Britain has entered a new era of national security, the head of MI5 says.
LONDON — Iran is escalating its campaign of threats on British soil, expanding attacks beyond dissidents abroad and Jewish sites to now focusing on harder military targets, the country’s domestic intelligence chief said Tuesday.MI5 Director General Ken McCallum was speaking less than two weeks after the United States rushed to withdraw its bombers from a key air base in England, with American officials saying there had been reports of a possible Iranian drone attack.Giving a wide-ranging “annual threat update” at MI5’s Thames House headquarters in London, McCallum warned that Britain and Europe had “entered a new era of national security,” which he likened to the shift that came after the terrorist attacks of Sept.
11, 2001.Add to GoogleTrump says U.S.bombers pulled from British base due to threats00:52His speech comes at a moment of tumult not just for the Middle East and Ukraine, which continue to be ravaged by war, but also the rest of Europe, which has suffered so-called hybrid aggression from Moscow and Tehran including sabotage, arson and cyberattacks.
European governments are now openly telling people to stockpile food and prepare for more of their taxes to be spent on defense, warning that Russia may launch a direct attack on their soil.MI5 is now devoting more resources than it had during the Cold War to countering threats from countries such as Russia, Iran, China and others, McCallum said.“Russia remains aggressor No.1, as Putin’s Kremlin continues to lash out at the U.K.
and its allies,” he added.But another arch belligerent is Iran, whose leaders have been “attempting to expand their hybrid campaign” of “using criminal proxies to try to intimidate oppositionists, Iranian media organizations and Israeli sites,” the spy chief said.MI5 Director General Ken McCallum in London on Tuesday.Jonathan Brady / AFP via Getty“Much of this aggression has been aimed at British Jewish communities, with whom I want to express solidarity,...