Spy chief: ISIS still a ‘startling’ risk to UK
BRITAIN still faces a ‘startling’ threat from Islamic State-inspired terrorism despite the fall of the so- called caliphate in Syria, the head of MI5 warned last night.
Andrew Parker said that while the collapse marked a ‘hugely symbolic’ loss, the group has shown that ‘an ideology does not require territory to survive’ so Britain must not be complacent.
He said IS propaganda has a ‘startling’ pull, with four of every five plots thwarted in the West conducted by people inspired by the group but not directly in contact with it in Syria or Iraq.
Mr Parker also warned that, with the rise of digitally encrypted apps, more data is hidden from MI5, meaning that crucial bits of intelligence might be missed.
He said that while encryption can have benefits for individual privacy, it can also benefit terrorists ‘using it to radicalise, spread hate and plot murder’.
He added: ‘Simply being on our radar, or
‘Haystack bigger, needle smaller’
being under surveillance, is not always going to enable us to see that critical bit of intelligence. The haystack is bigger and the needle smaller.’
Describing Islamist terrorism as the ‘most acute’ of the multiple terrorist threats facing the UK, the intelligence chief said Al Qaeda was also still active and plotting attacks on the West.
Writing in the Evening Standard, Mr Parker said: ‘There is no doubt that the fall of the so- called caliphate in Syria marked a significant military defeat, but we must not be complacent. An ideology does not require territory to survive.
‘The pull of this propaganda is startling: of the plots thwarted by police and MI5 and our Western allies in 2018, 80 per cent were conducted by people inspired by the ideology of IS but who had never actually been in contact with it in Syria or Iraq.’
Mr Parker also disclosed his agency is working to develop ‘cutting-edge artificial intelligence and machine-learning technologies’ to analyse intelligence. ‘The vital piece of information that might stop an attack is unlikely to be held by MI5 but buried in the mountain of data scattered across the world,’ he said.