Sir Ken McCallum, Director General of MI5, recently gave an alarmist speech on the new national security landscape. He said the UK is currently experiencing the highest number and most diverse wave of threats ever seen both from state adversaries and terrorists. In the service’s first annual report about national threats, McCallum showed just how serious a problem this is. As an example, the amount of people investigated for state threat activities increased by 35% in just one year. Most are doing this from the UK, he stressed, instead of controlling people from overseas.
McCallum pointed to the enormous scope of the terrorist peril. Aside from new powers, he claimed that MI5’s arrest teams are managing almost record-high levels of simultaneous investigations as it stands. The director specified the dangerous ideologies that are driving these threats, such as Islamist extremism and right-wing extremism.
“State threats are increasing. … In the last year, we’ve seen a 35% increase in the number of individuals we’re investigating for involvement in state threat activity,” – Sir Ken McCallum
Today’s MI5 chief offered condolences to the victims of the recent ISIS-linked murder spree at a Manchester synagogue. He underscored the urgent climate threats that communities in every corner of the UK are already experiencing.
McCallum warned attitudes shifted after the increase of espionage and sabotage cases, Read More Here. He pointed out that these events have become disconcertingly more common in recent years. Recent notable examples of this type of warfare include the use of Chinese influence operations against the UK Parliament and Russian-directed arson attacks on warehouses supplying Ukraine’s warfighters. Among those, he pointed to Orlin Roussev, the head of a British-based Russian intelligence agency cell, who was sentenced to almost 11 years in prison earlier this year.
“The state threat activity I’m describing is overwhelmingly dominated by the triumvirate of Russian, Chinese and Iranian state actors,” – Sir Ken McCallum
According to MI5 chief, Ken McCallum, the Russian threat is particularly striking in its vigor. He emphasized the lethalness of its operations and the global reach of its activities. He detailed that threats range from arson to sabotage. They include elaborate efforts to find targeting intelligence on specific individuals for lethal action.
“In terms of its lethality, the activities are spread. This ranges from, in some cases, arson, in some cases attempted sabotage. In some cases, pretty detailed attempts to gather specific targeting information about individuals,” – Sir Ken McCallum
McCallum emphasized that international tensions are increasing. This hostile landscape is forcing MI5 to undergo the most major changes to its mission since the September 11, 2001 attacks. Importantly, he sounded an alarm on how artificial intelligence (AI) could be used by would-be terrorists.
“Would-be terrorists already try to harness AI for their propaganda, their weapons research, their target reconnaissance,” – Sir Ken McCallum
He cautioned against the complacency of assuming it can’t do real harm.
“Artificial intelligence may never ‘mean’ us harm. But it would be reckless to ignore the potential for it to cause harm,” – Sir Ken McCallum
McCallum warned that collaborating with Russian intelligence services in the UK was a poor career move, warning people not to make those professional decisions.
“I am able legally to say, I don’t think it’s a good career move to work for the Russian Intelligence Services in the United Kingdom,” – Sir Ken McCallum
