04/09/2017 Inside Out London

Hello ? I'm Sean Fletcher.

Welcome to a new series of Inside Out London.

Over the coming weeks we'll be bringing you surprising

stories from the capital.

Westminster, London Bridge, Manchester and the recent attacks

in Barcelona have brought condemnation and sympathy

from around the world.

In a survey conducted exclusively for Inside Out by YouGov,

nine out of ten people said further attacks in Britain are likely.

While the current threat level for international terrorism

in the UK remains at severe.

Prime Minister Theresa May has vowed to shut down

the extremists operating online.

And it seems many of us are behind her.

Our survey revealed that 44% of people questioned in London think

more should be done to help the security services

tackle terrorism - even if individual privacy suffers.

So what are the terrorists doing online?

Over the past two years Inside Out London has been

undercover, tracking the online operations of the so-called

Islamic State.

What we've discovered from encrypted messages and the dark web

was shocking evidence of how the attacks on Westminster

and London Bridge were organised.

Terrorist expert Raffaello Pantucci has this special report.

Westminster at a stand-still.

London Bridge in a state of emergency.

Were these isolated terror attacks by individuals

working independently, so-called lone wolves or part

of a master plan, remotely engineered by jihadists in Syria?

It's inconceivable that there wasn't the use of social media apps

to connect these individuals who have carried out these attacks

with terrorists from Islamic State.

The result of a two-year undercover investigation,

we reveal new evidence linking Isis' online operations with

the recent atrocities.

He said it was a good target because it was crowded

with disbelievers and civilians.

And he said if I was successful with this operation it would be very

damaging for the UK.

And we expose how the terrorist group use the dark web to coerce

young British Muslims into carrying out attacks.

The internet is a sort dream tool for terrorist group like Isis.

It's opened up brand new ways of recruiting,

of preparing and planning acts of terror in a way that is very,

very difficult indeed for the authorities to stop.

I've spent much of my career studying Islamist terrorist cells

operating in the UK and how they have persuaded hundreds

of young men to travel far away from home and take up arms or launch

attacks against the very societies in which they were born.

As the battles rage in Iraq and Syria, much is being made

of Isis' recent retreat.

The caliphate might be crumbling and the jihadists losing

ground, but in cyberspace, they are advancing.

We're now in a new era of warfare where a string of tweets has

the power to trigger a deadly attack at the very heart of our democracy.

Barely six months ago, Parliament was forced into lockdown

by a man initially described as a lone wolf terrorist.

Armed with just a knife and a rented car, 52-year-old Muslim

convert Khalid Masood, killed five people and injured 50

before he was finally shot dead by the police.

Precisely what compelled Masood to launch one of the UK's worst

terrorist atrocities is still unknown -

Investigations by the security services are ongoing.

But we have uncovered evidence that agents of the so-called

Islamic State were plotting a near-identical terrorist attack

using secret messaging services.

For over two years, our undercover journalists have been posing

as fictional characters committed to jihad.

Via social media and secretive messaging sites, they have been

in near constant communication with senior players in Isis.

In July 2016, we discovered that the terrorist organisation

was touting on Twitter and Facebook for British Muslims to stage attacks

at specific London locations.

We began conversing with one of their recruiters,

who then invited us to chat privately on a secret

messaging site.

The authorities were fully aware of our contact

with the terrorist organisation.

I managed to track down an IS recruiter online.

His name and was "Manager", and we always spoke on encrypted

messaging services.

I told him I was 17-years-old and living with my parents.

After a few weeks speaking to Manager, it became clear

that he was trying to groom me into doing an attack on UK soil.

And one day he just started talking about targets.

As the conversation developed the IS agent revealed an exact

location he wanted to attack - Westminster.

He said it was a good target because it was crowded

with disbelievers and civilians.

And he said if I was successful with this operation it would be

very damaging to the UK.

Later in July 2016, a second IS agent outlined how such an attack

could be carried out.

He told me to just kill ordinary people ? and that it wouldn't

require a very complicated plan.

The agent also directed our undercover journalist to a terrorist

manual on the dark web.

In gory detail it advises lone wolf jihadists on how to deploy a vehicle

as a lethal weapon and how to target specific vulnerable parts

of the body with a knife.

The instructions relayed to our undercover journalist

register like the blueprint to the Westminster attack.

Masood used a car to mow down pedestrians on the bridge

and a knife to fatally stab a policeman.

