The conflict in Gaza is causing more radicalisation than the declaration of the caliphate by lslamic State and other similar events because of polarisation in society and the impact of fake news, the head of the National Crime Agency has warned.
Graeme Biggar said that “more radicalisation” was being created “in our countries and our streets” than would have been the case ten years or 15 years ago because of the spread of “misinformation and disinformation” and the way that people gathered in “polarised groups”.
He said that radicalisation was being “accelerated” as a result, in a warning issued during a meeting with law enforcement colleagues from the “Five Eyes” intelligence and security alliance involving Britain, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
The earlier periods referred to by Mr Biggar include the declaration of the caliphate by Islamic State in 2014 following its capture of large swathes of territory across Syria and Iraq.
The years he cited also cover earlier phases of the fighting in Syria and Iraq and the continuing Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.
All those events have been blamed by police and the intelligence agencies for fuelling terrorism in this country and elsewhere
But Mr Biggar said the impact of the “horrific events” in Israel and Gaza triggered by the murderous Hamas attack of 7 October was proving even greater.
“On the terrorism point, we see these days a much quicker polarisation of the news cycle, of how people are receiving their information,” he told the “Five Eyes” law enforcement group during a question and answer session in Washington.
“Sometimes that is real information but only one side of the story, and sometimes it is pure misinformation and disinformation. But because people are in their polarised groups that gets accelerated and it creates a radicalisation.
“So it is horrific events that are happening in Israel and Gaza at the moment, but it is creating more radicalisation in our countries and our streets than a similar event would have done ten or 15 years ago because of the way people receive information.”
The new alert from Mr Biggar, the director general of the NCA, follows earlier warnings from the head of national counter-terrorism policing, Met Assistant Commissioner Matt Jukes, that the Israel and Gaza conflict has led to “red lights blinking everywhere” with threats including people being “energised” to carry out attacks and an “extraordinary volume of hateful propaganda” being spread online and in communities.
Mr Jukes has also warned of the conflict being “a radicalisation moment” with “a spike” in terrorist activity “which is higher and more sustained than ever before” and dozens of arrests taking place over alleged terror-related offences committed either online or during the pro-Palestinian marches.
