Residents of London fear that another tragedy could occur. “The terrorism threat level in the United Kingdom has been raised from substantial to severe,” Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced. The decision was made a day after a Somali knife attacker assaulted two men of Jewish origin.
The “severe” level—the fourth on a five-tier scale—means that, in the assessment of security services, a terrorist attack is highly likely within the next six months, although there is no specific intelligence regarding where, when, or by whom it might be carried out. The last time the threat level stood at “severe” was between November 2021 and February 2022.
Threat assessments are conducted by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC), a unit of British counterintelligence that issues recommendations independently of the government. It emphasized that the increase in the threat level was not solely a result of Wednesday’s attack in the London district of Golders Green, but rather the effect of a broader rise in the threat level observed over some time.
“Today, the national threat level has been raised to ‘severe,’ which means that a terrorist attack is considered highly likely,” said Mahmood.
What do we know about Wednesday’s knife attack in London? The perpetrator who attacked two men was born in Somalia, arrived in the United Kingdom as a child, holds British citizenship, and in 2020 was referred to a program aimed at preventing radicalization.
