Countering International Terrorism: Overview
1. The United Kingdom faces a continuing threat from extremists who believe they can advance their aims by committing acts of terrorism here in the UK and against our citizens and interests abroad. To combat this threat the Government has developed a counter-terrorism strategy and set up programmes and plans to give effect to it. This document describes that strategy and explains what organisations and individuals can do to help in its implementation.
2. Since our counter-terrorist strategy comprises both open elements (which can be freely publicised and discussed) and classified elements (which are kept secret), this paper gives only a partial account of the strategy and omits those secret aspects.
The threat
3. Terrorism is not a new phenomenon: for example, the UK experienced repeated domestic terrorist attacks as a result of the long-running troubles in Northern Ireland. The principal current terrorist threat is from radicalised individuals who are using a distorted and unrepresentative version of the Islamic faith to justify violence. Such people are referred to in this paper as Islamist terrorists. They are, however, a tiny minority within the Muslim communities here and abroad. Muslim communities themselves do not threaten our security; indeed they make a great contribution to our country. The Government is therefore working in partnership with Muslim communities to help them prevent extremists gaining influence there.
4. The current threat from Islamist terrorism is serious and sustained. It is genuinely international in scope, involving a variety of groups, networks and individuals who are driven by particular violent and extremist beliefs. It is indiscriminate - aiming to cause mass casualties, regardless of the age, nationality, or religion of their victims; and the terrorists are often prepared to commit suicide to kill others. Overall, we judge that the scale of the threat is potentially still increasing and is not likely to diminish significantly for some years.
