The terror group ISIS is planning a “spectacular” attack on British soil, a top police official warned on Monday.
Mark Rowley, Scotland Yard assistant commissioner, told reporters that the terror group’s “natural next step” is to try to attack the United Kingdom following the large-scale assault on Paris last year that left 130 dead.
Rowley said the terrorists want to sow fear by committing massacres on the “Western lifestyle.”
“In recent months we’ve seen a broadening of that, much more plans to attack Western lifestyle, and obviously the Paris attacks in November,” he said, according to the Daily Mirror.
“Going from that narrow focus on police and military as symbols of the state to something much broader. And you see a terrorist group which has big ambitions for enormous and spectacular attacks, not just the types that we’ve seen foiled to date.”
“You see a terrorist group that whilst on the one hand has been acting as a cult to use propaganda to radicalize people to act in their name... you also see them trying to build bigger attacks,” he added.
Rowley, who is the national policing lead for counter-terrorism, said ISIS is trying to get members who have received military training in Syria into northern Europe to stage attacks.
He noted a new trend in recent years, reported the Daily Mail—an increased recruitment of females, an increased recruitment of young people, and an increased recruitment of British nationals.
