MI5 chief warns state threats now match terrorism as Russia tops danger list

MI5 Director General Ken McCallum said foreign state threats have quadrupled and now rival terrorism, in his annual threat update in London.

• McCallum said MI5's state-threat mission now equals its counter-terrorism work, labelling Russia "aggressor number one".
• He said more than 50 arrests were made in the past year over Iran-linked activities aimed at Jewish communities and military sites.
• McCallum identified extreme right-wing terrorism as the most marked trend, including the investigation of a radicalised 13-year-old in the UK.
• He announced a new AI threat assessment centre to distinguish fact from fiction, and said he is focused on bioweapon risks from AI.
• McCallum said Britain has entered a 'new era of national security,' with state threats reaching Cold War-scale proportions.
• He said MI5 now devotes more resources to countering state threats than it did during the Cold War.
• McCallum cited cyber intrusions and sabotage as hybrid threats and said a terrorist attack remains 'highly likely.'
• McCallum said a suspected plot to attack a US-run military airbase in Britain was not an isolated case, with Iran intensifying its attacks within the UK.
• McCallum said Iran has shifted this year toward striking more fortified locations, including British military installations.
• McCallum said anti-migrant hostility has pushed more people from rhetoric toward violent intent, fueled by political hate narratives.
• McCallum said two men were charged in October over an alleged chlorine bomb plot targeting Jewish sites in Manchester.
• Authorities arrested seven men over the RAF Fairford plot, which Britain linked to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a claim Tehran denies.