MI5 issues ISIS and Al-Qaeda warning as shock new figure on child terror suspects emerges

Jewish people are of more "interest" to Islamist fanatics and right-wing extremists, the head of MI5 admitted.

Sir Ken McCallum, speaking weeks after the Manchester synagogue atrocity, said there are "well developed" protection plans for British Jews.

But he conceded terrorists are uniquely fascinated with Jewish people.

And Sir Ken warned Al Qaeda and Islamic State are "once again becoming more ambitious".

The Director General of MI5 added: "They are both personally encouraging and indirectly inciting would-be attackers in the West."

Jihad Al-Shamie's horrific vehicle and knife attack outside Heaton Park synagogue has reignited fears over the security of Jewish people living in Britain.

Two people were killed and four more were injured in the atrocity.

Sir Ken said: "My team, working with their colleagues in the police, are alert to the possibility of a terrorist attack of some form.

"We don't then unpack underneath that headline threat the threat assessments against any individual sectors, targets, constituencies.

"Sadly, the Jewish community tends to receive more than its share of interest on the part of extremists of various flavours.

"Because of that longstanding, sad truth, there are pretty well developed arrangements - principally the responsibility of my colleagues in the police, on the basis of advice from MI5, and others - to provide proportionate, sensible precautions in the interest of making sure that any particular targets that may be of more interest than others are proportionally and sensibly protected".

MI5 Director General Sir Ken said his teams have "near-record volumes of investigations".

And the war in Gaza - as well as other global events - "are part of what spins around in the minds of potential, would be attackers".

He added: "The phrase I've used today is that terrorism breeds in squalid corners of the interne, where poisonous ideologies of whatever ideology meets chaotic, volatile individual lives and that is MI5's consistent experience.

"It is hardly ever the case that we see a straight line between World event X and terrorist incident Y.

"Those events are relevant and they do feed into this complex phenomenon, but it is nearly always at least as much about individualised social factors."

He added: "Since the start of 2020, MI5 and our police partners have together disrupted 19 late-stage attack plots. And we've intervened in many hundreds of developing threats.

"On average, our investigations tend to be narrower in scope than once was the norm: my teams are mostly focused on individuals or small groups, rather than larger, more established networks.

"But the aggregate scale of the terrorism threat remains huge. And the range of what's coming at us - from terrorists holding Islamist, Extremist Right Wing or other ideologies, just keeps growing.

"Groups overseas are continuing their attempts to direct terrorism into the UK and Europe.

"Al Qaeda and Islamic State are once again becoming more ambitious, taking advantage of instability overseas to gain firmer footholds.

"They are both personally encouraging and indirectly inciting would-be attackers in the West.

"Terrorism breeds in squalid corners of the internet where poisonous ideologies, of whatever sort, meet volatile, often chaotic individual lives.

Sir Ken McCallum said terrorism "breeds in squalid corners of the internet" but the online world could also blur people's motives, making it hard to assess what drives attackers.

The new Interventions Centre of Expertise will manage threats in cases involving adolescents, mental ill health or other complex risks.

Sir Ken said: "Sadly, we continue to see a concerning number of minors in our national security investigations: one in five of the 232 terrorism arrests last year were of children under 17.

"This needs fresh thinking."

The new intervention unit, part of the Counter Terrorism Operations Centre, will involve professionals from both national security agencies and the wider public services.

Sir Ken said: "If a vulnerable young person on a pathway towards extremist violence can receive the right support, such that expensive and scarce MI5 capabilities are not needed and fewer children feature in national security prosecutions, that's good for everyone involved."

He said MI5 was "probably not the most appropriate wing of the state" to be dealing with the risks "that are brewing inside a small but sad number of our young people".