Bomb-making instructions and calls for genocide circulate on far-right messaging channels

Content warning: this story contains mentions of racism, Islamophobia, Nazism and genocide

Calls for genocide against Muslims, incitements to destroy mosques and instructions for building explosives have circulated on messaging channels used by the far right during the UK riots, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) can reveal.

One group also contained death threats against home secretary Yvette Cooper, Reform UK MP Richard Tice and Nick Lowles, chief executive of the antiracism organisation Hope Not Hate.

Across nine groups on the messaging platform Telegram, TBIJ found dozens of posts that featured either direct incitements to violence or instructions on how to commit acts of violence. Many more posts contained Islamophobia, racism and antisemitism.

Incitements to violence included a call for a “Srebrenica 2.0” – referencing the 1995 massacre of around 8,000 Bosniak Muslims – and three posts calling for mosques to be destroyed.

The groups also contained posts which linked to a document telling users how to commit arson, as well as instructions for building bombs, makeshift weapons and Molotov cocktails. Others offered directions on how to avoid being identified by police.

Around 400 people have been arrested after a week of riots around the UK following an attack in which three children were stabbed to death in Southport. False information promoting anti-Islam and anti-migrant views spread online in the wake of the incident. The Crown Prosecution Service said a 28-year-old man had been charged with “using threatening words or behaviour intended to stir up racial hatred” in online posts relating to the recent disorder.

One group grew to around 14,000 members on Monday before going offline, though an analysis seen by TBIJ showed that only 238 members had posted more than once. Some users were expressing disagreement with previous messages.

It also contained several posts detailing a list of locations for Wednesday night, including immigration centres and lawyers’ offices. Versions of this list have been shared in other Telegram groups nearly 1,000 times, according to the analysis.

One user invited members to get in touch with them to participate in anti-migrant activity. When contacted, the account instructed individual users to “burn migrants” and attack infrastructure including migrant accommodation and vehicles.

These groups demonstrate an international movement of extreme white nationalist groups who want to use violence to achieve their goals, according to Jordan Wildon, founder of the company Prose Intelligence, which undertook the analysis.

Administrators of the groups containing some of the most extreme content also appear to be based outside the UK. One administrator of the group that grew to 14,000 members – the same user who called for “Srebrenica 2.0” – claims to be based in Finland.

This user appears to run another Telegram channel containing content relating to the European far right – some of it in Finnish or linking out to Finnish websites – as well as Nazi propaganda.

A separate group calling for violence against Muslims and migrants in the UK posted an original profile image that also appeared on Russian-language white supremacist websites and social media accounts. Grammar and word choices suggest that some of these posts were written by someone whose first language is not English.

“Although this is obviously a very acute escalation, we’ve been working against the backdrop of a very hostile, very frightening environment […] for a very long time,” said Mona Bani, executive director of Revoke UK, an organisation that advocates for displaced young people in London.

She hoped the government would work to counteract “decades of immensely hateful, divisive, hostile, racist narratives that have been simmering […] alongside crippling austerity”.

One of the Telegram channels was still actively recruiting users interested in “taking direct action in London” until Tuesday afternoon.

Telegram spokesperson Remi Vaughn said: “Telegram’s moderators are actively monitoring the situation and are removing channels and posts containing calls to violence. Calls to violence are explicitly forbidden by Telegram’s terms of service.

“Moderators use a combination of proactive monitoring of public parts of the platform, sophisticated AI tools and user reports to ensure content that breaches Telegram’s terms is removed.”