Russia, China Distract London from Fighting Terrorism
Chief of Britain’s M15 Intelligence Agency Jonathan Evans addressed the Society of Editors Annual Conference in Manchester November 5, 2007. In the limelight of his speech were the threat to national security of Britain, the challenges, which it posed to MI5 and the UK, and how they were going to counter them.
Evans said M15 has identified at least 2,000 individuals, who pose a direct threat to national security and public safety. But the figure was just 1,600 a year ago. According to Evans, one of the reasons is “a steady flow of new recruits to the extremist cause.”
For the first time, Evans singled out Russia and China as the states hindering counter-terrorism efforts of London. “Since the end of the Cold War we have seen no decrease in the numbers of undeclared Russian intelligence officers in the UK - at the Russian Embassy and associated organisations conducting covert activity in this country.”
“Despite the Cold War ending nearly two decades ago, my Service is still expending resources to defend the UK against unreconstructed attempts by Russia, China and others, to spy on us. A number of countries continue to devote considerable time and energy trying to steal our sensitive technology on civilian and military projects, and trying to obtain political and economic intelligence at our expense…They are resources which I would far rather devote to countering the threat from international terrorism - a threat to the whole international community, not just the UK,” Evans said as quoted by official Web of M15.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 07, 2007
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