Society is “grasping at straws” in its approach to young people being drawn into extremism via smartphones, the terror laws watchdog has warned.
Jonathan Hall KC, speaking ahead of the 20th anniversary of the July 7 attacks, stated that current extremist recruitment methods are “a million miles” from those used before 2005.
Suicide bombers Mohammed Sidique Khan, 30, Shehzad Tanweer, 22, Hasib Hussain, 18, and Jermaine Lindsay, 19, set off bombs on three Tube trains and a bus, killing 52 people in the single worst terrorist atrocity on British soil.
Ringleader and recruiter Khan appeared to be a pillar of the community, steering local youths away from crime and drugs by organising outdoor activities and helping to set up a gym in a mosque basement, but was in reality a fanatic.
Mr Hall told the PA news agency the wide availability of smartphones has transformed radicalisation since then.
“The principal distinction from the era of 7/7 is the smartphone era,” Mr Hall said.
“That has changed the landscape. It has led to a different model of radicalisation.
“With 7/7 the indications were that Mohammad Sidique Khan was grooming people, there was a youth club, they went and did rafting together.
“Those sorts of outdoorsy, in person, group grooming activities, those feel a million miles away from the online world of radicalisation.
“I’m not aware of any sane person who seeks to argue the current wave of very young people becoming involved in terrorism, or extreme violence where it’s not ideological, that that’s not related to the internet and to the ready availability of smartphones.
“There’s a very live debate about the ethics, the legality and the practicalities of which response is best.
“But we are absolutely grasping at straws and struggling, at the moment, as a society to work out what the correct response is.
“No one in their right minds would allow their children to allow a stranger into their bedroom, but that’s what we’ve done with phones.”
The attacks exposed the deadly threat from homegrown terrorists with “appalling clarity”, Mr Hall said.
“What 7/7 did, is it revealed with appalling clarity that our fellow citizens are willing to kill us.
“That very unsettling insight is as true today as it was back then, except you now have to bring in British citizens who have been inspired by extreme right-wing ideology to join the predominant Islamist threat.
“But that was the real kicker from 7/7. I think it really brought home this idea of the homegrown threat.”
Commander Dominic Murphy said July 7 was “a seminal moment” for counter-terrorism policing, leading to a series of changes that continued after the five terror attacks in the UK in 2017.
He said that while Islamist groups are still the main threat to the UK, right wing terrorism is a growing problem, and there is concern that younger people are being drawn into extremism.
In 2024, 39 of the 248 people arrested for terrorism offences were aged 17 and under, while children aged 11 to 15 made up the largest proportion of those referred to anti-extremism scheme Prevent (2,729 out of 6,884).
“Islamist remains our main threat. We do see a growing right-wing terrorist problem,” Mr Murphy said.
“We’re increasingly seeing younger people involved in that right-wing threat as well, which is deeply concerning for us.
“But of course, we also see people that don’t have a clear or fixed ideology.
“We can’t say clearly that they’re an Islamist terrorist, we can’t say clearly that they ascribe to a right-wing ideology.
“Nonetheless, they’re consuming large amounts of violent media online, and they might have a mixed or unclear ideology – that means, of course, we still need to be concerned about the threat to the public.
“It’s diversified a lot even since 2017 and I think the online environment and the world environment adds a whole new layer of challenge to the threat that we face.”
