The British Army is to engage in social media warfare, its most senior soldier has announced as he launched a new division of the military dedicated to fighting cyber threats.

Lieutenant General Ivan Jones, the Commander of the Field Army, said the division would operate “above and below the threshold of conventional conflict" to counter malign Russian activity and threats from technologically sophisticated terror groups such as Isil.

The new formation, titled 6 Division (6 Div), will seek to influence the behaviour of the public and adversaries by specialising in “information warfare”. It is expected to react to social media "attacks" on Britain, and proactively launch similar offensives.

The new Division will be the army's first dedicated information warfare formation, with troops trained in cyber capabilities and others trained in more advanced soldiering skills such as covert surveillance or advanced weaponry working together.

The new specialists will come from existing army units, along with a small number from the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, and be a mix of regular service personnel and reservists. All will be subject to their existing terms of service and have to pass the normal fitness tests.

“We need to develop our asymmetric edge and bring focus to the orchestration of intelligence, information operations, cyber, electronic warfare and unconventional warfare,” Lt Gen Jones said.