UK to conduct major counter-terrorism exercise in October: PM May

Britain will conduct a major counter-terrorism training exercise in October across parts of Scotland and northern England, Prime Minister Theresa May said on Monday, days after a lone attacker killed four people in London.

“The UK government considers national security across the whole of the UK as a top priority,” May said in a statement.

She said: “training operations such as this one play a significant part in making sure police forces and other response agencies are able to fully draw on the latest intelligence and resources from the UK’s security forces to protect against terrorism anywhere on our soil.”

She said that such exercises will take place regularly.

Newsverge reports that between 2000 and 2015, 90 people have been killed in the UK in terrorist attacks, according to figures from the Global Terrorism Database.

Although not on British soil, a further 30 British people were killed in Tunisia when a gunman attacked a hotel popular among Western tourists.

This compares to 1,094 deaths in the 15-year period before that, between 1985 and 1999, and a further 2,211 between 1970 and 1984.

The worst year for terrorism-related deaths in the UK was 1988, when 372 people died.

According to the database, the majority of these died in the Lockerbie disaster, when 270 were killed as a Pan Am transatlantic flight was destroyed by a bomb.

Since 1970, Northern Ireland has seen the most terrorism-related deaths out of any nation in the UK, with IRA-related terrorism plaguing the nation for decades.

1972 saw the peak of this violence, with 353 people killed in Northern Ireland, out of a total of 368 in the whole of the UK.

How does the UK’s terror threat compare with the rest of Europe?

Since 1970, the UK has faced the most deaths as a result of terrorism in Western Europe – totalling 3,395.

Spain is the next worst-hit, with 1,261 deaths since 1970.

2004 was the country’s worst year for terrorism, when 192 people died as Madrid bombings.

1988 was the worst year for terror in Western Europe, when 440 people in total were killed in attacks – the majority being killed in the Lockerbie bomber.

In 2015, France saw its worst ever attack in Paris when nine terrorists killed 130 people at multiple locations across the capital.

Over the last 10 years there’s been 1.4 deaths per year in the UK due to terrorism – which, according to research from BuzzFeed, means you’re more likely to be killed by dogs (18 deaths per year), hot water (100 deaths per year) or using your phone while driving (2,920 deaths per year).