MI5 Chief Warns Terrorists Seek AI Drone Capabilities as UK Faces Complex Threats

MI5 Director-General Sir Ken McCallum has warned that terrorists are trying to use artificial intelligence to make their attack planning more effective, including through drones powered by AI. In his yearly address at the Security Service's Thames House headquarters in London, McCallum said MI5 had caught terrorists attempting to exploit AI to sharpen reconnaissance and attack methods, with AI-enabled drones adding what he described as a 'new twist'. He said AI was intensifying the struggle between attackers and defenders and could hand less sophisticated groups abilities that had previously been out of reach. McCallum noted that his own alarm threshold, and that of his organisation, was high, but that the real benefits of AI came alongside real national security risks. One danger, he said, was that relatively low-sophistication actors might gain greater capability in the AI era if safeguards did not work as intended. He gave particular weight to the possibility that terrorists could acquire capabilities involving biological or radiological weapons, and said the government was taking further steps to deal with the threat. For many years, he said, terrorists have been eager to obtain some form of energy, biological or radiological weaponry, but achieving that has not been easy for them. McCallum also flagged risks from AI itself, saying human history offered no experience of facing an actor more intelligent than people. He announced that MI5 would create an AI threat assessment centre, drawing on expertise from other British agencies. Turning to hostile states, McCallum said Iran was increasingly directing its efforts at British military sites, a development he called a 'major shift' in Iranian ambitions. Counter-terrorism police are examining suspected Iranian involvement in an alleged plot at RAF Fairford after three vans deemed suspicious were discovered close to the site before dawn on September 27. Five men were taken into custody. On Monday, the Prime Minister said the alleged plan was 'almost certainly' carried out by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. McCallum refused to discuss the investigation in detail, but indicated that concerns went beyond Fairford. He cautioned against drawing conclusions about any other specific incident from his remark that the Fairford case was not the only one in Britain. He said MI5 operations linked to Iran had produced more than 50 arrests in Britain over the previous 12 months. Russia, McCallum added, 'remains aggressor number one', pointing to acts of sabotage, cyber operations and an assassination plan in the United States that was stopped. He said it might come as a surprise that MI5 in 2026 is putting more resources into countering state threats than it did in the Cold War. The service's hostile state caseload had increased fourfold over the past decade, he said. McCallum also commented on the recent rise in Britain's terrorism threat level to 'severe', which signals that an attack is considered highly likely. He said the change had been driven in significant part by extreme Right-wing terrorism tied to immigration. Over the last year, he said, the clearest pattern was a rise in incidents in which hardline hostility to immigration and Muslims moved toward terrorist intent. He revealed that an inquiry involving a 13-year-old in Britain radicalised by extreme right-wing ideology had helped foil a possible deadly attack overseas a few months earlier. With resilience as the theme of his address, McCallum urged the public to help reinforce Britain's defences against 'malicious disruption and coercion'. He mentioned incidents against US energy and water systems, arson aimed at European defence firms and a damaging cyberattack on a British energy generator. Calling for stronger community cohesion, he said the cohesion and confidence of communities had become a front line in national security. He warned that authoritarian governments and other players turn any divisions they detect into weapons. Their trolls, he said, were not geniuses and gained a foothold only if people gave them one. McCallum also described the reported killing of Reform UK spokeswoman Ann Widdecombe as reflecting a 'concerning trend of violence' against political figures. The report said Widdecombe, who was 78, was killed in July at her home in Haytor, Devon. Joshua Kerry, 28, faces charges of murder and of preparing terrorist acts, among them acts against Reform UK leader Nigel Farage.