British intelligence chief warns of ‘worsening threat’ from ISIS

In a rare public speech, MI5 Director General Ken McCallum also warned of a 'staggering rise' in attempts at assassination and other crimes on U.K. soil by Russia and Iran.

The head of Britain’s domestic intelligence agency MI5 warned Tuesday of a “worsening threat” from ISIS and other Islamic terrorists amid a changing landscape fueled by online activity.

In a rare public speech setting out the major threats to the U.K. from both foreign states and militant groups, MI5 Director General Ken McCallum said more than a third of his agency’s priority investigations in the past month had “some form of connection” to overseas terrorist organizations.

A revived ISIS, also known as the so-called Islamic State, along with hostile states and radicalized individuals have combined to create “the most complex and interconnected threat environment we’ve ever seen,” he said at MI5 headquarters in London.

“Today’s Islamic State is not the force it was a decade ago,” McCallum said. “But after a few years of being pinned well back, they’ve resumed efforts to export terrorism.”

Al-Qaeda, he added, “has sought to capitalise on conflict in the Middle East, calling for violent action.”

The resurgence of those two groups represented “the terrorist trend that concerns me most,” he said.

ISIS’s self-proclaimed caliphate across Iraq and Syria collapsed five years ago, but the group has since morphed into a broader network of terror cells spread across Africa, the Middle East, and South and Central Asia.

McCallum pointed to the attack in March on a Moscow concert hall by ISIS-K, the Islamic State’s branch in South and Central Asia, as “a brutal demonstration of its capabilities.” The attack killed at least 145 people and was the deadliest to occur on Russian soil in 20 years.