The Current State of Islamist Terrorism

Host - Oliver Hair

In the early hours of the 20th of January 2023, Mohammad Farooq stood on the grounds of St. James's Hospital in Leeds, where he once worked as a clinical support worker. Except now, he possessed an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) he created from a pressure cooker, as well as knives and an imitation firearm. Farook had planned to trigger an evacuation to lure people outside of the hospital so he could detonate his IED in the car park. He then planned to kill as many people as possible with knives before coaxing police to shoot him dead, using his imitation firearm. 

For reasons outside of Farooq's control, the evacuation he had hoped for did not happen. As he stood waiting to conduct his attack outside the hospital, Nathan Newby, a patient, approached Farooq, who appeared upset and distressed, and asked him if he was ok. Farooq began to disclose his plans to the patient and they spoke about the circumstances that had led Farooq to feel the way he did. Newby calmly called 999, which led to Farooq’s arrest. It was clear that Farooq’s plan had failed.

During the subsequent police investigation, it transpired that Farooq had self-radicalised using online materials, consuming Islamic State content and propaganda. Farooq had obtained bomb making instructions in an online magazine published by Al Qaeda and had watched anti-Semitic videos on TikTok. But Farooq was also motivated by his own deep-seated grievance against hospital staff, who he accused of bullying him. 

A last minute change of plan and an act of kindness from a stranger was all that prevented Farooq's terrorist attack. 

Hello and welcome to Totally Terrorism, a Pool Re podcast. My name is Oliver Hair, a Threat Analyst at Pool Re. Today, we'll be exploring a new report published by the Threat Analysis team at Pool Re on the current state of Islamist terrorism in the UK. I'll be speaking to Lucy Hagger, a Threat Analyst in the team, about the key findings on the report, as well as future areas of research that her report uncovered. 

Hi, Lucy. Thanks for joining me today. To begin with, could you tell us a bit more about the purpose of this report and why you chose to write it?

Threat Analyst - Lucy Hagger

Yeah, thanks for having me, Ollie. 

So, I'm sure that most of our listeners are aware that from 2014 to 2019, the Islamic State controlled large areas of territory in Syria and Iraq, and this was what they called a caliphate, and it was self-proclaimed. But then in 2019, this marked the territorial collapse of the group and Islamic State became this decentralised network of cells across the globe and it really lacked funding and its ability to launch attacks was much lower than previous caliphate years. And then since this point, in the open source space at least, the reporting and focus on Islamic State and Islamist terrorism in general has been much quieter. But then, in March of last year, so 2024, a branch of Islamic State called Islamic State Khorasan Province, or ISKP, conducted a terrorist attack in Moscow. They killed around 145 people at a concert. And so, Islamist terrorism began to hit the headlines once again. And then in October 2024, we had Director General of MI5 Ken McCallum giving a threat update for the first time in around two years, and this really highlighted that the threat from Islamist terrorism in the UK was still very much alive. It was still very much a concern.

So, given all of this, we thought it would be a useful time to take stock and think about the current state of Islamist terrorism at this time in the UK. However, I think it is important at this point to highlight that Islamist terrorism didn't just disappear after 2019, and it probably will never go away. Terrorism in general has been used as a tactic for hundreds of years, and we may experience lulls and peaks of it, and the people who use terrorism may change, but it's probably here to stay. So, when the headlines speak about the resurgence of ISIS and things like that, it can be slightly misleading as the group never really went away. The physical caliphate may have dismantled, but the idea and the ideologies was still very much alive.

Islamist terrorism has changed quite a bit over the past two decades or so. So, in the report we felt it was important to look back at some of the previous trends and see how they compared to the current landscape. So, for example, we looked at how Islamic State has changed over the past 10 years. What al Qaeda's current capabilities are compared to previous years as well. All in all, the main purpose for writing this report and recording this podcast is to provide awareness of the terrorism threat to our audience, whether they're in the insurance industry, or policing, counter terrorism, or something else like academia. We wanted to provide a credible understanding of what Islamist terrorism actually looks like in the UK and what the threat is from it.

