The head of MI5, Sir Ken McCallum, has made a rare public intervention timed to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, warning that Britain faces greater and more complex threats than it did in 2001. In a rare op-ed in The Independent, McCallum, who was serving when 9/11 happened, reflects on the attacks and how the dangers his service confronts today are so different, with terrorism still a major challenge alongside a resurgence of state threats. He issues what he calls a call to arms, arguing that government, business, academia and the public must treat national security as a shared national endeavour rather than the specialist concern of a handful of agencies. His comments were reported by Sky News defence and security editor Deborah Haynes.
The head of MI5, Sir Ken McCallum, has issued a stark warning that Britain faces greater and more complex threats today than it did at the time of the September 11 attacks. His comments came in a rare public intervention released to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the 2001 attacks on the United States.
McCallum was already serving in the intelligence world when 9/11 happened and is now the head of the Security Service in the United Kingdom. He set out his assessment in a rare op-ed in The Independent newspaper, reflecting on the 9/11 attacks and on how the threats his service faces today, 25 years on, are so different.
According to his account, the security picture has broadened well beyond the kind of terrorism that defined the years after 2001. Terrorism remains a big challenge, but the security and intelligence agencies are now also dealing with what he describes as a resurgence of state threats, adding a further layer of complexity to their work.
At the centre of the intervention is a direct appeal. McCallum writes that this is his call to arms, arguing that after 25 years, government, business, academia and the public must treat national security not as the specialist concern of a handful of agencies, but as a shared national endeavour.
The message reflects a shift in how the intelligence chief frames the challenge. Rather than presenting national security as something handled quietly by a small number of services, he casts it as a responsibility that runs across society, pointing to the potential for wider conflict and the way that modern threats can reach far beyond traditional targets.
That whole-of-society approach is the thread running through his argument. In his framing, protecting the country is not just something that militaries and governments deal with on their own, but a task that involves the whole of the United Kingdom, from institutions and companies to ordinary members of the public.
The intervention was reported by Sky News defence and security editor Deborah Haynes, who noted that McCallum, who was serving when 9/11 happened, had chosen to mark the anniversary with the rare op-ed. She indicated that his warning about the scale and complexity of today's threats would be reflected on further through the day as the country marked the anniversary.