Al-Qaeda terror magazine Inspire urging lone wolf attacks downloaded 55,000 times in UK

A terrorist magazine which gives step by-step guides on how to make a bomb and urges an attack on the UK is being read by 4,000 Britons a week, according to a report.

The online magazine titled Inspire, released by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), has been downloaded 55,000 times from UK IP addresses in the past three months, according the Sun on Sunday.

The magazine, infamous for articles with titles such as "How to build a bomb in your Mom's kitchen", has been linked to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing as well as the killing of a Canadian soldier last October.

In March 2013, the magazine also included Charlie Hebdo editor Stephane Charbonnier in their hit list of people "wanted dead or alive for crimes against Islam", which also included author Salman Rushdie and Dutch politician Gert Wilders.

Charbonnier was one of 12 people killed in the recent terror attack at the officers of the French satirical magazine.

According to reports, between 14 October to 12 January, 54,723 people using a British IP address downloaded an edition of Inspire magazine, the vast majority of which was the spring edition which told readers how to make a car bomb.

The publication also called for readers to commit "lone wolf" style Jihadi attacks on the West. The latest edition lists British Airways and EasyJet as recommended targets.

Mark Rowley, the national police lead for counter-terrorism, recently announced there were 327 terror-related arrests in the UK in 2014, an increase of 32% from 2013.

He added: "The UK has been at a heightened level of threat from international terrorism for some years now. We have seen attacks in a number of countries, including France, Australia and Canada over the last few months, and in Belgium last night. We have also been working with security services to investigate a variety of threats and to disrupt a number of different plots to undertake attacks here."