LONDON – Islamic State fighters want to carry out “enormous and spectacular” attacks against Britain and the Western lifestyle in general, Britain’s most senior anti-terrorism officer said on Monday.
London Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley said the threat from the group which has taken over large parts of Syria and Iraq was evolving, and that it was keen to repeat elsewhere incidents such as last year’s Paris shootings and suicide attacks that killed 130 people.
“What we are now seeing in recent months … is the broadening of that threat, more plans to attack Western lifestyle … going from that narrow focus on police and military and symbols of the state to something much broader,” Rowley told reporters.
“You see a terrorist group that has big ambitions for enormous and spectacular attacks, not just the types that we’ve seen foiled to date.”
