‘Islamist militants pose biggest threat’

British Iraq war report not ready till mid-2016

LONDON, Oct 29, (Agencies): Britain’s domestic spy service chief said Islamist militants pose the biggest threat to the country that he had seen in his 32 years in intelligence, as he called for new digital surveillance powers to keep Britons safe.

Andrew Parker, head of MI5, said again that militants are planning mass casualty attacks, and the threat was “on a scale and at a tempo that I have not seen before in my career”, according to a transcript of a speech delivered on Wednesday.

His remarks coincide with Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron’s plans to bolster the powers of spies and police.

“(Islamic State) uses the full range of modern communications tools to spread its message of hate, and to inspire extremists, sometimes as young as their teens, to conduct attacks in whatever way they can,” he said.

Intelligence chiefs and Cameron have argued for years that the security agencies need more powers to address the threat and prevent another attack on the scale of the London suicide bombings in 2005 when four British Islamists killed 52 people.

Opposition to more surveillance is widespread, including from within Cameron’s Conservative party, fuelled in part by former US spy contractor Edward Snowden who suggested US and British spies were conducting mass monitoring of communications.

Privacy and human rights campaigners are also fiercely opposed to measures that they say are an assault on freedoms.

The proposed new laws are expected to begin their passage through Britain’s parliament next week.

An effort in 2012 to beef up the reach of the security services was blocked by the Conservatives’ thencoalition partners, the Liberal Democrats.

“I hope that the public debate will be a mature one ... not characterised by ill-informed accusations of ‘mass surveillance’, or other such lazy twoworded tags,” Parker said.

Cameron now runs a majority gov-

ernment, which should allow him to pass the latest proposals. But there are questions over whether the upper chamber of parliament, where Cameron does not hold a majority, will try to get them watered them down.

Last August, Britain raised its terrorism threat level to “severe”, the second highest category, which means a attack is considered highly likely. It was largely due to the danger the authorities say is posed by Islamic State fighters and the hundreds of Britons who have joined them.

Parker said a growing proportion of online communications could not be intercepted by his agency and that service providers had “an ethical responsibility” to cooperate with security agencies.

Also: LONDON: Prime Minister David Cameron on Thursday said he was “disappointed” that a long-awaited

report into Britain’s role into the Iraq War — initially due to have been published in 2010 — would not be released until next June or July.

In a letter to Cameron published Thursday, inquiry chairman John Chilcot said the two-million-word report would be completed by midApril 2016, ready for the authorities to conduct “national security checking”.

“I consider that once national security checking has been completed it should be possible to agree with you a date for publication in June or July 2016,” he said.

In his reply, Cameron welcomed the setting out of a timetable for the report’s publication, but criticised its contents.

“I am disappointed — and I know the families of those who served in Iraq will also be disappointed — that you do not believe it will be possible

logistically to publish your report until early summer,” he wrote.

“I recognise that you have a significant task, but would welcome any further steps you can take to expedite the final stages of the inquiry.”

Cameron also said that the government aimed to complete the security checks within two weeks.

The Chilcot inquiry was set up in 2009 by prime minister Gordon Brown — the successor of Tony Blair, who led Britain into the 2003 conflict — and was originally due to report within a year.

Some 179 British soldiers died in the war.

The report is expected to highlight how Britain’s involvement in Iraq — particularly questions over whether Blair’s government “sexed up” a dossier on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction to make the case for war — remains the subject of heated debate.