In the same week that over 1,000 migrants arrived in England, the head of MI5 admitted his agency had ‘one hell of a job’ on its hands. Ken McCallum said that while there is a threat from Russia, China and Iran, it was Islamist terrorism ‘that concerns me most’. In particular, al-Qaida and the Islamic State, specifically their Afghan affiliate Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), members of which slaughtered 137 Russians in a Moscow concert hall earlier this year.
McCallum’s analysis is almost identical to that of Céline Berthon, the director-general of the DGSI, the French equivalent of MI5. She also namechecked the two Islamist terror groups in an interview last month, warning that this year she had noted a ‘fairly strong resurgence of the threat’.
In the meantime, who knows who is pouring through Europe’s porous borders
The MI5 chief made his remarks three days after 973 migrants had landed in 17 small boats in Kent. This was the highest daily number this year, taking the total arrivals for 2024 to 26,612. A further 140 migrants made it to England this Saturday, while 128 were rescued by the French coastguard on the same day after getting into difficulty in the Channel. According to government data for the first six months of 2024, over 5,300 of the migrants who have crossed the Channel are Afghans, the largest representation of any country, followed by Iranians (3,844) and Vietnamese (3,031).
On the same day that McCallum made his statement from the counter-terrorism operations centre in London, French police, aided by the DGSI, arrested a 22-year-old Afghan in Toulouse. On Saturday, he was indicted on charges of planning an attack on a football stadium or a shopping centre. The Afghan has been living in France for three years, and is described as a follower of the Islamic State.
The French media report a ‘link’ between the Afghan arrested in France and a 27-year-old man of the same nationality who last week was charged by the US Justice Department with plotting an election day attack in America. Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi arrived in the States in September 2021 and, with his wife and child, was waiting for his asylum claim to be processed.
CNN report that Tawhedi had donated money to charities with links to the Islamic State, and their propaganda was also found on his phone. In addition, police discovered a video on the phone in which Tawhedi explained to his child ‘about the rewards a martyr receives in the afterlife’.
It is a grotesque paradox that while the intelligence services of Britain, France and America work flat out to prevent Islamist terrorist attacks, their respective governments continue to oversee a chaotic immigration policy. There is a link between the two. In a report published in April 2016 Frontex, Europe’s border control agency, stated: ‘The Paris attacks in November 2015 [in which an ISIS terror cell killed 130] clearly demonstrated that irregular migratory flows could be used by terrorists to enter the EU. Two of the terrorists involved in the attacks had previously irregularly entered through Leros and had been registered by the Greek authorities.’
The report pinpointed the major flaw in the EU’s border policy: ‘There is no EU system capable of tracing people’s movements following an illegal border crossing. Therefore it is not possible to establish the precise number of persons who have illegally crossed.’
Eight years on, little has changed, except in Britain’s case, where since 2018 more than 135,000 migrants have crossed the Channel illegally in small boats. Many arrive without a passport or other reliable documentation.
Many more are camped on the French channel coast waiting for their turn to cross to England. The numbers are so great that last week the mayors of 15 communes in the Calais region called on the government to take action. The mayor of Grand-Fort-Philippe, between Dunkirk and Calais, told reporters:
The situation is on the verge of exploding. We can’t take it anymore, and as mayors we need more than just good words…our populations are turning to us, demanding firm, appropriate responses.
The same is true of many populations in Britain who, for years, have been fobbed off with good words about beefing up the borders. Nothing has been done and, 100 days into Keir Starmer’s government, Labour’s attitude to the migrant crisis appears to be ‘what crisis?’
In the meantime, who knows who is pouring through Europe’s porous borders. In June 2023, Thibault de Montbrial, president of the Centre for Reflection on Homeland Security in France, warned that that the Islamic State ‘has already started reintroducing active commando units’ into Europe.
French police reportedly foiled three Islamist attacks during the summer Olympics, and in August, in Germany, three festival goers were fatally stabbed by a man said to be acting in the name of the Islamic State. The intelligence services are doing their best to thwart the Islamists but it is one hell of a job.
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