Russian spies are distracting from terrorist hunt

Sunday Telegraph:

The distraction of combating espionage by President Dmitry Medvedev's agents makes it significantly more likely that one of the many Islamist terror plots will succeed, Whitehall officials believe.

The warning comes after it was revealed last week that Russia is now considered the third most serious threat facing the country. The "league table" of threats to the nation's security is headed by al'Qa'eda terrorism, with Iranian nuclear proliferation second.

Britain has raised the problem posed by Russian agents at diplomatic levels, but the concerns were dismissed. "The Government has spoken to Moscow and asked them to stop but their response is 'everyone spies on everyone [else]'," one senior security source said.

"MI5's resources have been stretched to the limit for the past few years. There have been times when there was nothing left in the locker, when all of our assets were being used on one operation.

"At the same time, we have to contend with the very real threat being posed by the Russians. Russia is a country which is under suspicion of committing murder on British streets and it must be assumed that having done it once they will do it again."

The source said MI5 was so stretched that some recent counter-terrorist operations against Muslim extremists had used up its entire surveillance resources, meaning other areas of security and intelligence work had inevitably suffered.

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There problems are compounded by the goofy lawfare process that is turning al Qaeda operatives back on the street requiring 24 hour surveillance, rather than keeping them in detention or extraditing them to their former countries. The lawfare approach is causing as much problem as the Russian spies, if not more.