Category Archives: UK security and counter-terrorism

Armed police guard Iranian TV studios in London after Tehran threats

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Persian language channel said threats to journalists had escalated in response to coverage of protests

Armed vehicles have been deployed outside the Iran International television studios in London after two of its journalists were threatened by Tehran, the channel said.

There were about seven vehicles outside the studio in Chiswick Park, west London, after “severe and credible” threats were recently made against two of the UK-based channel’s journalists, one of its spokesmen told AFP.

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Neurodiverse women sought for jobs at GCHQ and BAE Systems

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Organisations want to recruit more women with autism, dyslexia and ADHD to work in cybersecurity roles

The British spy agency GCHQ and weapons manufacturer BAE Systems have issued an appeal to attract more neurodiverse women to work for them in cybersecurity jobs.

The employers are actively seeking women with autism spectrum disorder, dyslexia, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) for cybersecurity roles to address gaps in their workforces.

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Burnham: poor leadership left Manchester emergency crews unready for attack

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Greater Manchester mayor says report into 2017 atrocity raises serious questions for whole of UK

The “poor leadership” of emergency services meant Manchester was not ready for the terrorist attack that killed 22 people in 2017, the region’s mayor, Andy Burnham, has said.

A damning inquiry report on the Manchester arena bombing identified significant failings by police, fire and ambulance services. At least one of those killed would probably have survived were it not for a response that was described as badly prepared, delayed and chaotic, it was found.

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James Cleverly calls for countries to unite to deprive terrorists of funds

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UK foreign secretary was speaking at memorial ceremony for victims of 2008 attacks in Mumbai

Countries must work together to deprive terrorists of funding in order to prevent deadly attacks, the UK foreign secretary, James Cleverly, has said.

Cleverly is in India for a two-day meeting of the UN security council’s counter-terrorism committee, which is being held in Mumbai and Delhi.

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No signs Russia is preparing to use nuclear weapon, says GCHQ boss

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UK spy chief says Kremlin does not appear to be engaged in preliminary steps despite Putin’s threats

The head of GCHQ has said the UK spy agency has not seen any indicators that Russia is preparing to use a tactical nuclear weapon in or around Ukraine despite recent bellicose statements from Vladimir Putin.

Jeremy Fleming, speaking on Tuesday morning, said it was one of GCHQ’s tasks to monitor whether the Kremlin was taking any of the preliminary steps needed before a tactical weapon was being made ready.

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Profumo spy had weakness for women and drink, archives reveal

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Files on Russian intelligence officer and ‘lady-killer’ Eugene Ivanov littered with reports of drunkenness

Eugene Ivanov, the Russian spy at the centre of the 1963 Profumo scandal, was a philandering alcoholic whose weakness for women and drink M15 hoped to exploit to get him to defect, but who ended up toppling the Macmillan government by chance, according to newly released intelligence files.

He arrived at the Russian embassy in London as assistant naval attache in 1960 but M15 suspected he was an intelligence officer, partly because he didn’t seem to know much about ships and also he carried an umbrella.

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GCHQ head: Putin making strategic errors due to unconstrained power

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British spy agency director to say in rare public address that Ukraine is ‘turning the tide’ against Russia

Vladimir Putin has made strategic errors in his pursuit of the war in Ukraine partly because there are so few restraints on his leadership, the head of the British spy agency GCHQ will say in a speech on Tuesday.

Russia’s soldiers are running out of supplies and munitions and initial gains made by Moscow are being reversed, Jeremy Fleming is expected to add in a rare public address.

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Truss axes national security council, sparking ‘talking-shop’ concerns

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Labour says new merged foreign policy council could reduce Whitehall policy-makers’ focus on security

Liz Truss has scrapped the national security council and merged it with two Boris Johnson-era foreign policy committees in a structure that Labour warned risked diluting the government’s security focus.

Created in 2010 under the coalition, led by David Cameron and Nick Clegg, to better coordinate security policy after the disaster of the Iraq war, the NSC is now to be replaced by a broad eight-strong foreign policy and security council (FPSC).

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Should Shamima Begum be allowed to return to the UK to argue her case?

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A new book says Met police knew she was helped to join IS by a Canadian spy, reinforcing concerns she was victim of trafficking

It is not new – although it is eyecatching – to report that Shamima Begum, then 15, was helped to travel to Syria and join Islamic State by a Canadian agent. Mohammed al-Rashed was picked up by the Turkish authorities in March 2015, and said at the time he was an informant for Canadian intelligence, and had helped Begum travel from Istanbul airport to the Syrian border a few days earlier.

What is new is the suggestion that the Metropolitan police knew about Canada’s behind-the-scenes involvement for some time. A book, The Secret History of the Five Eyes, out this week, reveals that Canadian intelligence officers went shortly after to the British police to admit their connection to Rashed, boosting the argument that the teenager from Bethnal Green and her two friends were in fact trafficked.

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British Sikh activist ‘tortured in India after tip-off from UK intelligence’

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Lawyers for Jagtar Singh Johal say he was given electric shocks after unlawful arrest in Punjab in 2017

A British Sikh campaigner is facing a possible death sentence after the UK intelligence services passed on information about him to the Indian authorities, according to a high court complaint.

