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BIG BROTHER WATCH AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT
(a) All were male, like 93% of the total.
(b) Three were British (Masood, Abedi, Butt), like 72% of the total.
(c) One was a convert to Islam (Masood), like 16% of the total.
(d) Three resided in London (43% of the total) and one in North West England
(10% of the total).
(e) Three (Masood, and to a more limited extent Abedi and Butt) were known to
the police, like 38% of the total.
(f) The same three were known to MI5, like 48% of the total.
(g) At least one (Butt) had direct links to a proscribed terrorist organisation, as had
44% of the total. His links, in common with 56% of the total who had links with such
organisations, were with Al-Muhajiroun (ALM).
In view of their possible pending trials I say nothing of Hashem Abedi, currently
detained in Libya in connection with the Manchester attack, or of the Finsbury Park
attacker Darren Osborne who (like Khalid Masood at Westminster) is not alleged to
have had accomplices.
1.7 Fourthly, though the targets of the first three attacks did not extend to the whole
of the current range, they had strong similarities to the targets of other recent western
attacks: political centres (e.g. Oslo 2011, Ottawa 2014, Brussels 2016); concert-goers,
revellers and crowds (e.g. Orlando 2016, Paris 2016, Barcelona 2017); and police
officers (e.g. Melbourne 2014, Berlin 2015, Charleroi 2016). There are precedents
also for attacks on observant Muslims which have crossed the boundary from hate
crime to terrorism, including the killing of Mohammed Saleem in the West Midlands
in 2013.
1.8 Fifthly, the modus operandi (MO) of terrorist attacks has diversified and
simplified over the years, as Daesh has employed its formidable propaganda effort to
inspire rather than to direct acts of terrorism in the west. The attacks under review
were typical in style for their time and place:
(a) Unlike the large, directed Islamist plots characteristic of the last decade, all four
attacks were committed by lone actors or small groups, with little evidence of
detailed planning or precise targeting.
(b) Strong gun controls in the UK mean that bladed weapons are more commonly
used than firearms in gang-related and terrorist crime.
(c) Since a truck killed 86 innocent people in Nice (July 2016), vehicles – which
featured in three of the four attacks under review – have been increasingly used as
weapons.
(d) The combination of a vehicle and bladed weapons, seen at Westminster and
London Bridge, had previously been used to kill the soldier Lee Rigby (Woolwich,
2013).
(e) Explosives, used in Manchester, were the most popular weapon for Islamist
terrorists targeting Europe between 2014 and 2017. The explosive TATP has proved
to be capable of manufacture (aided by on-line purchases and assembly instructions)
more easily than was once assumed.”