Islamic State is back with a vengeance, Britain’s intelligence chief has warned

The head of Britain’s domestic spy agency MI5 has warned that the Islamic State group has resumed efforts to export terror to the UK. Ken McCallum, director-general of MI5, issued a stark warning during a press conference in London, insisting it was a threat that “worries him deeply”.

Giving the first update on threats to the UK’s security since 2022, McCullum highlighted rising terrorist threats from the Middle East, particularly from groups such as Islamic State and al-Qaeda. “Today’s Islamic State is not the force it was a decade ago, but a few years later they have weakened significantly and resumed their efforts to export terrorism,” McCallum said, as quoted by Politico. Jihadi group.

The director-general of MI5 cited a deadly attack on a concert hall in Moscow in March by an offshoot of the Islamic State known as ISIS-K as a clear example of the group’s capacity for brutality. McCallum highlighted that in the past month alone, more than a third of MI5’s priority investigations involved “some form of connection with overseas organized terrorist groups”.

The assessment comes as the Islamic State, also known as Daesh, has regained global attention after seizing large swaths of northwestern Iraq and eastern Syria in 2014. Although the group has lost much of its control, its ability to instigate and carry out terrorist attacks continues to worry global security officials.

Russian and Iranian interference on British soil

In addition to terrorist threats, McCallum warned of increased state aggression by Russia and Iran on British soil. “The number of MI5 investigations into hostile countries such as Russia and Iran has increased by almost 50% in a single year,” he revealed. He added that the GRU, the Russian military intelligence agency, was “on a sustained mission to cause chaos on the streets of the UK and Europe”.

Since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, more than 750 Russian diplomats, many of them spies, have been expelled from European countries, including the United Kingdom. McCallum explained that the last Russian military intelligence officer was expelled from the UK earlier this year. He warned, however, that the Russian threat had evolved and relied on cyber attacks and proxies such as private operatives and criminals to carry out Russia’s covert operations overseas.

Addressing those seeking direct cooperation with foreign governments, McCallum issued a clear warning: “This is a choice you will regret.”

Iran, for its part, is seen as a threat of “unprecedented scale and speed”. The director-general of MI5 has revealed the UK has faced twenty “possible” Iran-backed plots since 2022.

England’s Position in China: A Different Approach

Although he was not outspoken on China, McCullum acknowledged that England’s relationship with Beijing was a complex issue. “China is different,” he said. “The economic relationship between the UK and China supports British economic growth, which underpins our security.” Asked about the lack of anti-China criticism, McCallum assured that he did not want to “downplay” the significance of the Chinese threat and that MI5’s focus on Beijing remained “unchanged”. According to him, strategic decisions about relations with China depend on the government.

Ken McCallum also addressed the pressures on security services in the face of increased threats and limited response capacity. Since March 2017, MI5 and British police have disrupted 43 late-night terror plots. However, the director general admitted that the agency’s resources were “stretched to the limit”.

“Allocating our limited capacity is more difficult now than I can remember in my entire career,” McCallum said. Asked about MI5’s workload since the 2022 report by Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee, McCallum agreed: “Things are absolutely stretched.” He warned that while Islamic State activity has decreased, this reduction has been offset and exceeded by the rise of far-right terrorism.

A worrying fact highlighted by McCullum is that there has been a significant increase in terrorism cases involving youths under the age of 18, which have tripled in the past three years. These cases now account for 13% of MI5’s total workload. “We now live in an uncomfortable reality, having to decide what to prioritize and what not to achieve,” the head of the defense agency concluded, highlighting the pressure under which MI5 was operating.