MI5 Chief Warns Far-Right Terror Is Rising as Teens Radicalize
(MENAFN) Britain’s domestic spy chief warned Tuesday that extreme right-wing terrorism is gaining ground, with anti-immigration and anti-Muslim hostility hardening into attack planning.
In his annual address at MI5 headquarters in London, Sir Ken McCallum said this form of terrorism tends to “skew young” and is fueled by online activity. He said al-Qaeda and ISIS (Daesh) “continue to direct and inspire attacks” and that the heightened threat is also being driven “in significant part” by the extreme right.
“Over the last year the most marked trend has been an increase in cases where extremist versions of anti-immigration and anti-Muslim grievance are tipping into terrorist intent,” McCallum said.
He revealed that MI5 recently investigated a “radicalized extreme right-wing 13-year-old here in the UK.” The inquiry paid off beyond Britain’s borders. “That investigation generated insight that enabled one of our international partners to prevent a lethal attack on their soil,” he said.
Russia Named Top State Threat
McCallum said MI5 is now putting more resources into countering hostile states than it did during the Cold War, warning that threats from foreign adversaries have quadrupled. Russia, he said, remains “aggressor number one,” and the service’s counter-terrorism and state-threat missions are now “pretty much of equal scale.”
He said Moscow is waging “hybrid warfare” against Britain and other European nations while steering clear of any move that could draw a collective response from NATO. Crossing that line, he cautioned, would be “foolish” for the Kremlin.
According to McCallum, Russia has stopped short of “conventional conflict” and is instead working to destabilize European countries, even as its full-scale invasion of Ukraine yields gains he described as “minimal and horrifically costly.”
MI5’s work to expose and expel Russian spies has crippled Moscow’s covert networks in Britain, he said, pushing the Kremlin to lean on criminal proxies for attempted attacks. He was referring to the period since the Ukraine war began in February 2022.
“With its traditional covert footprint eviscerated by almost 1,000 expulsions since the invasion, the Kremlin’s global toolkit is weak. So we see them scrambling to pay criminals to do their bidding,” McCallum said.
“These are not the actions of a great power with the strategic upper hand,” he added.
He also said Iran is widening its hybrid campaign in Britain, with MI5 making more than 50 arrests tied to Iranian-linked activity over the past year. He listed “threats from Iran,” alongside extreme right-wing terrorism and the possible use of artificial intelligence (AI) by extremists to develop bioweapons.
AI Opens a New Front
“We’ve caught terrorists seeking to exploit AI to improve their reconnaissance and attack methodologies, with AI-enabled drones adding a new twist,” said McCallum.
He named the potential use of AI by violent extremist groups to develop bioweapons as his gravest concern in this area. The threat was “not yet realized,” he said, but the technology has the “potential to change the stakes on existing or even new bioweapons.”
“These risks are real. The UK Intelligence Community – MIS, GCHQ, M16 – is working closely with the UK’s globally respected AI Security Institute to take them on,” he said.
In his annual address at MI5 headquarters in London, Sir Ken McCallum said this form of terrorism tends to “skew young” and is fueled by online activity. He said al-Qaeda and ISIS (Daesh) “continue to direct and inspire attacks” and that the heightened threat is also being driven “in significant part” by the extreme right.
“Over the last year the most marked trend has been an increase in cases where extremist versions of anti-immigration and anti-Muslim grievance are tipping into terrorist intent,” McCallum said.
He revealed that MI5 recently investigated a “radicalized extreme right-wing 13-year-old here in the UK.” The inquiry paid off beyond Britain’s borders. “That investigation generated insight that enabled one of our international partners to prevent a lethal attack on their soil,” he said.
Russia Named Top State Threat
McCallum said MI5 is now putting more resources into countering hostile states than it did during the Cold War, warning that threats from foreign adversaries have quadrupled. Russia, he said, remains “aggressor number one,” and the service’s counter-terrorism and state-threat missions are now “pretty much of equal scale.”
He said Moscow is waging “hybrid warfare” against Britain and other European nations while steering clear of any move that could draw a collective response from NATO. Crossing that line, he cautioned, would be “foolish” for the Kremlin.
According to McCallum, Russia has stopped short of “conventional conflict” and is instead working to destabilize European countries, even as its full-scale invasion of Ukraine yields gains he described as “minimal and horrifically costly.”
MI5’s work to expose and expel Russian spies has crippled Moscow’s covert networks in Britain, he said, pushing the Kremlin to lean on criminal proxies for attempted attacks. He was referring to the period since the Ukraine war began in February 2022.
“With its traditional covert footprint eviscerated by almost 1,000 expulsions since the invasion, the Kremlin’s global toolkit is weak. So we see them scrambling to pay criminals to do their bidding,” McCallum said.
“These are not the actions of a great power with the strategic upper hand,” he added.
He also said Iran is widening its hybrid campaign in Britain, with MI5 making more than 50 arrests tied to Iranian-linked activity over the past year. He listed “threats from Iran,” alongside extreme right-wing terrorism and the possible use of artificial intelligence (AI) by extremists to develop bioweapons.
AI Opens a New Front
“We’ve caught terrorists seeking to exploit AI to improve their reconnaissance and attack methodologies, with AI-enabled drones adding a new twist,” said McCallum.
He named the potential use of AI by violent extremist groups to develop bioweapons as his gravest concern in this area. The threat was “not yet realized,” he said, but the technology has the “potential to change the stakes on existing or even new bioweapons.”
“These risks are real. The UK Intelligence Community – MIS, GCHQ, M16 – is working closely with the UK’s globally respected AI Security Institute to take them on,” he said.
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