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LONDON — The suspected plot last month against a British air base used by U.S. bombers was part of a broader effort by Iran to mount attacks against military sites, intelligence facilities and other high-security targets, the head of Britain's domestic intelligence service said Tuesday.
Threats to such facilities mark a major shift in Iranian ambitions to come at harder targets like military sites, Ken McCallum, the director general of MI5, the British domestic intelligence agency, said in a speech outlining major threats to the United Kingdom and its allies.
McCallum said that the suspected plot against the base, Royal Air Force Fairford, on Sept. 27 was not unique. He noted there have been other examples of similar threats to installations not just in the U.K. but around the world - most particularly in Iran's own region.
He declined to provide details on other alleged plots or targets but said the intensity and scale and shape of the threat from Iran is shifting at the moment.
Even without specifics, such a statement by a high-ranking Western intelligence chief underscores the extent to which U.S. allies are grappling with fallout from the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran more than seven months after it started.
McCallum made his comments during an annual address on security threats in which he also said that Russia remains aggressor No. 1 against Britain and its allies, and he revealed that MI5 has formed a new center focused on the threats driven by advances in artificial intelligence - including the potential spread of chemical or biological weapons.
British counterterrorism police are still investigating the alleged plot against the Fairford air base, which prompted the hurried evacuation by the United States of a dozen B-1 bombers.
At least seven suspects were arrested in connection with the plot in recent weeks, including five British citizens detained shortly after midnight on Sept. 27. They were traveling in three vans toward the perimeter of the base, which was used by U.S. bombers to carry out strikes on Iran.
However, the suspected plot marked an escalation, McCallum said, from a pattern in recent years in which Iran has mainly been linked to lower-level attacks involving criminal proxies recruited online to carry out sabotage, arson or stabbings - many targeting Jewish communities.
Britain has made more than 50 arrests during the past 12 months in Iran-linked operations, McCallum said.
Iran repeatedly has denied any connection to plots on British soil including the alleged threat to the Fairford air base.
Even as he signaled that Iran's ambitions have shifted, McCallum said that Iran remains constrained by limited capabilities beyond the Middle East, where it has used drones and other weapons to strike U.S. air bases and other targets in Gulf countries.
Because of ramped up surveillance and security measures, Iran has been forced to rely on hiring criminals to do their bidding in Britain and Europe, McCallum said.
Given what we've seen in practice, he said, Iran has not demonstrated anywhere near the level of capability to launch a sophisticated attack on British military bases or other installations.
No details have emerged so far to indicate Fairford was in significant danger. The five people arrested at the scene were released a day later. British police have said that no explosives, armed drones or other weapons were recovered from the vans - only canisters of gasoline.
McCallum used his speech in London, at MI5's headquarters, known as Thames House, to highlight security concerns raised by advances in artificial intelligence.
The technology is supercharging the cybersecurity contest between attackers and defenders, he said, but it also could make it far easier for terrorist networks or state adversaries to acquire potent weapons.
Many terrorists would dearly love to have some kind of capability with bio, chem or radiological weaponry, McCallum said. If guardrails meant to safeguard the spread of AI fail to hold, he said there is a risk that AI could generate novel pathogens not previously seen.
A new MI5 threat center was created this year to focus on such dangers, he said.
(COMMENT, BELOW)