Al-Qaeda officials have raised the terror level threat in Great Britain to “thinking about it”, causing junior terrorists to fly into a panic. The level was raised after Mustafa Jihad, Al-Qaeda’s Chief Financial Officer, declared that the organisation would be “looking at diversifying into new terrorist avenues”.

In a short speech to shareholders yesterday, Jihad declared “Al Qaeda is always looking at ways not just to rationalise our business, but to sow the seeds of growth. That is why we are raising our terror level threat to ‘thinking about it’, which represents a paradigm shift in the way our business operates.”

Although nobody really knew what Jihad was talking about, the raising of the terror threat to ‘thinking about it’ from ‘mulling it over’ is the one significant piece of information to be gleaned. Three months ago, the threat was merely ‘would like to, but can’t be bothered’, and a year ago it was ‘having a break from it all’. Analysts say that Al Qaeda’s business during the last 12 months has “shrunk significantly”, and the appointment of a new, hardline Human Resources Director has been the catalyst for change within the organisation.

“They have been resting on their laurels somewhat”, said Rupert Bingestock of Analysts Bingestock & Bloom. “Remember that many young terrorists are actually quite lazy, and Al Qaeda’s operations are strung out all over the world – it’s very hard to motivate them and keep them engaged. Their new HRD, Patricia al-Fayarya, has some great ideas about employee engagement, and one of them appears to be raising the terror level. It appears to have worked.”

Indeed, some junior terrorists, with relatively little experience, suddenly find themselves in Al Qaeda’s firing line. One, who wished to remain unnamed, said “I’ve only been in the job two months, and now I have to prove myself to the new HRD. I can’t go back to the job centre saying that I wasn’t up to scratch – what will my parents think of me? I’d better think of doing something soon before they raise the terror level threat to ‘really thinking about doing something now’, which is what we’re all worried about.”

Home Secretary Alan Johnson declared that the government was ‘actively thinking’ about raising its own terror level to ’shit your pants people of Britain’, but warned that until terrorists raised theirs to ‘we’re coming to getcha’, he wouldn’t be sounding the panic button. “Let’s remember a few years ago when the level of threat was ‘we’re behind yooouuuu’, and the amount of pant-pooping that was done back then. We don’t want to go there.”