MI5 warns of ISIS threat in Europe

Presenting before a meeting of European security chiefs in Berlin, MI5 director general Andrew Parker will warn that ISIS aspires to commit ‘more complex’ attacks in Europe.

In December last year, Parker revealed that nine terrorist attacks had been prevented by the security services and police in 2017, but has now said that 12 terror attacks have been stopped in the UK since the Westminster attack in 2017.

Having lost territory in the Middle East, Parker said that the threat from the terrorist group is still a problem for security services, after one person was killed and four others were injured by a knifeman in Paris on 12 May in a an attack claimed by ISIS. However, the chief of the security service will maintain that he is ‘confident about our ability to tackle these threats, because of the strength and resilience of our democratic systems, the resilience of our societies and the values we share with our European partners’.

As part of his speech, Parker is also expected to directly address the actions of Russia in March’s ‘targeted’ Salisbury poisoning, in which it is reported he will discuss ‘flagrant breaches of international rules’. Parker will describe the attempted assassination of a Russian ex-spy and his daughter as a ‘deliberate and targeted malign activity’ which risks Russia becoming a ‘more isolated pariah’.