Rumours of the existence of a surface-to-air missile in the hands of al-Qaeda terrorists received wide publicity in Britain on Wednesday, as 1 500 police and troops with tanks conducted a highly publicised deployment at London’s main airport.
Home Secretary David Blunkett said the immediate threats to the country were ”not verifiable”, as British TV showed tanks and soldiers in camouflage around Heathrow airport.
The highly visible deployment began on Tuesday, on the express orders of Prime Minister Tony Blair, but neither the police nor the Ministry of Defence would detail the nature of the threat Britain was facing.
Blunkett said on Wednesday the cabinet had considered closing Heathrow but had decided such an action would have been a victory for terrorists and ”catastrophic” for Britain’s economy.
Asked about the nature of the intelligence which led to the action, Blunkett said: ”The immediate threats are not verifiable, therefore we are working on finding out more information.”
The US administration has also put the country on a high state of alert, advising people to stock up on food.
In Britain, a remark by a terrorist expert working for the Jane’s group of publications to the effect that al-Qaeda could have smuggled a SAM into the country appeared to have sparked a string of reports on a missile threat, although official sources would not comment.
Britain’s most senior police officer, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens said late onn Tuesday: ”I don’t want people to panic, people should not be alarmed. They should be alert.”
He added the alert applied to the whole of London, but the security presence was most visible at Heathrow, where some approach roads and a parking lot near the flight path were closed.
Blair’s official representative would not disclose details of the threat, saying only there were ”good operational and security reasons why we are not commenting in detail on this”.
The authorities said the ”precautionary” move was linked to fears al-Qaeda could use the Moslem festival of Eid, which runs from Wednesday to Saturday, as a trigger for an attack on London.
The press drew parallels with the rocket attack in Kenya in November when some 270 passengers and crew escaped after two missiles narrowly missed an Israeli jet taking off from Mombasa airport.
The Soviet-made SAMs were fired from 12 kilometres away. In the northern English city of Manchester, police stepped up security at the airport, instituting spot checks by armed officers. Police said no troops were involved and there was no specific
intelligence to indicate an attack was imminent.
Moslem leaders were sceptical of the link to Eid. Zaki Badawi, director of the Moslem College, suggested engendering a ”war spirit” could be behind the highly public moves, pointing to the looming war with Iraq.
Massoud Shadjareh, chairman of the London-based Islamic Human Rights Commission, said he was deeply insulted that a terrorist alert had been linked to Eid.
”It is like suggesting that Christians would use Christmas to bomb Jewish, Muslim or Buddhist communities. It is unbelievable rubbish,” he said. – Sapa-DPA