In this month’s UK Threat Monitor report, there has been a high frequency of attempted and successfully perpetrated terrorist attacks in the UK and continental Europe, following the Islamist extremist calls to intensify hostilities during the Islamic month of Ramadan. The deadliest occurred on the evening of 3 June in London, when three Islamic terrorists travelling aboard a rented white van drove into a crowd of pedestrians on London Bridge. The van then continued on to Borough Market where the assailants attacked patrons of restaurants and bars in the area with long knives, killing eight people in total and wounding a further 48. The three assailants were shot dead by armed police at the scene.

On 19 June, an extremist attempted to conduct a terrorist attack on the busy Champs-Élysées shopping street, but died whilst crashing his vehicle into a police van. The following day, a terrorist attempted to detonate a suitcase bomb inside Brussels Central Station, but the device only partially exploded, causing no casualties (except the suspect who was also shot and killed by police). The above incidents, including the London Bridge and Borough Market attacks, all followed methodologies inspired by radical Islamic propaganda, namely the indiscriminate targeting of civilians in high density areas, i.e. pedestrians on busy thoroughfares, visiting social venues and at crowded transport hubs. Popular shopping districts also remain a credible target for radicalized individuals and extremist groups seeking to generate mass civilian casualties, as could have occurred in the Champs-Élysées attempted attack. Read more in our UK Threat Monitor report.