The London police chief has warned that Britons fighting alongside the Deash (ISIL) terrorist group in Syria and Iraq are on their way back home and will become an increasing threat to the country.
Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police, said on Friday that the battle-hardened militants who had left Britain to fight with the Takfiri group had been “brutalized and militarized”, adding that they were expected to return home as the terrorist group had lost ground.
“We are now seeing Daesh’s sphere of influence being reduced in Syria and Iraq, and it looks as though it’s clear that they will lose and the other side will win,” he said. “Some of those people are going to come home and that’s the threat that’s hanging there.
Howe said the returnees include a “small army” of Britons who would put more pressure on Britain’s counter-terrorism police and security services upon their arrival.
“They are the…