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U.K. Raises Terror Threat Level To "Severe"

Aired August 29, 2014 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DAVID CAMERON, PRIME MINISTER OF THE U.K.: This would include further steps to stop people traveling with new legislation that will make it easier to take people's passports away.

Now, as well as being tough, patient and intelligent, we also need to take a comprehensive approach.

Dealing with this threat is not just about new powers. It is about how we combat extremism in all its forms. We need to tackle that ideology of Islamist extremisms head on, at root, before it takes the form of violence and terror.

That means challenging the thinking of extremist ideologues, identifying the groups in this country that push an extremist agenda, and countering them by empowering the overwhelming majority who believe in British values of democracy, the rule of law, and respect for minorities.

That is why as prime minister, I have driven a new approach to tackling radicalization and counter-extremism in Britain, focusing on all types of extremism, not just violent extremism. I set this out in my Munich speech in 2011 and I've driven this forward through my Extremism Task Force.

This has included stopping the funding of organizations that promote extremism, banning hate preachers, and ensuring that every part of government and the state, from schools and universities to prisons, are all focused on beating the scourge of extremism. And this task force will continue to meet regularly.

Britain is an open, tolerant and free nation. We are a country that backs people in every community who want to work hard, make a contribution, and build a life for themselves and their families. But we cannot stand by and allow our openness to be confused with a tolerance of extremism or one that encourages different cultures to live separate lives and allows people to behave in ways that run completely counter to our values.

Adhering to British values is not an option or a choice. It is a duty for those who live in these islands. And in the end, it is only by standing up for these values that we will defeat this extremism, protect our way of life, and keep all our people safe.

Thank you. Very happy to take some questions from the (inaudible) and then one or two from the print media. Let's start with Faisal (ph). QUESTION: Faisal (ph) (inaudible). Prime Minister, do you feel that this increase in the threat level changes the equation at all as regards combat or military response? And a year-on from Syria and the Syria vote, do you reflect, as some of your own M.P.s have done, that vote could have ended up in fact helping the very people who you just said pose a severe threat?

CAMERON: Well, let me answer as comprehensively as I can. I mean, first of all, the change in the threat level is -- that is determined by the Joint Terrorism Assessment Center. It's done independently of government, both substance of their decision and the timing of when they make their announcements.

And I understand, and I agree with the assessment that they've made, that there is a greater threat that we face from Syria and Iraq; that there's a greater problem of returning foreign fighters. And also it is worth remember, as I said in my statement, you're dealing not just with ISIL, you're also dealing with other Al Qaida-linked franchises in Syria and indeed potentially in Iraq.

So that's the reason for the threat level change. I think that what it should trigger first of all is a comprehensive assessment domestically. That is the prism through which I look at these problems. My first priority is: Are we safe here at home in the U.K.? What more can we do? And I think that's the prism through which we should look at it first of all, as my statement said.

In terms of what we're doing with others to deal with the problem at source, we have been focused on humanitarian aid drops where we played a very leading role. We've been focused on intelligence gathering and working with our partners to help with the work that they are doing. And the Americans have taken the lead on the rather more kinetic action in terms of airstrikes against ISIS. That has been the situation and I think that is the right approach to take.

But be clear, I will always do what I believe is necessary to keep the British people safe. That is the way I make these judgments about what we should do.

In terms of linking back to the Syria vote, I wouldn't over- analyze that. The Syria vote in the House of Commons was about a proposal to take limited military action in response to the use of chemical weapons in Syria. The House of Commons made the determination that it made. Actually, there has been since then a quite widespread dislocation of Syria's chemical weapons and a lot of those have been removed. That work needs to be completed.

So I wouldn't over-analyze a connection between that vote, which was about chemical weapons, and what we face today, which is a terrorist state in the heart of Iraq.

Nick Robinson (ph).

QUESTION: Thank you very much. Nick Robinson (ph), BBC News.

