The MI5 Director General Ken McCallum has offered his very deepest sympathies to those bereaved, injured and affected by this sickening act of terror in Crumpsall last week
Giving his annual threat update at MI5 headquarters in London McCallum said that Just two weeks ago, at Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester, we saw horrific violence against a community at prayer on the holiest day in the Jewish faith
It was he added the kind of appalling act which MI5, our police partners and many others work so hard to prevent.
In a wide ranging review of the security threats to the U.K. the head of MI5 cautioned that the United Kingdom must vigorously protect itself from security dangers posed by China.
Sir Ken McCallum additionally disclosed that MI5 took direct action to counter a state-sponsored threat originating from China just last week.
He admitted being “frustrated” by the collapse of the Westminster spying trial.
He said that a more hostile world is forcing the biggest shifts in MI5’s mission since 9/11 and said that since the start of 2020, MI5 and the police have disrupted 19 late-stage attack plots.
“And we’ve intervened in many hundreds of developing threats.”
“Al Qaeda and Islamic State “ he said “are once again becoming more ambitious, taking advantage of instability overseas to gain firmer footholds. They are both personally encouraging and indirectly inciting would-be attackers in the West.”