Could the same IS operatives who were trying to groom our

undercover reporter have also been inciting Masood to violent action?

Well, it's inconceivable that Khalid Masood was not, in some way,

either viewing or connected to other individuals who were viewing

extremist material.

You know, there is, arguably, no such thing as a lone actor

or lone wolf as is often described.

You know, these individuals are radicalised online,

they have connectivity online, they use social media apps often

in an encrypted fashion, and that is the methodology,

if you like, the medium through which radicalisation occurs

in the modern world.

I thought maybe coming back would feel, maybe

give a sense of closure.

Um, no.

I think I'm kind reliving sort of the, um, the emotions.

Orlando was last here on London Bridge on the evening

of Saturday June 3rd.

Just before 10 o'clock, as he and his friends

were enjoying drinks, a white van appeared

and shortly after, began running over pedestrians.

In the distance you can make out a van and after that we started

hearing a few screams.

Then down the road we see people running and there was a gentleman

just across the street running and he kept on looking back

and he kept screaming, "I have been stabbed,

"I've been stabbed."

So I came up to the gentleman, there was another gentleman

there and we got the man to lie on his front and we just started

applying pressure to his back and calling an ambulance.

The man was losing consciousness but as Orlando desperately

tried to keep him awake, he realised his own

life was in danger. Armed with a knife, the attacker

was in close proximity and claiming more victims.

He was very precise and I remember like he went into one man

in particular who was furthest to the street and then I just

remember the woman in the red dress.

She jumped on to him and she was doing her most

to protect this person and then the group - it was like people

started intervening.

There was now like a police presence, a police presence.

I remember like a bus was there and stuff and we got close

enough until we heard the gun shots and then I just thought to myself

we don't know what is happening, who is shooting and we just, we ran.

What I felt in the aftermath was a sense of guilt

and yeah, like fear.

Eight people were killed in the attack and 48 suffered

injuries ? others like Orlando have been inflicted with emotional scars

that may never fade.

On the night of the London Bridge terror attack, many of us

clung to our phones, checking for updates,

hoping loved ones were safe.

At the same time, members of IS in Syria were also

busy on social media, celebrating and posting messages

in honour of the attackers.

Our investigation reveals that IS agents were busy plotting

a similar attack in this exact location for over a year.

In the summer of 2016, one year before the London Bridge

attack took place, our undercover reporter spent several weeks

on an encrypted site in conversation with an Isis handler.

He repeatedly stated that London Bridge was an iconic landmark

they wanted to claim, a key target they wanted to hit.

He was trying to persuade me to carry out the attack and he also

gave me the option of doing it alone or along with a team.

In December last year the same Isis recruiter directed our undercover

journalist to view some explicit terrorist tutorials on the dark web.

One of them showed how to use a vehicle to kill people.

The other showed how to use knives and home-made bombs

for maximum impact on people.

And finally there was a description of how to create a fake suicide vest

? and how it can be used to stop the police from attacking you, if

you are standing next to civilians.

The recruiter's instructions bear all the hallmarks of the carnage

that was eventually wreaked on London Bridge.

Before they were killed by police, Khuram Butt, Rachid Redouane

and Youssef Zaghba rammed a hired van into a crowd of people.

They attacked others with knives.

They wore fake suicide belts and had a stash of home-made bombs.

Do you think encrypted applications were used in the terrorist

atrocities at the beginning of the year?

There was definitely usage of encrypted communications

between planners and terrorists and people that carried out some

of those dreadful attacks.

That I am afraid is common throughout every one of these

incidents and there is also a role of watching videos online

to either prepare themselves or train themselves.

I think that they are both, I am afraid, current occurrences

in these terrorist attacks.

In the London Bridge case you've got a combination of face-to-face

radicalisation through well-known extremist groups alongside digital

online radicalisation. And it's the combination of the two

that leads to individuals plotting terrorist attacks.

The police have yet to uncover any personal ties between the June

3rd attackers and Isis, but a pattern is emerging

from our investigation, where the group's online directives

are being mirrored in actual terror attacks.

It's a pattern that is being reflected both here and abroad.

There has been evidence I think since late 2014,

early 2015 that terrorists often based in conflict zones,

whether it's Libya, Syria or Iraq have been trying to instruct people

in real time.

First of all convincing them to carry out terrorist plots

but then giving them exact instructions on what to do.

One of the best examples was last year in the summer of 2016.