Host - Oliver Hair

That's great. Thank you, Lucy. And before we go into some of the key findings of the report, we thought it could be a good idea for our listeners, if you could outline exactly what you mean by Islamist terrorism and what your findings were on the current threat landscape here in the UK?

Threat Analyst - Lucy Hagger

Sure. So, Islamist terrorism is the use of, or the threat of, violence as a way of establishing a strict interpretation of an Islamic society. So for some, their aim is to create this global Islamic caliphate and this is based on a strict implementation of Sharia law. So for clarity, a caliphate is an Islamic state that is governed by a caliph, which is sort of a religious and political leader, and this concept was first created in the seventh century. But when we think of the caliphate, we might think of Islamic State group, for example. But this was self-proclaimed and it was widely rejected outside of extremist circles. So Islamist terrorists are primarily driven by this extreme interpretation of Islam, and these perceived grievances against the West. Importantly, they believe that violence is not only necessary to achieve their aims, but it's an individual's religious duty to actually engage in violence to achieve these aims. I would encourage listeners if they haven't already, to listen to Sohail Ahmed’s episode on Totally Terrorism, which is two episodes before this one, because he gives an excellent overview of Islamist terrorism and extremism from the perspective of someone who actually used to believe in that ideology. 

In terms of what the actual current threat landscape looks like here in the UK, we assess at Pool Re that Islamist terrorism remains the most significant terrorism threat to the UK. And this is in the long term. And at this time, the threat coming from Islamist terrorism is likely from what we call Self-Initiated Terrorists (SITs) or a small cell of two to three people. So, these are individuals who may self-radicalise like we heard about in the introduction of Farooq. And they might be influenced by an ideology, but won't necessarily receive support or direction or advice from a terrorist organisation like al Qaeda or Islamic State, for example. They take it upon themselves to conduct attacks. 

With groups like Al Qaeda and Islamic State, the main threat from these groups actually comes from their ability to radicalise individuals in the UK, and Ken McCallum actually highlighted in his threat update in October 2024 that he's increasingly concerned about overseas terrorist organisations and their involvement in plotting attacks in the UK. So, if we take a group such as ISKP, although they're based in Afghanistan and Pakistan, it's likely that they could have an influence on UK individuals. They might have direct communication with UK individuals and assist with their planning or encourage them maybe to move overseas and join ISKP. Here in the UK, thankfully, we haven't seen successful Islamist terrorist attacks in the past couple of years. However, this doesn't mean that the threat has disappeared. It's highly likely that groups like Islamic State and Al Qaeda will have the intent to conduct attacks in the UK in the long term because they are ideologically opposed to us and the West and what we believe in. 

So as I said, we haven't seen successful attacks, but between March 2017 and October 2024, there have been 43 late stage plots disrupted by UK police and security services. And just in the last 12 months, there's been three late stage attacks foiled, two of which were Islamist inspired plots. So, I think this shows that the threat is still very much alive.

Host - Oliver Hair

Yeah, that's perfect. Thanks very much, Lucy. I think that's a great kind of overview of what we mean by Islamist terrorism, but also the headline assessment as to where that threat currently sits and what it could look like and how it could manifest itself here in the UK. 

Part of that current threat that you mentioned comes from Islamic State’s Khorasan Province or ISKP which you mentioned, and you mention in quite a lot of detail in the report. Could you explain perhaps what ISKP are or is? And elaborate about why you believe they are a threat to the UK.

