AMU Intelligence North America Terrorism

London’s Mayor: UK Authorities Monitoring ‘Thousands’ of Terror Suspects

By Glynn Cosker
Editor, In Homeland Security

There are “thousands” of potential terrorists under surveillance in London, according to the city’s mayor Boris Johnson. He disclosed the information Saturday in an interview with The Daily Telegraph.

“In London we’re very, very vigilant and very, very concerned. Every day – as you saw recently, we had to raise the threat level – every day the security services are involved in thousands of operations,” Johnson told the Telegraph. “There are probably in the low thousands of people that we are monitoring in London.”

Johnson also stated that as many as 500 British citizens have left the U.K. to enlist with the Islamic State, also known as ISIS. He stated that more than a third of them are likely from London and its suburbs. “If and when they come back, we have a real job to deal with them,” said Johnson.

British-born ISIS terrorists feature prominently in the terror group’s propaganda videos. A militant nicknamed “Jihadi John” speaks with a British accent before gruesomely beheading western detainees in several of the videos.

The developments outlined by Johnson explain why British Prime Minister David Cameron elevated the U.K.’s terror threat level from substantial to severe in August. Cameron is on record for saying that an ISIS attack in the UK was in the planning stages. The imminent terror threat level to London’s Metropolitan Police Service was also recently raised.

Johnson, who wrote a biography of Sir Winston Churchill, states that the man who led the UK to victory during World War II would have authorized airstrikes on ISIS targets by now.

“I think he would be appalled by the spectacle of these cowards executing journalists, and I think he would have wanted to do something to set them back a long way and, if need be, to neutralize them altogether. He was a great believer in airpower – don’t forget he invented the RAF,” said Johnson about Churchill.

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