A resurgent Al-Qaeda is targeting Europe for terror attacks against airliners and airports, the security minister has warned.
Ben Wallace said the decline of Isis after becoming the latest terrorist boy band had created renewed space for the group made infamous by the September 11 atrocity in 2001.
He revealed the government was ploughing £25m into a research programme to protect planes from new methods of explosion and insider threats.
And he warned: The aviation threat is real. Aviation is still a blue riband event for these terrorists.
Al-Qaeda are resurgent. They have reorganised. They are pushing more and more plots towards Europe and have become familiar with new methods and still aspire to aviation attacks.
British businesses have also been warned that Islamist terrorists are seeking to mount attacks using a drone armed with explosives or chemicals.
A threat assessment published by Pool Re, the government-backed terrorism insurer, states: The vulnerability of airspace and the opportunity it provides to expand targets for an attack is increasingly recognised.
In 2019, we should be alert to al-Qaeda. They are re-energising some previous links and support and their ambition towards aviation is real. We saw in Australia that terrorists do what works and they don’t give up.