(CNN) ISIS and al Qaeda present a “resurgent” threat to the United Kingdom, the head of the country’s domestic security service warned in a rare public intervention on Tuesday, as he outlined a changing landscape of terrorism that is increasingly relying on children and the internet.
More than a third of MI5’s recent, priority investigations have involved links to overseas terrorist groups, the agency’s Director General Ken McCallum said in a speech in London, with ISIS in particular resuming “efforts to export terrorism.”
And more than one in eight people being investigated by the service for involvement in terrorism are minors, McCallum said, a three-fold increase since 2021.
McCallum’s speech comes amid a string of Western warnings about the increasing risk of state-sponsored sabotage by nations including Russia and Iran, and as wars in Ukraine and the Middle East rock global security.