Threat Analyst - Lucy Hagger

Sure. So ISKP has actually been around since 2014 and Islamic State officially recognised them as a branch, or what they call a province, in 2015. So, during this time, ISKP were mainly a threat in Afghanistan and Pakistan and this is where they launched most of their attacks. The frequency of their attacks has fluctuated a lot since 2014, and it peaked in 2021 in Afghanistan. But then as we know, the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 2021 and this affected ISKP’s operations. So, the two groups, although they are ideologically similar, they are rivals and this is mainly because the Taliban is more closely aligned to al Qaeda, which is Islamic State's rival. So the Taliban was successful at some counterterrorism operations against ISKP, like targeted killings of prominent ISKP members and commanders. But they've been less successful at dismantling ISKP cells in the more urban areas of Afghanistan. The Taliban is used to fighting in more rural areas, and they didn't adapt very well to combating ISKP in the more urban areas, which is where most of the cells have been based. So, from around 2021-22, ISKP started to broaden their strategy and their recruitment and started targeting South and Central Asia for recruitment purposes and they were putting a lot of propaganda out in different languages like the Tajik and Uzbek languages. 

As well as this, we saw that the group started to expand more westwards. So, they started inciting individuals in the West to conduct attacks on behalf of ISKP. So basically what we've seen is ISKP move more westwards from Afghanistan to Central Asia. They conducted a very high level attack at the start of 2024 in Iran. And then obviously the Moscow attack a few months later. Now, we're seeing security services in Europe detecting more ISKP-related activity in their retrospective countries such as Germany, France, Sweden, Austria and here in the UK. In the report we have a timeline of ISKP attacks where you can see this kind of progression of their intent and their capabilities. 

In terms of the ISKP threat to the UK, we assess it's highly likely that ISKP represents the predominant overseas Islamist terrorism threat to the UK and the majority of this threat stems from ISKP’s online propaganda and its ability to radicalise individuals to conduct attacks in the UK mainland. So, while ISKP members from Afghanistan may not travel to the UK and directly conduct an attack, they could be in communication with an individual who's planning an attack, and they might offer advice and help to plot the attack and we saw this in November in the US, where an Afghan individual living in Oklahoma had been in contact with ISKP and was plotting a mass attack on the day of the US election with the help of ISKP. So, ISKP is definitely something that we'll be keeping an eye on and see how they develop in the future.

Host - Oliver Hair

Thanks, Lucy. That's again, super, super informative and I'd advise anyone interested in ISKP to take a look at the report, because there is far more detail inside it. Our listeners, I think are probably quite keen to know more about how the current instability seen throughout the Middle East, but especially in Gaza and in Syria, may affect the terrorism landscape here in the UK. It's something you mention in your report, and I was wondering if you could just elaborate on this a bit further.

Threat Analyst - Lucy Hagger

Yeah, of course. So, I actually started writing this paper just as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) was leading the takeover of Syria, which we now know led to the collapse of the Assad regime. And it all happened very quickly, and many experts didn't even see it coming. So, it has been a bit difficult to make assessments about the situation because it's so volatile and fluid. But probably the most concerning development for me with regards to the current situation in Syria is the security of the prison camps that are currently holding alleged Islamic State members and supporters. So we know that Islamic State have previously attempted to break out fellow members from a prison in Syria in 2022, and sources have reported that Islamic State members have been keeping an eye on the prisons since the HTS takeover. So, this is something that they might be keen to try again. We know that HTS has said that it's ready to take over security of these prisons which is currently the job of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) with the backing of U.S. troops, but with the upcoming Trump presidency and the uncertainty of what that might bring and how he will handle the situation and whether the US troops will stay in Syria, this could play a role in the security of these prison camps. If the prisoners were to be broken out, they may seek to rejoin Islamic State again, and this might bolster their capabilities as a group and aid them as they are trying to take advantage of this instability in Syria. So that's something we'll keep an eye on.

