A terrorist attack in the UK is “highly likely” in the wake of the horrific Islamist atrocity in Vienna.
Defence and security chiefs have upgraded the terrorism threat to severe in the aftermath of the Vienna bloodbath and the string of violent incidents in France.
The UK Government’s Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (Jtac) announced that the terror risk is back at its second highest level, meaning that an attack is judged to be “highly likely” – where previously it was simply deemed “likely”.
Jtac had unexpectedly lowered the national threat level to substantial last November, following the death of the Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi; before that it had been at severe or even higher since August 2014.
Home Secretary Priti Patel said: "The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre has changed the UK terror threat level from substantial to severe.
"This is a precautionary measure and is not based on any specific threat.
"The public should continue to remain vigilant and report any suspicious activity to the police."
The heightened terror status came just hours after Downing Street said the threat level was "constantly under review."
Over the past few days, Islamist propagandists using social media have particularly focused on France, whose president Emmanuel Macron has defended the country’s secularism after a series of attacks that began last month when a teacher was killed after he had shown cartoons of the prophet Muhammad to pupils.
But the tipping point appears to have been Monday night’s attack in the Austrian capital, where five people, including an attacker, died in a country not known for being targeted by Islamists.
Terror attacks in one country can often encourage copy cats elsewhere. Intelligence agencies said earlier that the UK is expected to be “particularly vigilant” in the aftermath of the Vienna attack, particularly as England is poised to enter its own lockdown on Thursday.
Intelligence sources added it was unclear if the attacks in Austria were timed to coincide with the last night before the start of a lockdown when more people than normal would have been out in the evening and on the streets.
Security chiefs will have taken account timing in the UK as the England-wide lockdown is expected to begin at just after midnight on Thursday.
Last month, MI5‘s new director general Ken McCallum said the security service had disrupted “27 late-stage terrorist attack plots in Great Britain” - most were plotted by Islamist extremists.
