Iran 'flooding MI5' to obstruct terror fight

IRAN has attempted to overwhelm British counter-terror agencies with a stream of low-cost, deniable threats designed to stretch MI5 and police resources to breaking point, according to regime documents.

- By Marco Giannangeli DIPLOMATIC EDITOR

"This isn’t about success or precision any more. They don’t care if the attack succeeds," said Omid Shams, who served as operations director at the human rights group Justice for Iran.

"Each plot forces British services to respond."

He said Tehran’s aim was no longer simply to silence dissidents but to paralyse the UK’s domestic security posture through volume and disruption.

"They think Britain doesn’t want to pay more for its own internal security — and that gives them a green light."

His warning comes amid growing concern about overstretched resources.

MI5 director-general Sir Ken McCallum has said his agency has had to divert staff away from counter-terrorism operations to meet the rising volume of threats from hostile states including Russia, China and Iran.

In his most recent annual threat briefing, Sir Ken warned the service was “having to make tough choices” about where to place its limited personnel, with more attention now going to espionage, cyber-attacks and state-backed assassination plots.