Both of the plots that happened in Germany,

both in Wolfsburg and Adler, both of these plots are now often

described as perhaps some of the most prominent early plots

in which you have evidence of direction, directly form Isis

in Syria to people who were sitting in Europe, basically

telling them what to do, who to attack and how to attack.

Isis' use of social media marks a seismic change in the way

terrorist organisations operate.

Their ideology that they're pushing through, the means of 21st century

technology is a very potent one and it's been - it's

become very effective.

And we need to look at how and why it's become so effective.

Hanif Qadir runs an anti-radicalisation charity

in East London but 15 years ago, he was fighting for the other side.

Many would have considered him a jihadist after he was persuaded

by British-based extremists to work alongside the terrorist

group Al-Qaeda.

You could say I was radicalised, yeah.

Early February 2002, I was on a plane to Afghanistan.

And my journey into Afghanistan led me to see lots of things.

I won't go into details of what the processes

were and why and what I did but, thankfully, I came back to the UK

with a different understanding of the reality of what Al-Qaeda

and people like them are about.

Do you think the web has been a game-changer in terms

of the radicalisation process?

In 2002 it still took me six to seven months,

if they'd have had this kind of technology I would -

I would put my hand on my heart and I would say guaranteed

within a few weeks, you could have somebody so enraged with revenge -

that's how they see it - that they would become a suicide

bomber or a terrorist.

Isis have got a complete different model to Al-Qaeda, because they're

using the advancement of technology to their benefit and you can look

at what some of the guys have done here, the Westminster attacker,

the London Bridge attacker, the Manchester attacker,

and now I can sort of realise how driven they have become and why

they've become so driven because of the potency

of the imagery and the accessibility through modern day social

media and technology.

From its start, Isis has realised the power of the web.

Its online recruiters worked hard to romanticise the idea that

going to Syria and taking up arms is a hijrah - a spiritual necessity.

But recently the numbers of young Muslim men and women making

the crusade have dwindled.

Three, four years ago - simple, hop on a flight to Turkey,

go over what was essentially an unmanned border,

walk straight in.

Now there's a system in place at the border,

there's different controls at ports, at airports, they kind of know

what they should be looking out for, some tell-tale signs

of an individual looking to travel.

So simply it's just far more difficult.

Lacking foot soldiers in Syria, the terror group now has

a new proclamation announced via Twitter - if you cannot

reach the caliphate, start waging war in your home

country and what's more, we will help you.

One of the first men to tweet this ominous sentiment

was Birmingham-born jihadist and supreme Isis recruiter,

Junaid Hussain.

He developed something of a cult following on social media by weaving

posts of his favourite music with sermons that glorified

violent terrorism.

In June 2015, our undercover reporter began

a conversation with him.

We exchanged some tweets then he suggested we talk privately

on an encrypted messaging site.

Almost immediately, he asked me if I wanted

to do something over here, in London.

As I was leading him on I said, "Yeah, but I needed guidance."

And his response to that was that he could help

and he could train me on how to make bombs from home.

In further exchanges Hussain described London as the heart

of the crusader army and vowed to organise an attack.

But his personal ambition to hit the capital was never realised.

He stopped messaging us and we later discovered Hussain had been

killed by a US army drone.

This wasn't an accident and he wasn't eliminated for any

physical acts of violence.

What made Hussain particularly dangerous to the American

authorities was his ability to use social media as a lethal weapon,

a recruiting and directing tool for wannabe jihadists.

Yet, his execution failed to extinguish the threat.

Hussain's legacy lives on.

There are now hundreds of clone-like Isis recruiters perpetuating

the methods of radicalisation he helped pioneer.

After Hussain's death, another recruiter contacted us

on Twitter and directed us to a secret messaging site

to continue the conversation.

Straight off, he told me that he had a test for me and this

was all on basic knowledge of Islam. And what made this difficult was,

I was only given three seconds to answer each question.

Our reporter was also asked to provide photo ID

and pictures of his home.

He spent weeks, cross-referencing the information I had provided

to see if it all matched and at the end of each stage

he would refer me to another secret messaging site.

And then eventually the operation he had planned for me was revealed.

First off he wanted me to assassinate a police officer.

He had devised a detailed plot including how to obtain

firearms and bullets.

In April this year, nine months after the recruiter mapped

out his plan of attack, a Parisian police officer was killed

in an incident of marked similarity. Isis claimed responsibility.

The police are still investigating.

The Met police are aware of the so-called Islamic State's

online offensive against London but it is a tough task for them

to sift out every genuine red alert.

