Britain’s MI5 chief issued an unusually public warning Friday, cautioning that a future terror attack on the scale of 9/11 could already be developing in a place security officials have not yet identified.
General Ken McCallum, who leads the normally tight-lipped domestic intelligence service, used the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks to urge governments, companies and ordinary citizens to work together to stop another mass-casualty atrocity.
Writing in an editorial for The Independent, McCallum said the next major security crisis is unlikely to mirror the last one — a lesson he described as one of the most crucial takeaways from 9/11.
He warned that while past attacks must be studied, authorities risk making the mistake of perfecting defenses for old threats, old tactics and old targets. The more troubling possibility, he wrote, is that the next strategic shock is already forming beyond the current field of vision.
McCallum noted that the security landscape has changed dramatically since 2001, with many critical systems and services now run by private companies rather than the state — making collaboration essential to prevent future attacks.
His message, he said, was a “call to arms” after a quarter-century: national security can no longer be treated as the narrow responsibility of intelligence agencies alone, but must become a shared effort involving government, business, universities and the wider public.
Although Al Qaeda has been significantly weakened over the past 25 years, McCallum stressed that it has not disappeared. Other extremist organizations, he added, continue to seek the capability to carry out attacks designed to kill large numbers of people.
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The MI5 director referenced a recently disrupted Islamist terror plot that allegedly aimed to kill hundreds of members of the Jewish community in Manchester, northern England.
He also highlighted a growing wave of state-linked threats, including sabotage conducted through criminal intermediaries and cyberattacks targeting critical infrastructure such as power stations.
McCallum said the ambition to carry out mass-casualty terrorism remains a grim reality, but it now exists alongside serious national security dangers posed by powerful and increasingly aggressive states.
With Post Wires
