK 'you may start to see that too'.
He said officers would be 'deploying unpredictably', and that 'sometimes you will see them, and sometimes you won’t', telling the public they should 'be alert and not alarmed'.
"I want you to know, we have the full range of counter terrorism tactical options at our disposal, and these will be deployed nationally and without hesitation wherever we see fit," he said.
Joe Harker