Britain's terror threat may have been made worse by coronavirus lockdowns, the Security Minister admitted yesterday(MON).
Damian Hinds feared people being holed up in their bedrooms during the restrictions could have pushed them towards radicalisation.
"Clearly, logically, when you have more people who are spending more time in their bedrooms at their computer ... you are going to get a growth in that tiny proportion of people for whom that is a dark journey," Mr Hinds told The Daily Telegraph.
"As you know, on the internet, if you start to make those kind of downward spirals, you can quickly accelerate with the material that you come across and the other people that you can come into contact with."
There have been two alleged terror attacks since Mr Hinds took up the role in August - the killing of Tory MP Sir David Amess and the Remembrance Day explosion outside Liverpool Women's Hospital.
Counter-terrorism officers said this month, they had foiled seven "late-stage" terror attacks since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
It took the total number of foiled terrorism plots in the UK in the last four years to 32.
Mr Hinds highlighted “a growth in extreme right-wing terrorism", but added: "Islamist extremism terrorism, though, remains a potent threat and we also have quite a few people who you might describe as having a sort of mixed or unclear or unstable mindset.
"Sometimes (they are) looking at flirting with different ideologies, different groups, sometimes apparently mutually exclusive, very, very different types of ideology."
Earlier this month(DEC), a United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate report warned extremists had "sought to exploit pandemic-related sociocultural restrictions that have led people around the world to spend increasing time online, by strengthening their efforts to spread propaganda, recruit, and radicalise via virtual platforms".
