U.K. Spy Agency Confronts Escalating Hybrid War With Russia and Iran

Head of MI5 paints sobering picture of range of threats facing Britain and European allies

LONDON—The U.K.’s domestic intelligence agency is devoting more resources to countering state threats than during the Cold War, as Britain looks to fend off escalating hybrid attacks from Iran and Russia.

Ken McCallum, the director general of MI5, said the country “had entered a new era of national security” as intelligence services face a growing waterfront of risks that extend far beyond the traditional threat posed by Islamist terrorists.

“These days our terrorist and state threats operational missions are pretty much of equal scale: that in itself is a huge shift across recent years,” he said.

The shift in priorities shows how Russia’s war in Ukraine, the U.S. war with Iran and advances in AI are forcing Europe’s security architecture to counter a growing number of threats.

McCallum’s comments came after the U.K. said Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was likely behind a foiled plot to target RAF Fairford, an air base used by the U.S. military to launch bombing raids on Iran. Seven men have been taken in for questioning in relation to the incident and subsequently released on bail.

The U.S. flew its bombers out of Fairford, with senior U.S. officials saying they had intelligence of a wider Iranian plot to use drones and other devices to target personnel on the base. A probe is underway, but U.K. officials don’t believe Iran has the capabilities to launch such an elaborate attack on British soil. Iran has denied that it was behind a plot to attack the base.

McCallum declined to provide specific...

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.