Killing of Hamas leader may provoke Islamic terror attacks in UK, MI6 chief warns
The death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar may increase the likelihood of Islamic terror attacks in the UK, a former head of MI6 has said.
Sir John Sawers, the chief of the Secret Intelligence Service from 2009 to 2014, warned that Sinwar’s successors may widen the scope of the terror group’s violence to include Western countries.
Sinwar, the architect behind the Oct 7 attacks, where more than 1,200 men, women and children were slaughtered by Hamas militants, was assassinated by Israeli forces on Wednesday.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said this week the killing marked the “beginning of the end” of Hamas’s rule of Gaza.
Asked on Sunday by Sky News presenter Trevor Phillips if Sinwar’s death means a ceasefire is more likely in the Middle East, Sir John replied: “Well, In Gaza, I’m not sure it changes things a great deal.
“The Israelis feel that they’ve got both Hamas and Hezbollah and to some extent Iran as well, on the back foot, they want to press home their advantage.”
However, Sir John later said: “Islamic terrorism may actually get a further boost, if that’s the right word, from events in the Middle East.
“The frustrations that we’ll be seeing because of the lack of movement on the Palestinian question, because of the violence people are witnessing every day.
“And it could be that Hezbollah and Hamas, the new leadership there, are focused so much on violence that they become not just terrorist organisations designated by Western countries and aimed against Israel, but they could revert back to international terrorism, including here in the UK.”
He added that the police and intelligence agencies in this country should be “on their toes” and watch for rising signs of Islamic terror.
Sinwar, 61, was killed when an Israeli tank fired on a building, thought to be housing three Hamas militants, in the southern city of Rafah on Wednesday.
Israeli forces discovered Sinwar, who they initially believed was hiding in the vast tunnel network underneath Gaza, by chance and were not immediately aware of the magnitude of the clash.
They discovered his body the following day after spotting the corpse in the rubble with a drone. Sir John’s comments come after the director general of MI5 warned that Russian spies are targeting Britain with Cold War-style sabotage.
Ken McCallum, in an article for The Telegraph newspaper earlier this month, said Vladimir Putin’s intelligence agencies are increasingly targeting businesses to undermine the UK’s security and economy.
In the joint article with Rain Newton-Smith, the CBI chief executive, business leaders were urged to “think hard about the sabotage risk you might be facing”.
It read: “States are not just going after government and military secrets, British businesses have become a target too.
“State actors have made aggressive and well-documented attempts to steal UK advantage, including through cyber attacks and penetration of supply chains.”
Source » msn.com
