The UK is facing its most "complex" threat ever, according to the director of MI5. Russia is on a mission to cause chaos on British streets, warned Ken McCallum in a rare public speech
highlighting the increasingly "complex and interconnected" challenges confronting the country.
McCallum stated that Russia's intelligence services are determined to create "sustained mayhem on British and European streets." He also revealed that MI5 has responded to 20 Iran-backed plots since 2022, underscoring the daunting combination of terror threats and state-backed actions facing the agency.
The MI5 director disclosed that the agency had thwarted 43 late-stage plots aimed at committing "mass murder" in the UK since 2017, which involved the use of firearms and explosives. Most of these incidents were linked to Islamic extremism, followed by extreme right-wing terrorism. Counter-terrorism operations remain divided between "75% Islamist extremism and 25% extreme right-wing terrorism," McCallum said.
He further noted that MI5 deals with a "dizzying range of beliefs and ideologies" beyond these categories. "The first 20 years of my career here were filled with terrorist threats. Now we face those threats alongside state-backed assassination and sabotage plots, against the backdrop of a major European land war," McCallum remarked.
McCallum also pointed out that MI5's state-threat investigations had increased by 48%, accusing Russia of engaging in "arson, sabotage, and more dangerous actions" across the UK. Photo by Security Service, Wikimedia commons.