With regards to Hamas and the Israel conflict, it's likely that this conflict and the situation in Gaza would have some kind of radicalising effect on individuals who are already intent on conducting an attack in the UK. So, the suffering and persecution of Muslims in Gaza, for example, may form part of the motivation for someone who is intent on conducting an attack, but it's probably not going to be the sole reason that somebody conducts an attack here in the UK, although we have seen this one time already. In terms of how foreign terrorist organisations are using this conflict in the Middle East to their advantage, there's a paper by the Soufan Centre called Accelerating Hate, which I would also encourage listeners to check out, as this gives an excellent overview of how groups like Islamic State and Al Qaeda are using the conflict in their propaganda and using it to help recruit for their cause.

Host - Oliver Hair

That's fascinating. Thank you very much. And it is, yeah, interesting to hear how events seemingly millions of miles away are directly impacting terrorism threat here in the UK. I don't want to go into too much more detail about the paper itself because we don't want to spoil it for those that go on to read it, but I thought it could be interesting, looking forward, what trends from your research you're most concerned about in the future regarding Islamist terrorism?

Threat Analyst - Lucy Hagger

Yeah, sure. So something that we're seeing at the moment and I think we'll probably see more of going forward, is this personalization of terrorism. So by this, I mean personal grievances and past experiences playing more of a role in the motivation of why individuals might conduct an attack. So, this is the case for terrorism ideologies across the board. It's not just specific to Islamist terrorism, but if we take the attack that you outlined in the introduction, Farooq's failed attack against St James's Hospital, for example, was partially motivated by his own personal grievances against staff. He used to work at the hospital and chose it as the target of his attack because he accused some of the staff of bullying him. But he was also clearly inspired by Islamic State as well. Similarly, there was a 16 year old in July 2022 who plotted an Islamist-inspired attack against the Isle of Wight Music Festival, and he actually changed his plot to then target individuals who he used to work with at a specialist education provider. And then we've got the recent attack that we saw in New Orleans, in the US, and this is another prime example of a mixture of an ideologically and personal motivation for conducting an attack. The perpetrator was inspired by Islamic State; he had an ISIS flag flying at the back of his Ford pickup truck that he used to drive into people in the early hours of New Year's Day this year. But he also had personal issues which may have contributed to his radicalization process and motivated him to conduct his attack. For example, he was experiencing financial issues following his most recent divorce in 2022, and then his ex-wife got the house and he had to move to a trailer park in Texas. So, in all of these examples, we can see a mix of motivations for attacks, personal grievances, personal circumstances, as well as terrorist ideology. This increased personalization of terrorist attacks is a worrying trend, as it could be harder for police and security services to identify these threats. So yeah, that's definitely something that we'll be keeping an eye on going forward here at Pool Re.

Host - Oliver Hair

Thanks very much Lucy

During the writing of this report, our partners at the Royal United Services Institute, better known as RUSI, offered their advice and expertise on this complicated issue. We caught up with Dr. Antonio Giustozzi , Senior Research Fellow within the Terrorism and Conflict Studies team, to get his thoughts.

Antonio, thank you very much for your contribution to the paper. It was fantastic to work alongside RUSI in its production and to lean on your own expertise. Could you give us a quick summary of your own thoughts on the capabilities of ISKP at this time, and what the current threat to the UK from ISKP is? 

Guest Expert – Dr. Antonio Giustozzi 

Right. So of course, we have to keep in mind that ISKP is part of Islamic State. And as it happened in the past, they were asked to get more involved with international terrorism. It could also happen in the future that they get different orders and might pull back. I think it's important also to understand that ISKP did not particularly prepare itself for this role in international terrorism. It inherited some facilities and personnel based between Turkey and Syria that they didn't have before. These are people that belong to the Syrian branch. They are transferred to the Khorasan branch, but they remained where they were, and they gave them human resources to try to put together plots in Europe and in Turkey as well, most of which actually were, to keep in mind, failed. You know, they were discovered, or they didn't go anywhere, or whatever. And that, in part, is because the human resources they had were veterans of the Syrian war. So, probably good at fighting in a more or less conversational war, or even perhaps in a slightly more guerilla  type war, but of course terrorism is a bit different. You have to operate underground, you need to hide, you need to find safe houses, and then you have to procure weapons and explosives in an environment where they're not abandoned. Europe is probably one of the places on Earth where procuring weapons and explosive is hardest, so that of course is a big task. And that's why we have, in Europe, these knife attacks and these van attacks because, you know, it would be certainly better to have a Kalashnikov if you're a terrorist, but if you don’t, then you have to do something else. 

