Mi6 set to hire 1,000 new spies to deal with increased threats from radical terror groups

THE UK’s Secret Intelligence Service is going on a hiring spree with almost 1,000 new spies set to join by 2020 to deal with terrorism.

The new members of staff will join the ranks against a backdrop of increased threats to peace from radical groups that could last for decades, it has been reported.

Mi6 will grow from 2,500 people to close to 3,500 because of the increased strain placed on its operations by the internet and technological developments, according to BBC Newsnight.

The 2015 National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review set out plans to employ 1,900 additional staff in the UK’s security and intelligence agencies.

No public announcement has been made as to how many of those extra employees would be allocated to MI6.

But the BBC says Whitehall sources have confirmed that Mi6 is due to get the majority, with the rest to be shared out between the Security Service (MI5), GCHQ and police Counter Terrorism Command.

It comes amid claims security services are under “persistent” and sustained threat from terror groups like Islamic State.

In a rare public appearance, the head of Mi6 Alex Younger insisted Britain had made significant improvements in the way it tackled terrorism but admitted there was little sign of the “enduring” danger disappearing soon.

Appearing alongside international counterparts at a national security conference in the United States, the Secret Intelligence Service chief said technological advances presented both an “existential threat and a golden opportunity”.

Asked if the terror threat from groups like IS had reached its apex, Mr Younger said: “I would like to be optimistic about this but we have got quite long experience of this phenomena now and I see it very much as the flip side to some very deep-seated global trends, not least of all globalisation, the reduction of barriers between us.

“It’s a function also of the information revolution and the capacity for ideas to travel. It is fuelled by a deepening sectarian divide in the Middle East and there are some deep social economic and demographic drivers to the phenomenon that we know as terrorism.

“Allied with the emergence of state failure this means that, regrettably, this is an enduring issue which will certainly be with us, I believe, for our professional lifetime.”