Britain's MI5 chief warns against 'startling' pull of ISIS

The head of Britain's MI5 intelligence service on Wednesday issued a warning over the "startling" pull of Islamic State (ISIS) propaganda among people who may have never even visited its Middle East bases.

Andrew Parker said a large majority of terrorist plots thwarted by the British security services and Western allies last year were the work of such individuals, who had been inspired by the terrorist network's ideology from afar.

"The pull of this propaganda is startling: of the plots thwarted by police and MI5 and our Western allies in 2018, 80 per cent were conducted by people inspired by the ideology of IS but who had never actually been in contact with it in Syria or Iraq," Parker writes in an article in the Evening Standard'.

The intelligence chief hailed the fall of the so-called caliphate of ISIS in Syria as a hugely symbolic and significant military defeat but warned against complacency.

"We also know that, despite their losses, IS' remaining members are intent on directing .