So overall, you know, one can say that they tried, that they took significant casualties. Of course, we don't know how many people they managed to get to Europe who are not detained. Because of course, until something happens, we will not know, but one would assume that not everybody who tried to get into Europe was captured. At the same time, there are signs that the leadership of ISKP is disappointed by the performance in the latter part of 2024. So, of course, they started the year with two successes, you know, from their point of view, the Kerman attack in Iran at the very beginning of the year, and then the Caucus Hall attack, which was by far the most important success for them because of the media exposure. You know, here the issue is not how many casualties were caused but the type of media exposure that took place. And the problem for them is also that that event, that attack, sets the precedent, right, or sets a new standard. So, now to impress the public, you have to do something at least comparable, if not better. But the reality is that that attack was to a large extent a lucky strike…you know, they tried 40/50 times. So, you know, from time to time these plots simply failed being detected and most importantly, the Russians are quite relaxed with regard to the media in that case. 

Not long after that, there was another series of attacks, potentially actually better organised, better planned, in the Caucasus with highly symbolic targets like churches, synagogues. But the media resonance of these attacks was almost zero, right? So, that highlights the kind of difficulties that the Islamic State faces, because once the government realises what kind of game they are playing, especially Russia which has essentially fait de guerre control of the media, then they clamp down, right? So, the same kind of media exposure can't be achieved anymore. And there are also signs that they didn't have the human resources, like the highly skilled human resources, to deploy to Europe from anywhere, whether from Turkey or from Afghanistan. So, they did send people from Afghanistan during 2024…for them to reach Europe to Turkey. But these were not trained or particularly prepared individuals. These are people who were told to go and try to set up a cell and try to do something. I think the reason is that simply they don't have enough highly skilled, for example, bomb makers who are either highly skilled professionals, if you like, that they could send out of the country. There are very few left even in Afghanistan. That's why, also, the level of activity in Afghanistan is low, so they can’t just send them away. Plus, you know, some of these people might be known to police forces and of course, it’s very dangerous to send them across various borders all the way to Europe. So, as with the success rate of this expedition seems to be low, it's not easy today to enter Europe understandably, especially if you don't follow the most dangerous route, for example, through the Mediterranean. But then you don’t want to risk your only bomb maker through that route. So, I think they face clearly quite a number of problems in, kind of, keeping this campaign going. They had a few successes and it's difficult to say exactly which one was ISKP, which one was other branches. But in general, they were, of course, you know, knife attacks. Some had some resonance in the media, but of course, nothing even remotely comparable to Crocus Hall. In part, it’s because the public now is a bit used to this type of attack. So generally, the impact wanes after a day or two, and also because in the attacks that have taken place so far, like for example last year, there was very little media exposure. So they were not, in a sense, well planned. Of course, if you want real media exposure, you should do an attack, for example, at a concert or a theatre where there are lots of people all with smartphones, all filming. That, is of course much harder to do, and in fact, they've not been able to do it. Although, there are signs that they might consider and try. But the reality is that, you know, to do an efficient, well carried out terrorist attack, it takes skills, and of course you need to avoid getting caught in the meanwhile. 

