How reporting a WhatsApp message stopped imminent terror plot by Isis-loving teenager

Matthew King was not on the security services’ radar before the alarm was raised, Lizzie Dearden writes

Matthew King, then 18, in combat clothing he purchased online (Metropolitan Police)

On 13 April 2022, a video appeared in a WhatsApp group showing a young man holding a knife as words appeared proclaiming: “Now the battle has begun and it will continue until the day of judgement. So take out your sword, O youth, and destroy the kufr [disbelievers].”

The man in the video was Matthew King, and he was planning a terror attack targeting soldiers and police in the UK.

Aged just 18, he had very recently converted to Islam and started supporting Isis after getting kicked out of school and spending a “great deal of time online” during the Covid pandemic.