LONDON (AP) – Britain faces an “alarming rise” in assassinations, sabotage and other crimes on British soil by Russia and Iran, with both countries recruiting criminals to “do their dirty work”. The UK’s Domestic Intelligence Secretary said they are recruiting. The agency announced on Tuesday.
MI5 chief Ken McCallum says his agents and police have been working on 20 “potentially deadly” Iranian-backed plots since 2022, as conflict in the Middle East deepens. It warned that it could expand its targeting in the UK.
So far, the threats have been directed at Iranians abroad who oppose the country’s authorities. However, Mr McCallum said there was a risk of “increasing or escalating the Iranian state’s aggression in the UK” if the Middle East crisis intensified, with Israel launching a large-scale attack in response to Iran’s recent missile barrage. said.
In a rare public speech outlining the main threats to Britain from both states and extremists, Mr McCallum said the combination of hostile states, radicalized individuals and the resurgent Islamic State group is “the most complex and interconnected group ever.” creating a relevant threat environment.” It was seen. ”
Mr McCullum said there was also a risk that the conflict between Israel and Iranian-backed groups – Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Houthi rebels in Yemen – could trigger an attack on the UK, but so far the crisis has not spilled over. No, he said. The UK is involved in terrorist violence on a large scale.
The number of state threat investigations carried out by MI5 has increased by 48% in the past year, with Iran, Russia and China being the main perpetrators, McCallum told reporters at the UK Counter Terrorism Command Center in London. .
Mr McCullum said that since the death of Mahsa Amini, who died in Iranian police custody in September 2022 after being detained on suspicion of breaching the Islamic Republic’s compulsory headscarf law, “one after the other is happening at an unprecedented pace here in the UK”. and the scale of the conspiracy.”
He said MI5 and police had responded to 20 potentially deadly Iranian-backed plots since January 2022, an increase of a third compared to the 15 the government said at the end of January. He said he did.
Mr McCallum said Russian military intelligence was trying to cause “unrest” on the streets of Britain and other European countries using "arson, sabotage, etc.”
He said both Russia and Iran often rely on criminals “from international drug traffickers to low-level criminals” to carry out their illegal activities.
Several allegedly state-sponsored plots led to criminal charges. In December, a Chechen man was jailed for spying on the offices of the dissident Iranian Broadcasting Corporation in London. Separately, several suspects are awaiting trial in London for an alleged Russia-linked plot to attack Ukrainian-owned companies.
Britain is not alone in blaming Moscow and Tehran. Germany has arrested several people on suspicion of espionage and planning attacks on Russia’s behalf. In May, Sweden’s internal security agency accused Iran of using criminal networks to target Israeli and Jewish interests in the Scandinavian country.
Past speeches by Mr McCallum and other UK intelligence chiefs have highlighted China’s increasingly assertive behavior, which Mr McCallum called Britain’s biggest “strategic challenge” in 2022. Mr McCullum on Tuesday stressed the importance of the UK-China economic relationship, but said there were “risks that need to be managed”.
The UK’s official terror threat level is in the middle of a five-point scale, ‘substantial’, meaning an attack is likely, and Mr McCallum said that since 2017, MI5 and police have reported 43 late-stage attacks. He said he had thwarted the plot and “saved many lives.” ”
Roughly three-quarters of the conspiracies come from Islamic extremist ideology and a quarter from the far-right, but these labels are “pulled from a soup of online hate, and we don’t know what we’re seeing.” “It does not fully reflect the dizzying range of beliefs and ideologies that exist,” he said. , conspiracy theories and disinformation. He said young people were increasingly involved, with 13% of MI5 targets in terrorism investigations being under 18.
He also said there were worrying signs that Islamic State was trying to make a comeback, despite the collapse of its self-proclaimed caliphate in Iraq and Syria several years ago.
“Years after their capture, they have resumed their efforts to export terrorism,” McCallum said, referring to the March attack that killed more than 140 people at a Moscow concert hall claimed by IS. It’s a brutal crime.” Demonstrate that ability. ”
MI5 has faced criticism for its failure to prevent deadly attacks, including the 2017 suicide bombing that killed 22 people at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester.
“The first 20 years of my career here were filled with terrorist threats,” McCallum said. “We are now facing those plots alongside state-sponsored assassination and sabotage plots against the backdrop of a major land war in Europe.”
MI5 “has a hell of a job”, he said.
___
Associated Press writer Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen contributed to this article.
