UK threat to remain at second highest level as Saudi Arabia condemns Paris attacks

British Prime Minister, David Cameron, has said on Saturday November 14, “the events in Paris are the worst act of violence in France since the Second World War, the worst terrorist attack in Europe for a decade”. Cameron further added that this was “a horryfying and sickening attack. Our hearts go out to the French people and to all those who lost loved ones. Today the British and French people stand together as we have so often before in our history when confronted with evil. Shocked but resolute, in sorrow but unbowed.”

 Further in his statement, he said “the threat level is already at ‘severe’, and will remain so”. As there is no new intelligence on an imminent and specific attack on British soil, the level has not been raised. The attack shows Islamic State have a “new degree of planning and coordination, and a greater ambition for mass casualty attacks,” Cameron added during the Cobra emergency response comittee meeting held on November 14 at Downing Street.

Meanwhile, clerics from the highest religious body in Saudi Arabia on Saturday condemned the terror attacks in Paris. “Terrorists are not sanctioned by Islam and these acts are contrary to values of mercy it brought to the world,” a statement by the Council of Senior Scholars said, according to the Saudi Press Agency.

The council is the only organisation in the country with the authorization to issue fatwas or Islamic legal opinions. The statement said that to eradicate global terrorism a “concerted effort” is needed from a “unified moral stance”.