Prime Minister, can you tell us what the higher threat level is likely to mean for people going about their ordinary lives? Will they see more police on the streets, at airports, in public buildings and so on?

QUESTION: And can I follow up Faisal's (ph) question? You are saying the threat comes from abroad, but it comes from Syria and Iraq. And yet you appear to be saying there will be no British military action against ISIL forces in that region. If not, why not?

CAMERON: OK. Well, first of all, what does this threat level mean? Now let's be absolutely clear about the terms that the Joint Terrorism Assessment Center uses. We were under a threat level of substantial, which is an attack being a strong possibility. They have moved that to severe, which is an attack being highly likely. That is a stage back from the most intense threat of all which is critical, which is when an attack is expected imminently.

What this means for the British people is, first of all, I would say we should all continue to go about our daily lives in our normal way. Britain has faced terrorist threats before and overcome them. We always show resolve and perseverance and that is exactly what we should do on this occasion.

The purpose of moving the threat level is that it does trigger a series of actions by the police and indeed by others in other parts of life, to make sure they put in place all the extra security that they can.

So you might see some changes in terms of policing and the numbers of armed police and things like that. But that is the point of having a set of threat levels independently judged, independently announced is so the authorities both in the private and public sectors know the level of threat that we face.

Taking your second question, you say this threat comes from Iraq and Syria. And of course, the threat we face today, a large part of the threat we face today, a large part, does comes from Iraq and Syria. But my argument is actually we need to go a bit deeper than that. The threat we face today comes from the poisonous narrative of Islamist extremism.

Wherever there is a broken state, whenever there is a civil war, wherever there is grievance, wherever there is ungoverned space, you see the Islamistic extremist agenda being pushed further and faster. That is why we have problems in Somalia, why we have problems in parts of Nigeria, Mali, and indeed Syria, Iraq.

The source of the problem is the extremism and that is why I think the right approach to this is to identify the problem we face -- the poisonous Islamistic extremist narrative -- and then you have to take it on everywhere, it appears, including at home. And when you take it on at home that is not just about targeting those that want to do violence, but those who put forward the extremist narrative which provides a background for recruiting people into this violence. And that is, as I say, that is the approach very much that we take.

Now, do we need, with allies, to make sure that ISIL cannot succeed in Iraq and Syria? Yes, of course, we do. But we should be very clear about the cause of what has brought this about. And one of the principle causes of what has brought this about is the ungoverned space in Iraq caused by the fact that, for too long, Iraq had a government that was not governing on behalf of the whole country. Indeed, it was only governing on behalf of one part of the country.

So our strategy for combating ISIL has to have, as I've said, every single one of those functions that I outlined. We should be working with the Kurds -- and we are -- helping to make sure they have the arms they need. We should be helping our allies, the Americans, with the intelligence gathering that they want. We should be working to ensure an Iraqi Government that can govern for all the people of Iraq and we are. We should be playing our role in delivering aid supplies to those desperately in need.

All of the time while we do that recognizing that, even if you solve the problems of ISIL and Iraq and Syria, you still have a problem of poisonous Islamist extremist. And you see that problem, you know, in our country, even before that problem came about. Identifying and correctly dealing with the source of this problem is going to be absolutely key.

QUESTION: Prime Minister, we have known about the threat of returning foreign fighters for some time. Why has it taken all summer to raise the threat level?

CAMERON: Well, that is a question for the Joint Terrorism Assessment Center and not for me. But I'm very satisfied that they look at this in a comprehensive, independent, and rigorous way. And they base their judgments on all of the intelligence that they see and all of the assessments that they make.

Now, clearly, as you say, we've had a problem of ISIL in Iraq. We've had a problem of foreign fighters traveling from Britain to Iraq. And indeed, we've had the problem, as I've said, not just of ISIL, but also other Al Qaida franchises in that area. But clearly, JTAC's view -- Joint Terrorism Center's -- view, is that that the problem has become more intense, has become more serious. And that is why it's right to lift from substantial to severe.

