The UK’s terror threat level has been raised to ‘severe’

Following the explosion at a Liverpool hospital yesterday, the UK’s terror threat level has been raised to ‘severe’.

It moves up from ‘substantial’ to ‘severe’, which means an attack is judged to be ‘highly likely’.

Home Secretary Priti Patel confirmed the move this afternoon, Sky News reports.

This follows the blast outside Liverpool Women’s Hospital on Remembrance Sunday, with police now declaring this a terror attack.

According to reports a passenger in a taxi detonated the bomb outside the hospital, killing himself and injuring the driver who has been branded a hero.

Four people have now been arrested over the blast, although the motive for the attack remains ‘not clear’ – however, police think they know the passenger’s identity, with the four arrested men considered ‘associates’.

The five terror threat levels

• Low – an attack is highly unlikely
• Moderate – an attack is possible, but not likely
• Substantial – an attack is likely
• Severe – an attack is highly likely
• Critical – an attack is highly likely in the near future
  

The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) is responsible for raising and lowering the threat level – JTAC is based at MI5’s London headquarters and consists of counter-terror experts from government, security agencies and police.

The threat level was last increased to ‘severe’ in November 2020 after attacks in Vienna, Nice and Paris, but was downgraded to ‘substantial’ in February 2021.