Lawyers for Jagtar Singh Johal from Dumbarton, Scotland, say he was tortured, including being given electric shocks, after his unlawful arrest in the Punjab in 2017 where he had travelled for his wedding.

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Half of Russian spies in Europe expelled since Ukraine invasion, says MI6 chief

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Richard Moore says 400 intelligence officers operating under diplomatic cover have been expelled

Half of all the Russian spies operating under diplomatic cover around Europe have been expelled since the start of the war in Ukraine, the chief of MI6 has told a US security conference.

Richard Moore, who heads British foreign intelligence, said the expulsions of about 400 Russian diplomats from countries in continental Europe, including France and Germany, had dramatically reduced the Kremlin’s espionage capabilities.

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UK warned it is failing to adapt as terror threat shifts from groups to lone attackers

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Five years after London Bridge and Borough Market attacks, watchdog says psychologists should feature in counter-terrorism

Psychologists and behavioural scientists should be deployed more frequently to counter-terrorism operations as the number of neurodivergent individuals under investigation rises, a watchdog has advised.

The government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation told the Observer that evaluating the threat from individuals with conditions like autism was becoming an increasingly prevalent challenge. Jonathan Hall QC said: “You are seeing a lot more neurodivergence and mental health coming into terrorist investigations, and that’s also having an impact on deradicalisation programmes.

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UK Prevent scheme should be ‘ideologically blind’, says adviser

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Amid leaks of strategy’s review, Sara Khan says focus on only one form of extremism is counterproductive

The counter-terrorism Prevent programme, which has been dogged by claims of being a cover to spy on Muslim communities, should be “ideologically blind”, a government adviser has said.

The strategy is currently the subject of a review by Sir William Shawcross, and leaks suggest it will conclude that Prevent has been too focused on rightwing extremism in recent years. Instead it will say there should be a renewed focus on Islamist extremism, the leaks show, prompting accusations that the findings are politically motivated.

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Woman terrorised by MI5 agent takes legal action against service

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Man with background in rightwing extremism accused of attacking woman with machete and threatening to kill her

A woman who was terrorised by an MI5 agent with a background in rightwing extremism is taking legal action against the security service.

Beth, not her real name, claimed the man, her former partner, attacked her with a machete and threatened to kill her.

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MI5 agent ‘abused and threatened’ ex-partner, BBC investigation reveals

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Story made public after an attempt by the attorney general to gain an injunction to prevent broadcast

An agent working for MI5 with a background in rightwing extremism abused his former partner and used his connection with the domestic intelligence agency to threaten her further, according to an investigation by the BBC.

The man – known only as X for legal reasons – is said to have terrorised the woman and at one point attacked her with a machete and threatened to kill her, as shown in a video captured on her mobile phone. “There was so much psychological terror from him to me, that ultimately culminated in me having a breakdown,” the woman said.

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Omagh bomb suspect Liam Campbell extradited to Lithuania

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Man held liable for the Omagh bombing, is due to face charges related to weapons smuggling for the Real IRA

The man found civilly liable for the 1998 Omagh bombing in which 29 people were killed has been extradited to Lithuania after a lengthy legal process.

The Irish supreme court ruled last week that Liam Campbell could be extradited to the Baltic country in relation to offences of smuggling, the possession of firearms and terrorism.

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Foreign agent scheme omitted from UK national security bill

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Plans to require lobbyists to register their work for other countries delayed as key details yet to be worked out

Plans to require lobbyists, PR firms and other professionals in the UK to register their work for Russia, China or any other foreign country have been unexpectedly left out of the national security bill published on Wednesday.

Insiders said key decisions about what activities would have to be registered had yet to be taken, meaning the foreign agent scheme will have to be introduced via a government amendment to the bill in a few weeks.

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Hostile foreign states pose ‘real risk’ of influencing MPs groups

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Standards committee report calls for reforms to all-party parliamentary groups to avert ‘next great parliamentary scandal’

Hostile foreign states and others pose a “real risk” of gaining access and wielding influence through all-party parliamentary groups (APPGs), the Commons standards committee has warned.

Calling for reforms to avert what it described as the “next great parliamentary scandal”, the committee also voiced concerns that a dramatic rise in the number of the informal cross-party groups also risks “inappropriate influence and access” because they are so difficult to monitor.

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MI5 investigated Texas synagogue hostage-taker in 2020

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UK intelligence officers concluded Malik Faisal Akram posed no threat, which allowed him to travel to US and buy gun

The British man who took hostages at a Texas synagogue had been under investigation by MI5 as a possible Islamist terrorist threat as recently as 2020, Whitehall sources acknowledged on Tuesday morning.

British intelligence closed the investigation, however, after officers had concluded Malik Faisal Akram from Blackburn posed no threat, and as a result he was able to freely travel to the US and purchase a gun.

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Chinese national trying to improperly influence politicians, says MI5

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Warning circulated to MPs and peers about woman targeting parliamentarians

A security warning from MI5 has been circulated to MPs and peers claiming that a female Chinese national has been seeking to improperly influence parliamentarians.

The “interference alert” names an individual “knowingly engaged in political interference activities on behalf of the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist party” with MI5’s logo at the top.

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