MI5 warns of rising state aggression from Russia and Iran alongside AI risks

The head of MI5 has warned that the United Kingdom faces an unprecedented surge in hostile state activity alongside rapidly evolving risks linked to artificial intelligence and domestic extremism.

Delivering his annual address at the domestic intelligence agency's London headquarters, Director General Sir Ken McCallum said MI5 is now pouring more resources into countering state threats than at any point since the Cold War. Foreign interference operations have quadrupled over the past ten years, bringing state threat investigations to roughly the same scale as the agency's counter-terrorism workload.

McCallum identified Russia as the country's primary state adversary, describing its efforts as hybrid warfare designed to unsettle European allies without provoking a direct military response from Nato. Following the expulsion of roughly 1,000 Russian intelligence operatives globally since the invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has increasingly turned to hired criminals to carry out sabotage and disruptive tasks within the UK.

Iran is similarly broadening hostile campaigns on British soil, McCallum reported, citing 50 arrests over the past year tied to Iranian-linked activities. Those operations have targeted Jewish communities as well as sensitive locations, including military sites. Powers under the 2023 National Security Act have been heavily deployed against hostile activity connected to Iran, Russia, and China.

The security service is also confronting new hazards driven by artificial intelligence. McCallum disclosed that investigators have already caught terrorists attempting to use AI to improve attack planning and enhance drone operations. Looking forward, he voiced particular concern over the potential for extremists to leverage the technology to engineer biological weapons, noting that while the danger has not yet materialized, it could alter the landscape for conventional or novel bioweapons. To monitor and counter such risks, MI5 has established an AI Threat Assessment Centre and is collaborating with the UK's AI Security Institute alongside partner agencies GCHQ and MI6.

At the same time, traditional and domestic terrorism challenges remain intense following the raising of the UK's national threat level to severe in April. While international Islamist groups such as al-Qaeda and Islamic State continue to inspire plots, McCallum noted a sharp rise in extreme right-wing terrorism fueled by online radicalization around anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment. These investigations frequently involve young people, including a recent inquiry into a radicalized 13-year-old in the UK that yielded intelligence enabling foreign authorities to stop a deadly attack abroad.