Speaking at St. Andrews University in Scotland this week, the chief of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6, publicly confirmed one of Britain and America’s greatest counterterrorism successes of recent memory: disrupting major Islamic State directed attacks on European soil.

Alex Younger, or “C” as SIS chiefs are traditionally known, noted that over the past two years British intelligence services have “disrupted multiple serious Daesh attack plans originating overseas that, if successful, would have caused significant loss of life.” Younger continued, “This includes an important contribution to helping European countries, particularly our French and German allies, prevent terrorist attacks in their countries or against their citizens.”