Terror threat

London & Portsmouth Britain’s most fertile terrorist recruiting grounds – US military report

Terrorist recruiters in Europe have been focusing their energies on London and the southern English city of Portsmouth to find new fighters, a study from the US military shows.

According to a study from the Combating Terrorism Centre (CTC), recruiters from Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) and Al-Shabaab, an Al-Qaeda affiliate group, have established strong networks in the two English cities.

Portsmouth and the British capital are thought to attract extremists because their large migrant communities offer easy access to “high numbers of potential recruits who are potentially under social-economic stress.”

Around 850 men and women are believed to have left Britain for Syria and Iraq to join terrorist organizations. Authorities estimate half have already returned to Britain.

The CTC report lists three quarters of those who traveled between 2011 and 2015. Eight came from Portsmouth while 38 came from London.