CEP Advisor Liam Duffy writes: "“MI5 has one hell of a job on its hands.” That was the warning yesterday from the agency’s Director-General, Ken McCallum, in a speech which touched on everything from Russian espionage to Iranian assassination plots, and from the present competition with China to the violent echoes of last century’s conflict in Northern Ireland."

“...The fact that the man wanted to attack soldiers is not necessarily unusual for an Islamist perpetrator, says terrorism expert Hans-Jakob Schindler from the Counter Extremism Project (CEP): ‘The military is always part of the target spectrum.’ Uniformed soldiers are potentially more capable of defending themselves than average civilians and are therefore a riskier target. But: ‘An act against the military also brings the perpetrator even more 'fame' in terrorist propaganda.’ And: ‘Terrorists naturally also act according to the principle of capacity and opportunity. When an opportunity arises, they strike.’ Attacking soldiers during their lunch break and using the element of surprise could have been just such an opportunity.”

"According to the police, the man is an 18-year-old who was born in Austria and has Bosnian roots. There are many indications that the incident has a radical Islamist background, says extremism expert Hans-Jakob Schindler from the Counter Extremism Project (CEP). Why did the Austrian choose Munich as his target? "There may be a connection to the anniversary of the 1972 Olympic attacks," says Schindler. On September 5, 52 years ago, Palestinian terrorists carried out an attack on Israeli athletes at the Summer Games in Munich and murdered eleven Olympic participants."

"Munich –  For days, the country was worried about Rouven Laur – but the police officer did not survive the knife attack in Mannheim. It is now known that Sulaiman A.'s attack was motivated by Islamism. Shortly before the European Football Championship, the incident is fuelling fears of further attacks. Hans-Jakob Schindler, former UN terrorism expert and director of the Counter Extremism Project (CEP), assesses the terror threat in an interview."

“…“The terrorist threat to Europe right now is actually quite high because you have an intersection of a range of disconnected but unfortunately mutually reinforcing events,” said Hans-Jakob Schindler, director of the Berlin- and New York-based Counter Extremism Project. “October 7 changed the threat level from groups that didn’t really pose any threat on the European continent for many years. It’s definitely always been Islamist terrorism, but it’s not Islamist terrorism in all of its varieties from Hamas to al-Qaida. Usually it’s Islamic State, it’s al-Qaida, and it’s lone actors. Now you have Hamas, Hezbollah, lone actors, Islamic State, al-Qaida, the left wing, the right wing – all of them who could potentially see this large conglomeration of really soft targets. “We have the threat that has been there all along, but because of October 7 has been fairly diligently pushed out of the headlines, and that’s the Islamic State threat,” he added."

"The Counter Extremism Project, a New York-based non-profit group, noted that anti-LGBTQ ideas had been taken up by both Islamist and far-right extremists.

'It is no surprise that neo-Nazis and jihadis often express mutual admiration for their shared anti-gay visions,' Mark D Wallace, the project's chief executive, said in a statement."

"“... According to the international organisation Counter Extremism Project, Dr Naik follows a conservative brand of Wahhabi Islam and has allegedly 'expressed sympathy for terrorists'. 

CEP Senior Advisor Ian Acheson writes: "Is there such a thing as an acceptable level of terrorism? You would be forgiven for thinking so. Last week, the results of yet another inquest into a terrorist attack here, all but flattened by the news cycle juggernaut, revealed yet more failures by the state’s agencies to protect citizens."