CAMERON: It's their decision. It's their assessment. I think it's very important politicians don't make this assessment, that it's independently made and given, and then we have the responsibility, working with all the agencies, whether that is intelligence, security agencies, police, British transport police, aviation, all the rest of it, how do we make sure we put everything in place to try and keep our country safe? That is how the system works.

Let's take -- I think we've got Simon Coates (ph) from the Times.

QUESTION: Prime Minister, is the decision to raise the threat level in response to a specific threat? And is there any evidence at all that any part of the ISIL organization would actually want to target the U.K.? is there anything to suggest that? And it's been a difficult couple of days for you after the events of Douglas Carswell's defection yesterday. There is, it would appear, grave unrest in your party over Europe and Iain Duncan Smith last night called on you to step up the gas.

Do you agree with him? Can you reassure your party that you will not be campaigning to stay in the European Union come what may?

And particular -- there's particularly unrest over migration, given yesterday's horrible figures. Can you do anything to reassure those who want more action on borders?

CAMERON: OK. First of all, in terms of the way Joint Terrorism Assessment Center works and its judgment of the threat level, it looks at all of the intelligence that is available before making that judgment, and of course we never comment on individual specific threats, but that's the way they work.

And I'm satisfied that they've looked at this very rigorously. And they've been looking at the number of foreign fighters, they've been looking at the ISIL threat and the other threats from the region, and their judgment that this is sufficiently serious to raise the threat level.

In terms of targeting the U.K., there is no doubt in my mind that ISIL is targeting all of us in Western -- in Europe. There's no doubt about that. We've already seen -- in fact, perhaps people didn't focus on it sufficiently, the attack in the Jewish museum in Brussels, you know, was perhaps the clearest indication that this is an organization that wants to kill entirely innocent people in other parts of the world in pursuit of its agenda. And while I wouldn't want to comment on, as I said, specific threats, I'm absolutely satisfied that ISIL is a specific threat to the -- has specific threats and would make specific threats to the U.K. as well.

In terms of the issue of Europe, I've set out what I think is the right strategy for Britain. That is to renegotiate our relationship, to put that relationship to a referendum and give the British people a proper choice between a reformed place in Europe and leaving the E.U. altogether.

Of course, there are those in the Conservative Party who want to leave and people who vote for the Conservative Party as there are people who vote for the Labour Party who want to leave the E.U. altogether. Some of them want to leave the E.U. altogether, irrespective of any renegotiation that I manage to complete.

And, indeed, before his defection, I was pretty confident that Douglas Carswell was one of those people. There was no renegotiation he wanted. He wanted the opportunity to vote to leave.

And that is why I think his decision is slightly bizarre, because he fought as a Conservative in 2010, when we didn't have a commitment to an enact (ph) referendum, but he's left the Conservative Party at a time when we do have a commitment to an enact (ph) referendum, but that's a question for him to explain perhaps rather than me.

But what is absolutely clear is with me, what you get is a renegotiation to address those issues that most matter to Britain, to make sure we have a European Union where you can be in the single market but not in the single currency, to deliver those objectives.

And then, come what may, whatever you think about this renegotiation, it will be the choice of the British people whether to stay in that reformed European Union or leave. And that will be the real choice at the next election. And, indeed, voting for UKIP is really only likely to help deliver a Labour government that won't give you a renegotiation and won't give you a referendum.

And I think those arguments will become very clear in the months ahead.

But, as I said, right now, the most important issue facing this country is the terrorist threat that we face. The statement I've made today is very much in response to what JTAC have said.

And I think it is important for people to hear directly from the prime minister, not about individual measures, important though they may well be, but actually to set out the overall comprehensive approach that we will take at home and abroad to tackle this threat. And I think it's very important -- and I'm assisted by a national security council -- but that for the first time, looks at how our action and our work impacts us here at home as well as is overseas. And I think that's vitally important.

