UK is home to 35,000 radical Islamists with 3000 ’worrying’ MI5 – says counter-terrorism chief
Britain has more Islamists than any other European country and it's feared they'll try to target nuclear power stations and air traffic control systems with cyber attacks
BRITAIN has up to 35,000 radical Islamists, with 3,000 “worrying” MI5, the EU’s counter- terrorism chief says.
Gilles de Kerchove said the UK had more Islamists than any other European country.
He also warned that IS would try to target nuclear power stations or air traffic control systems with cyber attacks.
And he claimed they could pay Russian hackers to do the work.
Mr de Kerchove, who works with Europe’s security services and governments, said: “The United Kingdom has identified 20,000 to 35,000 radicals.
"Of these, 3,000 are worrying for MI5, and of those 500 are under constant and special attention.
“France has 17,000. Spain many less, but more than 5,000. In Belgium almost 500 have been to Syria and there are around 2,000 radicals or more.”
He said there had been no recorded cases of cyberterrorism “in the sense of penetrating the systems of nuclear power stations, prisons or aerospace”.
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But he predicted it would happen in years.
The security chief went on to warn that IS would carry out more attacks in Europe and greater co-ordination was needed.
And he revealed that radicals were increasingly using the Islamic concept of “Taqiyya” — concealing their religious beliefs from those around them in order to prevent detection.