UK Raises Terror Threat Level To 'Severe'

Britain’s government has raised the country’s terror threat level to “severe,” Home Secretary Theresa May said on Friday.

It’s the second highest of five potential threat levels. According to the U.K. government, it means an attack is “highly likely.” But there is no intelligence to suggest an attack is imminent.

May said the threat level was raised because of the risk from the deteriorating situation in Iraq and Syria, where extremist militants from the group calling itself the Islamic State (also ISIS or ISIL). May said, however, that there was no specific threat to Britain that caused the raise in the terror level. This is the first time Britain’s terror threat level has been at “severe” since 2011.

“The increase in the threat level is related to developments in Syria and Iraq where terrorist groups are planning attacks against the West. Some of these plots are likely to involve foreign fighters who have traveled there from the UK and Europe to take part in those conflicts,” May said in a statement.

“The first and most important duty of government is the protection of the British people,” May said. “We have already taken steps to amend our powers and increase our capabilities for dealing with the developing terrorist threats we face. That process will continue and the British public should be in no doubt that we will take the strongest possible action to protect our national security.”

In a statement delivered from Downing Street in London Friday afternoon, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron said Britain was facing a “greater and deeper threat to our security than we have known before.” He said confronting ISIS was part of a generational struggle that he thought could last “decades.”

“Poisonous ideology of Islamist extremism is the root cause of the terror threat,” Cameron said. “We will always act with urgency when needed.”