UK: Right-wing extremists learn bomb-making from Daesh

By Muhammad Mussa

LONDON (AA) - Far-right extremists in the U.K. are learning how to make explosives from online manuals by the terror group Daesh, a top British security official said on Tuesday.

Addressing parliament’s Defense Committee, Securities Minister Ben Wallace warned of how certain individuals of the U.K. far-right pose significant dangers and risks.

“The methods that are bringing these people to our threshold is predominantly through the Internet,” Wallace said of the U.K. far right.

“They communicate through the Internet, sometimes we find them actually looking at Isis [Daesh] terror manuals to learn how to make bombs,” he added.

Wallace also addressed the role of the Internet in empowering the far-right, saying using the Web has brought the far right “better organization and better momentum.”

He also warned of the risk posed by certain right-wing individuals to British society.

“It is a bubbling group of extremists, and we need to get in there using diversion, to prevent them becoming tomorrow’s terrorist groups,” he testified.

When asked if the U.K. far-right are a new phenomenon, Wallace said that neo-Nazis have always been “at large” in the U.K. but their recent rise has shown them to be more capable and organized, “which is also the same as Isis [or] Daesh.”

According to research by Internet outlet The Independent, far-right extremism is growing in the U.K., and white British people are more likely to sympathize with extremism that those of Asian Muslim descent.

The government has been warned to not solely focus on Muslim-oriented extremism, as far-right extremism is a growing threat.