Britain’s security and intelligence agencies have been on a heightened state of alert for several weeks, fearing that al-Qaeda was planning an attack in this country.
Suspicions that the threat was growing preceded President George Bush’s visit to London and the suicide bombings in Istanbul this month, which were aimed, for the first time, at British interests abroad.
No information indicating any specific target or an imminent attack had been intercepted, but the activities of those believed to be connected to al-Qaeda were said to have escalated significantly.
Two weeks ago the intelligence services raised their internal warning level to its second highest state, from that of a ”significant” to a ”severe general” alert. The seven tier category of alerts was introduced after the Bali bombing in October last year.
The highest alert is triggered when there is an identified attack on the way to an identified target. Security services describe this as a ”defined” threat.
The blasts at the British consulate and the HSBC bank in Turkey’s largest city confirmed — as an earlier al-Qaeda statement predicted — that America’s allies in Iraq had moved to the top of the militant network’s target list. Britain was the first country mentioned in the statement.
The intelligence services and Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist branch agree that an al-Qaida atrocity in the UK is a matter of when, not if.
The heightened levels of security have resulted in tighter security around potential targets. Concrete barriers have been placed around Parliament and there have been roadside checks on vehicles by police. The Jewish community has also been pressing for improved safeguards.
Security sources have acknowledged there may be two different cells of al-Qaida activists working in Britain, one thought to consist of North Africans.
Two months ago Sir John Stevens, commissioner of the Metropolitan police, said the threat of a suicide attack within Britain had taken a ”quantum leap” following bombings this year in Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Russia and Iraq. – Guardian Unlimited Â