UK’s terror threat level raised to severe as attack highly likely

The threat level indicates the likelihood of a terrorist attack in the UK is highly likely

What are the threat levels?

There are 5 levels of threat:

• low – an attack is highly unlikely
• moderate – an attack is possible but not likely
• substantial – an attack is likely
• severe – an attack is highly likely
• critical – an attack is highly likely in the near future

The level is set by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre and the Security Service (MI5).

Threat levels do not have an expiry date, they can change at any time as different information becomes available.

What are the police doing to keep us safe?

On the government website it states: “Our overriding priority is to keep the public safe by working closely with all of our communities.

“We constantly review our operations and contingency planning, liaising with central and local government, emergency services and other agencies.

“We also use a wide range of overt and covert policing tactics. Covert tactics, by their nature, are not obvious to the public, but we also use overt tactics such as high visibility policing at a variety of locations.

“This includes Project Servator, which uses officers who’ve been specially trained to spot the tell-tale signs that someone is planning to commit a crime, including an act of terrorism, to patrol our towns and cities at unpredictable times and locations.

“We also use Prevent to try to stop vulnerable people from being radicalised by terrorists or extremists in the first place.

“We use these extra measures for a variety of reasons. For example, it could be as a response to seasonal crime patterns or as a precautionary measure in the light of the current threat from international terrorism.

“If you live, work or visit our towns and cities, you’ll continue to see a selection of policing tactics used in the future.”