Tri-Service

Comment: The UK's Terror Targets. Chillingly Simple

The Union Flag also known as the Union Jack

British Intelligence believes Islamic State (ISIS) is planning to hit the UK sometime soon. ISIS likes that.

It likes that MI5, MI6, GCHQ, police counter terrorism groups, Europol and the other agencies are working overtime. It sends a message to the people that it really is a threat.

Simply warning of an attack when a Minister says the Security State is 'Severe' is part of the deal for ISIS. Terrorism is about terrorising. A bit of video apparently showing the Paris attack organiser Abdelhamid Abaaoud saying "We are already in your lands. We will slaughter you inside your homes" is terrifying enough for many and therefore is terrorism succeeding in some form.

Even more terrorising would have ISIS saying we are coming to get you in your National Gallery where you show the Christian Adoration of the Magi. Or, how about we're coming to get you in your City of Birmingham Concert Hall? Or try this: we are going to slaughter you and your Queen on her 90th birthday in April.

More from Forces.tv: Why Islamic State Can't Stand Being Called Daesh

All of this is credible because in a generation brought up on IRA atrocities (they killed a Royal as they said they would - Lord Mountbatten) anything terrorism promises often comes to pass in some form. The flip-side of that is that a nation like the British recover inside the week.

But what about a Brussels or a Paris-type hit. Do the British believe it could happen here? Sure they do. The newspapers tell readers this is so. The reader believes it because there is evidence world-wide that it happens. No-one suggests that the story is nothing more than a reporter with "sources who cannot be named" trying to get a front page story under his or her by-line.

The chilling acceptance is that people in major cities and towns understand that within their societies men and women are planning their worst atrocities. There is something approaching resignation. There is no great social media discussion. People do not change their work patterns and journeys.

Those newspaper warnings actually rarely make the front page. Why should they? After all, Paris and Brussels were 'High Hit Possibilities' but they did not make the splash until it happened.

Last month with a little knowledge about these matters I did a walk round ten London targets.

I checked out CCTV coverage, street approaches and buildings, access in and quick exits, doors - front, back and side, mobile and radio signal black and blind spots, stairways.. I identified crowd crush points in buildings, panic trap points in each floor, street traffic flows and vehicle congestion that would hold up response teams, street area panic streams - which way, overflow and dead ends.

Sniper points in those conditions were easy. I added for good measure, target likelihoods based on the symbolism of the building and contents. Simple really.

I do not envy the job of MI5, MI6, GCHQ and the police on the street.

Christopher Lee is the Defence Analyst for BFBS Radio. He can be heard on Sitrep, the only weekly radio programme devoted to discussing the big issues in the world of Defence. You can hear it every Thursday via DAB or the BFBS Radio App, Listen Live or Listen Again via the BFBS Radio website or download the podcast.