The conspiracy to attack the US military base in the UK is not an isolated case! MI5 chief warns: Iran and Russia intensify hybrid war against Britain

Ken McCallum, director of the British domestic security intelligence agency MI5, warned on the 13th that Iran is trying to attack military facilities in the UK. The attack plot targeting an air force base operated by the US military in September was "not an isolated case." He also warned that Tehran and Moscow were both expanding their attacks on the UK.

The Associated Press reported that McCallum said Tehran was seeking to intensify its attacks in Britain and would no longer target traditional dissidents who opposed Iran's Islamic regime. The wave of attacks included arson and vandalism against Jewish synagogues; attacks that British authorities said were carried out by Iranian proxies.

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McCallum pointed out that another "major shift" this year is that Iran's ambitions have shifted to more difficult targets, such as military installations. He said the incident at RAF Fairford "is not unique. There are other similar cases around the world, not just in the UK but around the world."

As McCallum delivered his annual speech outlining the main threats facing the UK, counter-terrorism agents continued to investigate a suspected terrorist plot against a US base in western England that was used to bomb Iran during this year's war.

On September 27, a large number of armed police and military bomb disposal experts poured into the rural area, and dozens of residents near the base were forced to evacuate. The police later stated that a large amount of accelerant (gasoline) was found in the three vans at the scene, but no explosives were found. Seven men in their 20s have been arrested so far and were later released on bail pending further investigation. McCallum pointed out that in the past year, more than 50 people have been arrested in connection with Iran-related conspiracies.

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said on the 12th that the apparent conspiracy was "almost certainly" led by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Iran denies this, although it has previously stated that any base used to attack its territory is a legitimate target.

After the incident, the United States withdrew bombers from the Fairford base. The Trump administration stated that the United States believes that the base faces threats from Iran and attempts to kill U.S. troops and destroy U.S. military aircraft as much as possible.

British officials have not yet confirmed this claim. MacCallum said Iran has so far used lower-level criminal proxies in the UK who lack the ability to launch sophisticated large-scale attacks. However, the Revolutionary Guard has demonstrated greater capabilities in countries closer to Iran, "so it would be foolish for someone in my position to rule out this possibility."

In a scathing speech, McCallum argued that the UK was facing a "new era of national security", a generational shift equivalent to the 9/11 terrorist attacks a quarter of a century ago. He pointed out that the current numerous threats to national security range from "arson, vandalism, cyberattacks, coercion, violence" to "what online algorithms are pushing into the bedrooms of your teenagers."

McCallum said that in the past 10 years, MI5's workload in responding to state-level threats, mainly from Russia, Iran and China, has tripled. He claimed that Russia and Iran were intensifying their "hybrid warfare" operations against the United Kingdom and other European countries. Russia, for example, has been involved in several attacks, including an attempt to use explosives-laden drones at Germany's Leipzig airport, and is using tactics that fall short of conventional conflict.

At the same time, with the rapid advancement of technology, artificial intelligence (AI) is "strongly promoting" the network security offensive and defensive battle between attackers and defenders. McCallum said that terrorists have begun to use AI for reconnaissance and attacks, including the use of AI-enabled drones; what is even more worrying is that AI has the potential to change the risk threshold of existing or even new biological weapons.

After his speech, he told reporters at MI5's London headquarters that terrorist groups were "very eager" to obtain chemical, biological or radiological weapons, but that these weapons were difficult to obtain. "One of the risks is that AI could allow dangerous knowledge to fall into the hands of people we don't want it to have." "The second and another risk is that...AI could generate new pathogens that have never been seen before."

McCallum said that MI5 has established a new "AI Threat Assessment Center" (AI Threat Assessment Center) to try to deploy in advance to deal with risks; "Human history has never had the experience of facing actors smarter than us. It has the ability to surpass our thinking. This is a truly unprecedented situation and should be taken seriously, including within MI5."