MI5 chief warns of threats to UK from Russia, Iran and AI

Key points

• MI5 chief Sir Ken McCallum says state threats have quadrupled in a decade and Russia is the top aggressor.
• He warns AI is supercharging cyber warfare and that terrorists have been caught trying to exploit it.
• Iran-linked activity has led to 50 arrests in the UK in the last year, many targeting Jewish communities.

MI5 is allocating more resources to countering state threats than it did during the Cold War, its director general Sir Ken McCallum said in an annual speech in London. He said threats from foreign adversaries had quadrupled over the past decade, with Russia described as "aggressor number one" and Iran expanding a hybrid campaign in the UK.

Sir Ken said Russia is waging hybrid warfare while its full-scale invasion of Ukraine has made "minimal and horrifically costly" progress. He added that MI5 successes in expelling Russian spies have left the Kremlin reliant on paying proxies for attempted attacks.

Threats from Russia and Iran

Sir Ken said almost 1,000 Russian expulsions since the invasion of Ukraine had "eviscerated" the Kremlin's traditional covert footprint, leading it to pay criminals. He said these were not the actions of a great power with the strategic upper hand.

On Iran, he said there had been 50 arrests in the last year over Iran-linked activities, much of it aimed at Jewish communities and military sites. He did not mention arrests at RAF Fairford directly in his speech but told reporters afterwards the incident was "not unique" and that Iranian interest went beyond the base.

What I can say is that those who seek to cause mayhem on British streets - whether hired thugs here or their paymasters overseas - will meet an unflinching response.

— Sir Ken McCallum

AI and terrorism risks

Sir Ken warned that AI is "supercharging the cyber-security contest between attackers and defenders" and said MI5 had caught terrorists seeking to exploit the technology, including by integrating it with drones. He said the biggest threat from AI misuse was extremist groups using it to harness new and existing bioweapons.

He announced MI5 had launched an AI Threat Assessment Centre to assess sources and separate bluster from realities. He also said the most marked trend over the last year was an increase in cases where extremist anti-immigration and anti-Muslim grievance tipped into terrorist intent, and that extreme right-wing terrorism tended to skew young.