BICOM

An article in the Times reports that Britain and America are investigating claims that the Syrian government has carried out a series of new chemical attacks in the suburbs of Damascus, with British officials aware of multiple allegations of chemical attacks designed to terrorise opposition controlled areas around the capital. According to the report, The Foreign Office said it was seeking more information on an alleged chemical attack in the suburbs of Harasta on 27 March, another in Daraya on 13 January, and two attacks this month on Adra and Jobar. According to Israeli security assessments, Syrian government forces used non-lethal force on the 27 March against rebel fighters near Damascus.

The increasing relevance of the Syria crisis to the UK was highlighted this week by Theresa May, the Home Secretary, in her annual report on the Government’s strategy for countering terrorism. The report mapped out the growing threat from terrorist groups in Syria has been the most significant development in the fight against terrorism in the past year.

Figures recently compiled by Britain’s domestic intelligence service, MI5, indicate that at least 500 British citizens have travelled to Syria as jihadis, where they have met up with radical Islamist groups such as the al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The latest assessment from the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC), which coordinates the work of British intelligence agencies, reported that that the threat to the UK from returning jihadis is equal, if not greater, to the long-standing threat posed by al-Qaeda terrorists based in the lawless tribal areas on the Afghan-Pakistan border.