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MI5 Direc­tor Gen­er­al, Ken McCal­lum, began his speech by pro­vid­ing an update on the threat to the UK from ter­ror­ism, stat­ing that since March 2017, MI5 and the police have togeth­er dis­rupt­ed 43 late-stage attack plots.

The head­line split of counter ter­ror­ist work remains rough­ly 75% Islamist extrem­ist, 25% extreme right-wing ter­ror­ism. But under that head­line, much has shift­ed. Straight­for­ward labels like ​“Islamist ter­ror­ism” or ​“extreme right wing” don’t ful­ly reflect the dizzy­ing range of beliefs and ide­olo­gies that are seen.

McCal­lum said there are more volatile would-be ter­ror­ists with only a ten­u­ous grasp of the ide­olo­gies they pro­fess to fol­low. Peo­ple view­ing both extreme right wing and Islamist extrem­ist instruc­tion­al mate­r­i­al, along with oth­er bits of online hatred, con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries and disinformation.

It’s hard­er these days for inves­ti­ga­tors and their police coun­ter­parts to quick­ly and defin­i­tive­ly deter­mine whether an act of vio­lence is ide­o­log­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed or dri­ven by anoth­er fac­tor like men­tal health.

He also spoke of wor­ry­ing num­bers of young peo­ple being involved in ter­ror­ism. 13 per cent of all those being inves­ti­gat­ed by MI5 for involve­ment in UK ter­ror­ism are under 18 — this rep­re­sents a three­fold increase in the last three years. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly the case for extreme-right-wing ter­ror­ism, which, accord­ing to McCal­lum, is ​“dri­ven by pro­pa­gan­da that shows a can­ny under­stand­ing of online culture”.

In both Islamist extrem­ist and extreme right-wing ter­ror­ism, lone indi­vid­u­als, who are indoc­tri­nat­ed online, con­tin­ue to make up most of the threats. How­ev­er it is dif­fi­cult to sep­a­rat­ed the real plot­ters from ​‘arm­chair extremists’.

McCal­lum spoke of the prob­lems with aspects of the inter­net and encryp­tion, high­light­ing the impor­tance of law­ful access to com­mu­ni­ca­tions co-exist­ing with privacy.

Speak­ing of the online world, he said: ​“the insid­i­ous effect of inter­net hatred and dis­in­for­ma­tion has played into threats to elec­tion can­di­dates, intim­i­da­tion of com­mu­ni­ties, and the pub­lic dis­or­der that fol­lowed the sick­en­ing attack in Southport”.

Mov­ing on to the con­flict in the Mid­dle East, acknowl­edg­ing the Hamas attacks on Israel and con­tin­u­ing loss of life in Gaza and Lebanon, he high­light­ed the impli­ca­tions for Mid­dle East­ern and UK security.

The events in the Mid­dle East could trig­ger ter­ror­ist action in the UK, as has already been seen with a knife attack in Hartlepool.

How­ev­er, McCal­lum said that the ter­ror­ist threat that con­cerns him the most comes from Al-Qae­da and Islam­ic state.

He said: ​“Today’s Islam­ic State is not the force it was a decade ago. But after a few years of being pinned well back, they’ve resumed efforts to export ter­ror­ism. The ISKP attack in Moscow was a bru­tal demon­stra­tion of its capa­bil­i­ties. We and many Euro­pean part­ners are detect­ing IS-con­nect­ed activ­i­ty in our home­lands, which we are mov­ing ear­ly to disrupt.

“And Al-Qae­da has sought to cap­i­talise on con­flict in the Mid­dle East, call­ing for vio­lent action.”

The stats high­light that over the last month, more than a third of the top pri­or­i­ty inves­ti­ga­tions have had some form of con­nec­tion, of vary­ing strengths, to organ­ised over­seas ter­ror­ist groups.

He also men­tioned North­ern Ire­land, where the threat lev­el has been reduced to sub­stan­tial, but where there are still aspi­ra­tions to mount attacks.

The speech also high­light­ed state threats. In the last year, the num­ber of state threat inves­ti­ga­tions being run by MI5 has increased by 48 per cent.

Men­tion­ing the war in Ukraine, McCal­lum warned of Putin’s teams mak­ing efforts to attack elsewhere.

Since the war began, more than 750 Russ­ian diplo­mats have been expelled from Europe, which accord­ing to McCal­lum has made a dent in the Russ­ian intel­li­gence ser­vices’ abil­i­ty to cause dam­age in the West.

He also high­light­ed a shift in Russ­ian state actors turn­ing to prox­ies includ­ing pri­vate intel­li­gence oper­a­tives and crim­i­nals from both the UK and third coun­tries. Again, the inter­net is a cru­cial plat­form for con­nect­ing these malign actors.

Mov­ing to Iran, he point­ed out that since the killing Mah­sa Ami­ni in 2022, the num­ber of threats has risen in the UK. Since Jan­u­ary 2022, MI5 has respond­ed to 20 Iran-backed plots pre­sent­ing poten­tial­ly lethal threats to British cit­i­zens and UK residents.

With the ongo­ing con­flict in the Mid­dle East, there is an increased risk of Iran­ian state aggres­sion in the UK.

Sim­i­lar­ly to Rus­sia, Iran­ian state actors are also using crim­i­nals as prox­ies includ­ing inter­na­tion­al drug traf­fick­ers to low-lev­el crooks.

Final­ly, he men­tioned Chi­na, which he said is dif­fer­ent to Rus­sia and Iran. The eco­nom­ic rela­tion­ship between the UK and Chi­na sup­ports UK growth and under­pins secu­ri­ty, but there are risks to be managed.

In con­clu­sion, he said: ​“I’ll con­clude close to home, on some­thing which mat­ters deeply to me: in the end, MI5’s suc­cess in keep­ing this pre­cious coun­try safe is all about our peo­ple. They pro­vide so much of our edge over far larg­er adver­saries. Their self­less­ness in mak­ing tough deci­sions every day, know­ing they will nev­er receive pub­lic recog­ni­tion, is to the ben­e­fit of the whole UK.

“I like­wise salute our law enforce­ment, intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty and gov­ern­ment part­ners, domes­ti­cal­ly and inter­na­tion­al­ly, whose sup­port and col­lab­o­ra­tion are key to our success.

“It is my hon­our to serve along­side the many extra­or­di­nary peo­ple in MI5. When threats loom large, we are defined by those whose ded­i­ca­tion and deter­mi­na­tion keep the coun­try safe”.

https://​www​.mi5​.gov​.uk/​d​i​r​e​c​t​o​r​-​g​e​n​e​r​a​l​-​k​e​n​-​m​c​c​a​l​l​u​m​-​g​i​v​e​s​-​l​a​t​e​s​t​-​t​h​r​e​a​t​-​u​pdate