Thank you very much, indeed.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, the British prime minister wrapping up this news conference. For those of you just joining me, breaking news from the United Kingdom this morning where the government has raised its terror threat level to severe.

That means a terrorist attack is highly likely, but there is no specific intelligence to suggest an attack is imminent. We've got reporters and analysts from around the globe.

But I want to go first back to London and Erin McLaughlin. Tell us more about the raising of this threat level.

ERIN MCLAUGHIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Carol. Prime Minister David Cameron there was very clear when he said that ISIL is greater and deeper threat to our security than we have known and he said there is no doubt in his mind that it is targeting all of Western Europe.

Now the decision to raise the threat levels in response to a comprehensive look at various intelligence reports, it is known that there are between 400 to 500 British jihadists fighting in Syria and perhaps Iraq and beyond.

Great concern to the government here and the intelligence community in the United Kingdom now taking this decision based on as I said just this comprehensive look at various intelligence reports.

Prime Minister David Cameron saying that the murder of American journalist, James Foley, really serving as a wake-up call to many officials here in the United Kingdom.

So they have taken the decision to raise this threat level as part of what seems to be a very comprehensive approach in terms of how to deal with the problem of extremism in this country and beyond. He talked about such measures as making it easier to seize passports.

Potential fighters who wish to go abroad. Also really attacking extremism at a grassroots level here in the United Kingdom, initiatives that he has been talking about in the past.

But again taking this opportunity in that press conference to really try and outline the British government's strategy of how to deal with this problem -- Carol.

COSTELLO: I've heard many parts of that strategy. The prime minister also said that there will be no knee-jerk reactions in dealing with this problem. He didn't mention targeting anybody in Iraq or Syria or that British might help the United States in those air strikes. So it seems to me when all is said and done, Britain doesn't have much a strategy either.

JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: They definitely don't have a military strategy and it's interesting that the prime minister referred and was asked about the 2013 decision, exactly one year ago, when the British parliament voted not to strike Syria when President Obama decided to strike Syria and decided not to strike Syria.

There's a lasting effect of that episode on the British consciousness that came out today. The British strategy which seems to be focused on protecting the British homeland from the threat of ISIL is much more arctic cue than the strategy that we heard from President Obama yesterday, which was much more focused on protecting Iraq.

For President Obama, the problem is still a regional problem and although U.S. officials have said that ISIL has aspirations and perhaps capabilities to attack the U.S. homeland, the problem still has not come home for us here yet as far as President Obama is concerned.

Prime Minister Cameron can't afford to make those distinctions. There are many more British jihadist than there are American. The threat is much more immediate to Britain than they are to the U.S.

This has forced the U.K. Government to take a more comprehensive approach combating this problem on the extremist level, on the radicalization level, on the home front, on the homeland security level.

They seem to be a little bit ahead of us in dealing with how it affects them. Right now in the U.S., Obama is dealing with how it affects the region. COSTELLO: I was going to ask Michelle Kosinski this question. While might the prime minister's news conference cause Obama to come back out and speak again?

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: He has said on a couple of occasions, each country needs to handle this in their own way. Keep in mind, the differences between the U.S. and the U.K. In dealing with issues like this as well as the history of attacks, geography, it's much, much different.

The U.K. has dealt with terror cells in its homeland before, even extremely recently. So when something like this comes up, it does strike a nerve and obviously, there's a much different political sort of milieu right now with this conservative pressure on immigration.

The reaction is going to be much, much different. It's so complex. It's really hard. It's almost like in some ways we're not comparing apple to apples here. That said, Cameron's statement was very tough, strong, telling people here's exactly what we're going to do to protect you.

And you can't deny that he is reacting in the immediate sense and says that, yes, this is not just a regional threat. This is a threat to the U.K. homeland. In fact, he described it's a greater and deeper threat than what we've seen before.

