Isis plotting mass chemical attack on Britain, minister warns

The terrorist group Isis is plotting to carry out a “mass casualty” chemical weapons attack against Britain, the UK minister responsible for nationalist security warned.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, security minister Ben Wallace said the terrorist group has used chemical weapons in Syria and Iraq, where it controls large areas, and that intelligence chiefs believe it has an “aspiration” to use them in Britain.

While no specific plot has been identified, the minister said security chiefs had recently carried out exercises to deal with what he called the country’s “worst fear”.

The risk of an Isis chemical attack in Britain was noted last month by a Europol report, but this is the first time a minister highlighted the threat. The alert comes as it emerged that as many as 200 jihadis may have returned to Britain with terrorist intentions. 

“The ambition of IS [Islamic State] or Daesh is definitely mass-casualty attacks. They want to harm as many people as possible and terrorise as many people as possible.”

"They have no moral objection to using chemical weapons against populations and if they could, they would in this country. The casualty figures which could be involved would be everybody's worst fear.”

"We have certainly seen reports of them using it in Syria and Iraq (and) we have certainly seen aspiration for it in Europe,” he said.

As proof of Isis’s chemical attack ambitions, Wallace pointed to the arrest in February of an Isis cell in Morocco.

“Moroccan authorities dismantled a cell involving chemical weapons. They recovered toxic chemical and biological substances and a large stock of fertiliser. The substances found could have been used to produce homemade explosives and could have been transformed into a deadly toxin,” he told the Sunday Times.

The newspaper quoted a source in saying that Isis have used sulphur mustard gas in Syria, and that British intelligence groups believe the group is able to produce the gas itself.

Wallace’s warning comes after a year in which Europe suffered a series of terror attacks using less sophisticated means.

In two of the most high-profile attacks in Nice and Berlin, lone attackers drove lorries through crowds of people celebrating Bastille Day and browsing a Christmas market respectively. IS claimed responsibility for both attacks.

In March, three co-ordinated suicide bombers attacked the airport and metro system in Brussels, with IS claiming responsibility.