Most extremists and most terrorists are well known to the intelligence

agencies and to the police who are monitoring them.

But of course, there's an issue of volume, of numbers of people,

numbers of individuals who have become radicalised or who are now

starting to show an interest in radicalised material.

All the power and information is all with the terrorists

and extremists who have at their disposal now encrypted apps

that allow them to talk amongst each other around the world with very

little coverage by the intelligence agencies whatsoever.

This proliferation of terrorist activity on social media has

forced the Government to step-up its anti-radicalisation

campaign, Prevent.

But how much can it achieve when jihadists and their followers

hide on the dark web and use encrypted messages

to plot their attacks?

We have been able to take down a quarter of a million pieces

of data or videos and information that are in the online space that

have been used to radicalise people.

We try and effectively suffocate out messages from people

like IS and Al-Qaeda to make sure that they are not penetrating

people's bedrooms and houses and turning normal people

into terrorists and we have to keep investing in our people

and intelligence services but also in working with industry to produce

solutions that keep us just that step ahead of the bad guys.

But the reality we might all have to accept is the danger posed

by terrorists online is the new normal.

I think the authorities have an unbelievably

difficult task now.

Encrypted apps or anonymous web browsers or the dark net,

these places online that are very, very difficult to properly monitor

are proliferating very quickly.

And one of the reasons they're proliferating quickly,

is because they are actually valuable to everyone.

They are very important channels for journalists and there is no way

for the authorities to crack down on these places without also

potentially endangering ordinary people's privacy and the privacy

of journalists and political activists with whom they agree.

From this bleak perspective, Isis are winning the war online.

Yet as authorities grapple with the problem, at a grassroots

level, Muslim communities in parts of London are using

the web to fight back.

Hanif's charity - the Active Change Foundation -

is designed to stop vulnerable people from being preyed

on by extremists.

We know that there are other people out -

out there that are reaching out to our communities, that are tapping

into the human resource, that creates groups like Al-Qaeda,

groups like Isis, so we do exactly the same thing,

we tap into the same human resource, we occupy the same space -

online and offline - to change lives for the better.

The Active Change Foundation claims to have stopped hundreds of children

from becoming radicalised and as a result has

received help from an unexpected quarter -

Twitter.

In the UK we've trained more than 500 charities on how to reach

people using our platform and get the message out that says we are not

going to be divided.

The one thing that is important to remember is that when government

technology companies and communities work together, and we each

play our part, actually you can do a huge amount to keep the public

safe, to challenge extremism and to make sure that those people

who seek to do us harm are brought to justice and challenged,

because although we can delete content on the internet we can't

delete the ideology.

Threatened with more stringent regulation by Government,

Tech companies like Twitter are keen to promote their work

in deprived communities.

But could they be doing more to prevent terrorist plotting online?

They do not want to take responsibility for the content

that is shared on their site, because if they were legally

responsible for everything shared on their site,

they would have to check it before it was published -

like a journalist or a newspaper does.

Given that there are billions of pieces of content being uploaded

onto these platforms every single day, that is not possible.

Which means that they are in some ways stuck because, inevitably,

their platform is going to be used by terrorists.

One other thing, a lot of the big companies are now building

in encryption into their services so they cannot decrypt

it themselves.

So when, for example, the Government goes to WhatsApp

and says can you give us the messages between person y

and person x, they can't even do it.

I think they have to ask themselves some quite big moral questions that

you know these guys are often the biggest proponents

of surveillance than any government.

They survey my details and your details every minute

of the day and many of them sell these details to third parties

to make profit and so they can't have it both ways and say you know,

we are anti-surveillance, we are companies that

don't believe in that, yet at the same time that is how

they make their money.

As our investigation was concluding we received one final

warning from the web.

It was through a secret messaging site, where an IS agent

was trying to recruit me.

He told me that I must be prepared to say goodbye to my loved ones

and ready to carry out an attack soon.

I think governments around the world have been slow

to act on this problem.

I would make exception to the British government which has

led the way in terms of, you know, raising

awareness of this issue.

And we may have seen a surge and a blip, if you like,

in attacks this year, I've got total confidence

in the British intelligence agencies and police in thwarting

and disrupting attacks in the future.

That's all from Inside Out.

Don't forget the programme will be available on the iPlayer ? just head

to bbc.co.uk/insideout and click on London.

Thanks very much for watching ? see you again soon.

Hello, I'm Riz Lateef with your 90 second update.