'A new era': Britain faces growing threats from government agencies as well as terrorists, MI5 chief says

 'A new era': Britain faces growing threats from government agencies as well as terrorists, MI5 chief says

The head of Britain's domestic security service, MI5, said in a speech on Thursday that the number of suspects investigated annually in Britain on suspicion of working for a hostile foreign government increased by 35% last year.

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In the service's annual update on the threats facing Britain, Ken McCallum said, "A more hostile world is forcing the biggest changes to MI5's mission since 9/11," and that his "teams are currently conducting near-record levels of investigations."

At the beginning of his speech, McCallum expressed condolences to the two people killed in an ISIS-linked attack on a synagogue in Manchester earlier this month. The intelligence agency chief further stated that "the overall scale of the terrorist threat is enormous," and that the combination of growing threats from government agencies as well as terrorists with "Islamist, far-right, or other ideologies"—who may be fully prepared, juvenile, or mentally deranged—has ushered in a "new era."

Britain has witnessed numerous incidents of espionage and sabotage in recent years, ranging from Chinese influence operations targeting Parliament to Russian-directed arson attacks on warehouses supplying the Ukrainian military. McCallum also stated that there have been "more than 20 potentially lethal plots backed by Iran" in the past year.

He said, "State threats are on the rise. ... Over the past year, we have seen a 35% increase in the number of individuals we are investigating for involvement in state threat activities," adding that these individuals were present in Britain rather than directing operations from abroad.

McCallum continued, "The state threat activity I'm referring to is dominated by a triumvirate of Russian, Chinese, and Iranian state actors."

When asked about the nature of the Russian threat, he said: "In terms of its lethality, the activities are widespread. In some cases, it involves arson, in some cases, attempts at sabotage. In some cases, it involves quite detailed attempts to gather specific targeted information about individuals... with the sole explicit purpose of making it possible for someone to do something bad, potentially lethal, against those individuals."

In May, Orlin Rusev, 47, was sentenced by a London court to nearly 11 years in prison for leading a UK-based Russian spy ring, which prosecutors said conducted surveillance for the Kremlin. Five other members of the gang were sentenced to a total of nearly 40 years in prison, accused of gathering detailed information on journalists, dissidents, and Ukrainian soldiers trained at a US military base in Germany. Prosecutors said the six men, all Bulgarian citizens, were financially motivated and did not report directly to Russian intelligence.

In his speech, McCallum twice mentioned Russian "proxies," who may not receive payment from their handlers for their work, though he declined to provide specifics. He said, "I can legally say that I do not think working for Russian intelligence services in the United Kingdom is a good career move."

McCallum also warned about the role of artificial intelligence in future and current threats, saying, "Potential terrorists are already trying to use artificial intelligence for their propaganda, their weapons research, and their reconnaissance of targets." Nevertheless, he warned against "hype and fear-mongering" and said he believed that artificial intelligence overall brings "real benefits" in threat detection.

He added, "I'm not predicting scenarios from Hollywood movies. Artificial intelligence may never mean us harm. But it would be reckless to ignore its potential for harm."

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