Obama Snubs UK’s MI5, Sends CIA to Investigate Extremism Threat in UK

The Daily Mail wrote recently this week that US President Barack Obama has sent a special CIA unit to investigate British extremists, whereas the move is seen as a snub of Britain’s MI5 and MI6 intelligence agencies.

In a pointed snub to MI5, the agents arrived on a “mission” to interrogate senior security experts about the radicalization of Britons.

The “mission” was revealed as security services have been “forced to admit they are struggling to keep track of the estimated 500 Britons who have travelled to fight alongside” the so-called “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant” [ISIL] in Syria and Iraq, the Daily Mail reported on Sunday.

The CIA feels British efforts to provide a reliable assessment of the threat posed by and identify the members of extremist Westerners have been inadequate,
sources from the American spy agency told the Daily Mail.

While the US normally relies on information from MI5 and MI6 for intelligence within the UK, it is unusual for the CIA to send a team to investigate the country’s closest ally. Therefore, sources told The Mail on Sunday that the agents were keen to establish the “stability” of the relationship between the Sunni and Shia branches of Muslims in Britain.

According to the Daily Mail, the Obama administration has become “increasingly anxious” about “strong links” between American and British extremists, and the potential for Americans to follow the lead of their UK counterparts in fighting alongside “ISIL.”

Furthermore, Professor Anthony Glees, of the Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies at Buckingham University, said to the Daily Mail that, “The US is worried about the British situation. They fear there might be a knock-on effect for them.”

“The Americans regard the UK as a disaster because of our lax stance on immigration which has allowed this militancy to take hold,” Glees added.

“Frankly, they would not be doing their jobs properly if it did not do this – forming an objective view of the situation outside of the reports they get from MI5 and their officers at the US Embassy in London,” he said.