Former MI6 spy chief warns of a ‘serious spike’ of threats by Islamic State as the Syrian regime falls

The former head of MI6 Sir Alex Younger has said the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime could cause a “serious spike” of threats by Islamic State (IS).

On Sunday Assad and his family fled Syria for Moscow and Islamic fighter who are being held by Kurdish groups could escape should their captors “go off the job” Sir Alex has warned.

There are literally thousands of IS fighters who are in detention facilities across Syria and there is grave concerns over the security of the jails and them being released.

Younger told BBC News, “For us, I think we need to be realistic. The reality, the one thing you know about Syria for sure, proven by history, is that attempts to impose change from the outside will not work.

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“This is very much a Syrian future for Syrians to decide and we should of course support anything that moves Syria towards a more positive state.

“But we also have some hard interests and the primary one of those as I have said before is the existence of a very large number of Isis detainees left over from the destruction of the caliphate, currently contained by the Kurdish groups in the east.

“But if they go off the job you can expect a serious spike in the threat posed to Europe by Isis.”

Former MI6 chief Richard Dearlove has warned of “lone-wolf” extremists who have been send to prison under the Assad regime could cause serious threats.

He said, “The organisational structure of (Daesh) is significantly weakened. The question is whether this fuels lone-wolf terrorists or an organised conspiracy.”

Hamish De Bretton-Gordon told Sky News on Monday that the UN and the international chemical weapons watchdog, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) must act quickly to prevent Assad’s stockpiles of chemical weapons from getting into the hands of terrorists.

He said that the OPCW must enter Syria “as soon as possible” to destroy the chemical weapons.

De Bretton-Gordon told Sky News, “There are certainly, or there were until a few weeks ago, large stocks, probably of the nerve agent sarin, which Assad used frequently against his own people.

They need to be removed, because it would be horrific if ISIS or other terror groups got hold of them.

He added the OPCW “removed Assad’s declared stockpile in 2014, but there was still a lot left over, which we saw used against civilians many times.

“A couple of times the US and the UK did bomb those facilities, but they need to be secured with a sense of urgency.”