The biggest problem they seem to have is procuring weapons, and explosives in particular, is not impossible, but very difficult in Europe. Even in places like Marseille, for example, the reality is that it can’t just be anybody who goes and says I want to buy a Kalashnikov, you know? You need to become part of the criminal underworld for a number of years. Once you're trusted by the gangs, then you may have access. So, it's not something that can be improvised, and they seem to have said that apparently the people who were meant to be sent to Europe, to Turkey, were told, take one or two years, you know, set something up and then you'll be ready to do something. So, there is some understanding of that. But I think we probably still underestimate the kind of difficulties that these people will face. There are also some signs that they are struggling with the quality of the recruits. Not only lack of skills, but also motivation. That many of the people who were sent apparently disappeared, or they failed to reach Europe and then try to desert essentially. Others might reach Europe, but then fail to stay in touch, you know, with the organisation. So, the kind of human resources deployed might not be first rate. 

For the terrorist projection in general, as far as the UK is concerned, from this point of view at least, the UK is in a strong position because, of course, all I’ve said is even truer of the UK. Because, of course, first, if they came from Turkey first they need to enter some other European countries…at least one, probably a number of them, before reaching the UK, which means that they have to cross dangerous borders at least twice. So, I don't think at this stage they have a particular strong incentive to do so, because it is already difficult to cross the first one [border]. I don't think that from their point of view…the Islamic State at this point in time…Britain represents a priority target. In fact, I think at this point they would be happy to have a successful attack with a high level of media exposure anywhere…anywhere in Europe. Simply because it's already going to be one year after the Caucus Hall attack, you know, so if they don't keep the pace, you know, the credibility as an organisation that they will gain, might be dispersed. So rather than risking the few valuable assets they have twice across international borders, and then channel, of course, would be a particular difficult one to mediate. It probably makes better sense to target wherever they get, whether it's Germany or, you know, the continent. Just settle there and try to form cells. You know, I think the important dimension is that they understand that these lone wolf attacks, with their own nature, they're not going to go very far. To do something really big, something attracting a lot of media attention, you need cells working as an entity with different skills. Therefore, it takes time to put them together. They need to coordinate. It would be very difficult to establish even a single cell functionally in the UK if there to come from Turkey. 

So, of course there’s a possibility…but the biggest risk for the UK is that the Islamic State, in order to show that it is active, even when they're not able to…when they don't have cells available to do attacks on the continent, what they try to do is invite sympathisers or older members, you know, to do whatever again. You know, knife attacks, van attacks, whatever they can do. And of course there have been attacks of this type and there have been plots of this type. So, like it happened on the continent could certainly happen in the UK. That is a possibility, of course, that somebody might try to do this and the way the police talk about this with monitoring, and the number of people who are deemed to be at risk. So this is, I think the biggest risk, but in terms of a major attack, you know, as you probably know in the UK, procuring firearms is even harder than in most of the continent because you have gang warfare in parts of France and southern Italy. You know you will have it, but not in the UK. So, when talking about firearms, you know, to do a terrorist attack, a pistol is not good enough. You need a military weapon, you know, like an assault rifle or something like that. And these are practically, well I wouldn’t say impossible, but, you know, you would have to steal it from the army here in the UK to get something like that. You know, it happened in the past. That the IRA did have access to this type of weapons, but they also had a much better organisation and resources, right? So, it would be quite far-fetched to imagine that they could do something like that in the UK. So, I would expect something more to do with individual attacks or, you know, improvised attacks, or that type of attack.

Host – Oliver Hair 

That's perfect. Thanks very much, Antonio. And I think that that lines up perfectly with a lot of the conclusions that Lucy and the team made during the report that. Any attack conducted by that sort of individual would be low sophistication in nature, or at least it's highly likely that would be the case and just the capability of a group such as ISKP to get people into the UK and then plan. To prepare that attack, just perhaps isn't there at the moment, and their focus is elsewhere. But thank you very, very much for again contributing to the paper and to the podcast. It was great to have you here.

Guest Expert – Dr. Antonio Giustozzi 

You're welcome. 

Thank you. 

Host – Oliver Hair

Thanks to Lucy and Antonio for sharing their thoughts on this thought-provoking report. To access the full report, visit our website at poolre.co.uk. 

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