Daily US Times: The Director General of MI5 has warned that the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban is likely to have “emboldened” UK terrorists.
In an interview with BBC, Ken McCallum said that while the terror threat wouldn’t change overnight, there could be a “morale boost” for extremists.
And the British spy boss warned that there is also a concern terrorists could regroup and plan “well-developed, sophisticated plots”.
In the past four years, a total of 31 late-stage attack plots have been foiled in the UK, said Mr McCallum.
That includes six during the coronavirus pandemic period alone, he added.
Mr McCallum added that while they were largely Islamic extremist plots, but there were also a “growing number” of attacks planned by extreme right-wing terrorists.
He said the terrorist threat to the UK ”is a real and enduring thing.”
While speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the US, Mr McCallum said that smaller-scale terrorist acts by those already in the United Kingdom made up the largest number of threats faced by MI5.
But there is still also a risk of an increase in larger plots by big terrorist groups like al-Qaeda, he warned.
While the British government said it will judge the Taliban by their actions, not by their words, Mr McCallum said the UK security service would plan for the possibility “more risk, progressively, may flow our way”.
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