'Very slim chance' of another 7/7 but swiftly-converted loners a big threat

TWO decades after the 7/7 attacks on London claimed the lives of 52 people, Islamic-inspired terrorism remains the biggest threat, with "lone wolf" attacks the main danger.

- By Conor Wilson and James Knuckey

The 20 years since the outrage have seen UK and coalition forces withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan, and the rise and military defeat of Isis.

Despite these seismic changes, the risk remains. And experts say the internet and social media has dramatically reduced the time it takes for a person to be radicalised.

On July 7, 2005, 52 people were killed and more than 770 injured when four suicide bombers detonated devices in London during rush hour — three on underground trains and one on a No 30 bus.

The attackers, Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, Shehzad Tanweer, 22, Hasib Hussain, 18, and Germaine Lindsay, 19, were all British.

It was the worst terror attack on UK soil. MI5 Director General Sir Ken McCallum said last year that, since March 2017, his agency and the police had "disrupted 43 late-stage attack plots".

"The headline split of counter-terrorist work remains roughly 75% Islamist extremist, 25% extreme Right-wing terrorism," he said.

Security expert Professor Anthony Glees says the way extremism spreads now is vastly different to how it would have happened around time of the London attacks. While so-called mass-casualty attacks like 7/7 today appear improbable, he believes the war in Gaza could have a "huge radicalising impact" — particularly on young Muslims.

While "extremist preachers" and recruitment networks are less prominent, attacks by lone terrorists are now a more likely threat.

"Today, it is quite different — it is just people going on to social media," he told the Express. "MI5 has said it... These things propel people towards the idea only an act of terror can stop slaughter in Gaza in a way that didn't exist 20 years ago."