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Digital concept which shows abstract background and Terrorist alert text with fingerprint

EXPERT PERSPECTIVE — MI5 Director General, Ken McCallum’s, joint address on 6th July with the FBI Chief saw a welcome rebalancing of the Security Service’s focus towards nation-state threats. Counter Terrorism is an important function but it was allowed to dominate for two decades while Russia, China and some other belligerent states were insufficiently monitored.

The 9/11 attack was so huge that it blew Western foreign policy off course for two decades. 9/11’s impact did not merely derive from the large number of deaths (almost ten times the next largest terrorist incident) but also because it was viewed as a new form of particularly dangerous Islamist terrorism. The extraordinary television footage, both enthralling and horrifying, together with the iconic targets produced a vision of terror in a league of its own.

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