LONDON: People in the UK who hold anti-Muslim beliefs are becoming more likely to consider staging terrorist attacks against migrant centers and asylum hotels, the head of MI5, the country’s counterintelligence and security agency, warned.
In an annual threat update, Ken McCallum said the agency had documented a significant shift from radicalized, right-wing sentiment toward violence, The Guardian newspaper reported.
He described this change as the “most marked trend” in MI5’s caseload over the past year, and added that it had contributed to a rise in the overall terror threat level for the country.
“Extremist versions of anti-immigration and anti-Muslim grievance are tipping into terrorist intent,” McCallum said.
It follows a series of belligerent anti-immigration protests in September in the port cities of Portsmouth and Dover on England’s southern coast, and comes as racially and religiously motivated offenses reach record levels.
Young people in particular were more likely to move toward right-wing terrorism, McCallum said. At one point this year, he added, authorities investigated a “radicalized 13-year-old.”
He also highlighted a case last year in which a 16-year-old from Scotland received a 10-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to planning mass murder at a Muslim community center.
McCallum’s comments were part of a broader update on the threat environment in the UK that took place at MI5’s headquarters in London on Tuesday.
The spy chief said Iran was attempting to expand its hostile activities in Britain, including “ambitions to come at harder targets, like military sites.”
He also warned of the threat posed by AI tools when they were used by hostile states or terror groups, and announced the launch of a new AI threat-assessment center.