A career spy who has tracked the emerging threat from Al-Qaeda in Britain became the new boss of MI5 this weekend, writes Dipesh Gadher.

Jonathan Evans, who joined the security service in 1980 and has served as deputy director-general for the past two years, provides continuity at a crucial time.

His predecessor, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, said in a rare public speech last year that MI5 had identified 30 serious terrorist plots in Britain and was targeting more than 1,600 suspects engaged in promoting attacks.

Evans, 49, a classics graduate from Bristol University, has worked in counter-espionage, counter-terrorism in Northern Ireland and protective security. During the 1990s he was seconded to the Home Office, where he helped to develop policy on protecting VIPs.

In 1999 Evans became assistant director of international counter-terrorism, leading the first investigation in Britain to target an Al-Qaeda suspect when Moinul Abedin, of Birmingham, was jailed for 20 years in a bomb plot.

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