MI5 Chief Warns Anti-Immigration Extremists Increasingly Likely to Consider Terror Attacks
MI5 chief Ken McCallum warned that anti-immigration extremists are increasingly likely to consider attacks on UK immigration centres and asylum hotels. He said the shift to violence was the most marked trend in MI5's caseload over the past year, as the overall UK terror threat level rose.
The warning came as McCallum said the trend had contributed to a rise in the overall UK terror threat level. He did not give further details on the current level in the remarks reported by the newspaper.
McCallum also used the assessment to identify Russia as 'aggressor number one', saying the Kremlin continued to lash out against the west with assassination plots, explosive threats and cyber-attacks that at times stop 'not much short' of conventional warfare. He said Moscow had tried to interfere in the 2016 Brexit referendum with anti-EU coverage on RT and Sputnik media, and via troll social media accounts. But he added that there was a big difference between 'what may have been attempted and what actually resulted'.
The MI5 chief said he was 'particularly focused' on the risk of hostile states or terrorists using AI to generate new, deadly bioweapons. He announced the creation of a new AI threat assessment centre intended to distinguish fact from fiction.
McCallum also pointed to a 'concerning trend of violence targeted at political figures, religious or community groups', as demonstrated by the killing of the former minister and Reform UK spokesperson Anne Widdecombe.
He said threats from other states had quadrupled in the last decade and were running on par with MI5's counter-terrorism mission. 'We have again entered a new era of national security,' he said.