Russia’s intelligence service has been intent on causing “mayhem” in the UK because of London’s support for Ukraine, the chief of Britain’s domestic intelligence service said on Tuesday.
Ken McCallum also stated that MI5 had responded to 20 Iran-backed plots since January 2022, which posed potentially lethal threats to British citizens and UK residents.
He noted that Russia and Iran have turned to employing criminals and private intelligence officers to carry out their agendas on British soil.
From Russia, Britain should “expect to see continued acts of aggression here at home,” with its military intelligence agency, the GRU, on “sustained missions to generate mayhem” on the country’s streets, McCallum warned.
“We’ve seen arson, sabotage and more,” he added.
Regarding Iran, he highlighted an “unprecedented pace and scale” of plots over the past two years, indicating that as events unfold in the Middle East, MI5 is giving its “fullest attention” to the risk of rising Iranian-state backed aggression in the UK.
Overall, MI5 and the police have disrupted 43 late-stage attack plots since March 2017, saving “numerous lives,” he reported, adding that “some of those plotters were trying to get hold of firearms and explosives in the final days of planning mass murder.”
In a wide-ranging speech, McCallum also attributed a “staggering” rise in the number of children being investigated for terrorism to extreme right-wing ideologies, noting that under-18s now represent 13 percent of those being investigated.