LONDON — Senior British counterterrorism officials issued a stark public warning Thursday, outlining a rapidly growing landscape of digital and cross-border threats targeting the United Kingdom, ranging from state-backed hostile operations to homegrown far-right extremism, all enabled by modern online platforms.
Vicki Evans, the Metropolitan Police’s senior national counterterrorism coordinator, framed the fight against these evolving threats as an unending, daily challenge that law enforcement cannot win without urgent support from global technology firms. Speaking at New Scotland Yard, Evans emphasized that hostile state activity is now the “most rapidly escalating mission” for UK counterterrorism policing, a shift echoed by Laurence Taylor, head of national counterterrorism policing, who noted that while Islamic extremism remains the single largest threat, risks from far-right extremist networks and hostile foreign governments have surged sharply over the past five years.
Recent months have seen a string of high-profile convictions linked to state-backed hostile operations on UK soil. In July, two Romanian men were imprisoned for the stabbing of a Persian-language journalist, with a judge confirming the attack was orchestrated on behalf of the Iranian government. Just one month prior, a Ukrainian man and a Romanian man were jailed for their role in an arson plot targeting property connected to UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer — an operation that matches the pattern of Russian state-directed sabotage. In May, a serving UK border official and a former Hong Kong police officer were convicted of conducting espionage activities on behalf of the Chinese government.
Evans added that 2025 has already seen more than 20 Iranian-backed plots uncovered, ranging from targeted assassinations and kidnappings to other violent criminal acts against UK interests. Investigations remain ongoing into whether a series of arson attacks on Jewish sites across the UK earlier this year can be connected to Iran.
On the Russian front, Evans detailed that Moscow has orchestrated a steady flow of surveillance plots targeting individuals and institutions across the UK. The Kremlin’s operatives work to embed themselves in everyday British life, identify individuals willing to spread pro-Russian disinformation, and recruit proxies to carry out illegal operations on the Kremlin’s behalf. Across the European continent, Russia has leveraged mainstream messaging apps including Telegram to recruit individuals to carry out vandalism and arson attacks — one prominent example being a 2025 attack on a London warehouse storing communications equipment bound for Ukraine. The plot’s ringleader, Dylan Earl, was recruited directly on Telegram by the Wagner Group, a Russian mercenary organization formally designated as a terrorist group by the UK government.
A particularly troubling development flagged by Evans is the recruitment of teenagers as young as 15 to carry out these proxy plots. The open nature of online platforms means literally anyone can be targeted for radicalization or recruitment, she explained. “This isn’t something that’s happening elsewhere,” Evans told reporters. “It’s happening here. This risk is in our neighborhoods, in our online spaces and in our workplaces.”
Alongside rising state threats, counterterrorism leaders also highlighted a dramatic surge in far-right extremism that prompted a national threat level upgrade in April, when officials raised the UK’s overall terror threat rating from “substantial” to “severe.” Taylor explained that the upgrade was driven in large part by substantial growth in far-right linked extremism cases. Online platforms have been flooded with what Taylor described as “vile” extremist content that blends racism, misogyny, and extreme homophobia into a dangerous radicalizing mix.
He noted that extreme harmful views are increasingly going unchallenged in online spaces, creating conditions where once-unacceptable ideological positions have become widespread. As an example, he cited the case of 18-year-old Alina Burns, who was sentenced to nearly 20 years in prison in May for an ax attack on a random stranger — an act Taylor confirmed was directly motivated by the woman’s extreme far-right beliefs.
Counterterrorism officials also emphasized that children and young teenagers are increasingly being targeted for online radicalization. Taylor pointed to the recent sentencing of 22-year-old Alfie Coleman, who received a 13.5-year prison term Wednesday after attempting to purchase a firearm from an undercover MI5 officer. Coleman had been radicalized online starting at just 14 years old.
Evans explained that extremist actors and state operatives deliberately design online content to appeal to young people by blending extremist propaganda with popular gaming footage, historical imagery, and mainstream music. Young users are then slowly pushed toward carrying out real-world violence, even being instructed to replicate deadly attacks from video games in public spaces. In some of the most extreme cases, members of “sadistic online groups” compete with one another to carry out harm across both digital and physical spaces, including cyberattacks, extremist violence, child sexual abuse, and terrorist acts.
The widespread presence of what officials call “lawful but awful” content online — including graphic depictions of extreme violence and gore — has warped many young people’s understanding of what is normal and acceptable, leaving them far more vulnerable to manipulation by both extremist groups and hostile state actors, Evans said.
While the UK government has moved forward with plans to ban social media use for children under 16, Evans argued that this policy alone is insufficient to curb the growing threat. She called for sustained regulatory and public pressure on technology companies to proactively remove harmful content and restrict access to extremist material, noting that existing regulations targeting harmful online content quickly become outdated as platforms evolve their algorithms to push engaging, often divisive content to vulnerable users. For many young people drawn into harmful online ecosystems, Evans warned, the shift from passive consumption of extreme content to active participation in violence can happen shockingly quickly.