I think that's -- that was surprising to hear. I mean, the seriousness and the expansiveness with which he's approaching this, but given the attacks that the U.K. has had, the plots, the bombings, it's not so surprising that they are taking these measures, and they do tend to react with a sort of heavier handed aspect than the U.S. w0uld do.

I mean, I think even in the terms of policing, and the release of information, the U.S. is much more open than the U.K. is in many respects, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Michelle Kosinski. I want all of you to stay in place. I've got to take a break, but we'll be back with much more on this in the NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAMERON: These extremists, often funded by fanatics, living comfortably far away from the battlefield, pervert the Islamic faith as a way of justifying their warped and barbaric ideology. This is not a new problem. We've seen the extremism here in our own country. We saw it with the sickening murder of Lee Rigby and we saw it too with the home grown 77 bombers who blew up two trains and buses.

The link between what happens overseas and what happens here has also always been there. Many of those who sought to do us harm in the past have been foreign nationals living in Britain or even British citizens who returned from terrorist training camps in Pakistan or elsewhere around the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All right, because of the extremism within Britain, Britain has decided to raise its terror threat level to severe, which means a terrorist attack is highly likely.

Now, maybe you are wondering if the United States was thinking of doing the same thing. We did too, so let's bring in our transportation correspondent, Rene Marsh. You talked to the TSA, what did it tell you?

RENE MARSH, CNN TRANSPORTATION CORRESPONDENT: The TSA is saying from their perspective, their security posture has not changed. If you are going to airport, you may see an increased presence as it relates to security, but, of course, remember, we are going into a holiday weekend, Labor Day, that is customary.

But again, from the TSA standpoint, they say no change or increase having to do with the terror threat, but we should point out TSA does not set the terror threat for the country so we did reach out to the Department of Homeland Security.

We are expecting to hear something from them shortly. Most likely, they will be responding to the news that we just heard come out of Europe there regarding their terror threat, but it is worth noting, if you remember back in July, the TSA did increase their security measures specifically for passengers who were coming from overseas on flights bound for the United States.

Remember, you cannot get on a flight if your electronics you were not able to power it up. That was all a measure because of the fear of terrorists possibly turning a cell phone or a tablet into an explosive, so that remains in place.

But again that happened in July in which if you were coming from overseas to the United States, you had to be able to power up that cell phone, that tablet, to ensure that this was not an explosive device. But as far as any changes today, since then, not getting any word of that, but we are waiting for a statement possibly from DHS -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Renee Marsh reporting live from Washington. I want to head to the Pentagon now and check in with Barbara Starr. During David Cameron's news conference, he made it clear there would be no help with air strikes over Syria or Iraq from Britain.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Carol, the British government appears to be very focused right now on the homeland security threat. It's working reminding people at this point, yesterday, President Obama talking about military action potential in the Middle East.

But the U.S. government also has been taking a number of steps very much behind the scenes, also dealing with the jihadi threat in this country. Cameron talk about 500 people going from the U.K. Over to Iraq and Syria.

The U.S. intelligence community calculates there are about 100 Americans that may have gone to fight in that region, and there are in fact a number of measures, U.S. intelligence services, the Department of Homeland Security, the National Counterterrorism Center has been taking to deal with all of this.

They have stepped up in recent months tracking these people, trying to keep track of where they are in the United States, people of concern, traveling -- tracking their travels. One of the big problems is a lot of these jihadist that try travel to Syria go through Turkey. Their travel plans take them to Turkey.

That is a NATO country. They get off the plane and then they transit over land in a rather represent fictitious manner. The U.S. intelligence services have been working directly with the Europeans on this problem for months, trying to share more intelligence, trying to share more information about where these people are, where they might be traveling to, and tracking them if they move around.

There's no doubt about it. It's a very, very tough problem and I thought one of the most interesting things that the prime minister said is he mentioned now that this jihadi threat basically takes you right up against the southern flank of NATO. It take you into the Mediterranean.