MI5 Director General Ken McCallum has warned of terrorist activity by Iran, ISIS and Russia in the UK.
In a press conference in London, McCallum said that the Islamic State group had returned to activity and was stepping up its efforts to carry out attacks in the kingdom. He warned that the Islamic State of today is not the force it was a decade ago, but after a few years in which they were well pushed back, it has renewed its efforts to export terror.
He also added that al-Qaeda was attempting to exploit the conflict and war in the Middle East in order to carry out terrorist attacks in Britain. More than a third of the investigations given top priority, he claimed, were connected to overseas terror organizations.
He also added that the war between Israel and Hamas and Hezbollah had posed new challenges to Britain's intelligence and security agencies. This has meant a rise in terrorism attempts and increased difficulty in maintaining public order, dealing with hate crimes and community security.
McCallum claimed that Iran has been in various ways backing significantly more plots on British soil over the past year, and that Russia has begun to attempt to recruit terrorists in Britain as revenge for Britain's support of Ukraine. Both countries, he said, have been working through criminal elements rather than making any direct contact between their agents and potential recruits.
Online forums promoting either Islamic or extreme right-wing ideology were noted as signifcant recruiting tools for both countries.
China, he noted, has not been actively supporting terrorism, but has been implicated in tens of thousands of attempted financial crimes and identity thefts online.