The British MI5 intelligence service has created a list of 350 potential terrorist targets within the United Kingdom, including government buildings, military installations and nuclear power plants, the London Times reported today (see GSN, May 14).

The MI5 list includes the United Kingdom’s 15 nuclear power plants, according to the Times.  In response, British authorities have increased security measures at nuclear power plants.  The Sellafield plutonium reprocessing plant also was noted as needing increased security, the Times reported (see GSN, Jan. 22).

The biological and chemical weapons defense research center at Porton Down and the nuclear weapons facility at Aldermaston were also on the MI5 list, according to the Times (see GSN, May 10).  British military bases, including the Trident submarine base at Faslane, were also seen as potentially vulnerable to a terrorist attack.

The threat of suicide attacks, which the United Kingdom has never experienced even with Irish Republican Army terrorist activity, has made it almost impossible to completely protect many of the sites on the MI5 list, the Times reported.  The MI5 security analysis factored in suicide attacks as well as potential attacks conducted with hijacked airliners.  There is no evidence of a specific terrorist threat against any of the sites listed by MI5, according to the Times (Michael Evans, London Times, June 6).

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