MI5 boss says UK now faces ‘worst of both worlds’ 25 years on from 9/11

The UK faces ‘the worse of both worlds’ with both state-level threats and persistent terrorists, the chief of MI5 has warned

Sir Ken McCallum, the director general of the Security Service said the country was facing ‘markedly different’ threats from those it confronted during the September 11 attacks of 2001 25 years ago today.

Writing in the Independent, he called for a ‘relentless adaptation’ to new complex challenges characteristic of modern terror, adding that security should be seen as a ‘shared national endeavour’.

‘In the aftermath of the Cold War, CIA director James Woolsey spoke of the West having “slain a large dragon” but facing a “bewildering variety of poisonous snakes’, he wrote.

‘With a nod to David Kilcullen, we now face the worst of both worlds: dragons are back, but snakes persist.’

In his book The Dragons and Snakes: How the Rest learned to fight the West, counterinsurgency expert Mr Kilcullen warned that following the slaying of the USSR ‘dragon’, western powers faced a variety of ‘poisonous snakes’ in both hostile state actors and new terrorist organisations.

Sir Ken added that while he was proud of the work done by his organisation to counter the Al-Qaida, with the group’s capabilities now a ‘fraction’ of what they were 25 years ago.

But he insisted the nation’s defences needed to adapt to see off new and different threats.

Sir Ken, who has led MI5 since 2020 and has spent two decades in the service, said the victims of 9/11 were owed ‘preparation, resilience and the courage to adapt’.

He said: ‘We must resist the temptation to admire the defences we built yesterday and instead build the ones we will need tomorrow.’

The MI5 head added that foreign policy was ‘harder than many commentators allow’, while not commenting on specific diplomatic issues.

He cited recent attacks on synagogues as an example of British ‘assets’ under threat, with many targeted systems now under private rather than state ownership.

Mr McCallum added: ‘The horrors of 9/11 will never leave me. What sits with me every day, 25 years on, is MI5’s perpetual responsibility to keep adapting, at even greater pace, as we seek to deepen the UK’s resilience – now to both dragons and snakes.’

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