The United Kingdom is doubling its anti-terrorism squad in light of increased concerns that al-Qaeda suicide terrorists might target London, the London Independent reported today.

Authorities will deploy an extra 830 officers throughout the country, Assistant Commissioner David Veness, head of specialist operations at the Metropolitan Police, said yesterday (see GSN, June 6).

Meanwhile, Scotland Yard is developing a new detector to help officers search for terrorists who wear explosives and shrapnel on their bodies, according to the Independent.

Assessing the Threat

Although there is no specific information of a particular terrorist threat, “inevitably a suicide attack will occur in Western Europe,” Veness said Wednesday during a European security conference in London (Jason Bennetto, London Independent, June 20).

The Sept. 11 attacks in the United States demonstrated the scale of the “new dimension of terrorism,” meaning suicide attacks with mass casualties and no notice, Veness said.  He said a nuclear or biological attack is “sadly the next logical step.”

“Since Sept. 11, we need to add in the dimension of the CBRN (chemical, biological, radioactive and nuclear) threat,” Veness said.

Jurgen Storbeck, director of the European Union’s police agency Europol, also predicted an attack in Europe.

“Most experts, and I agree with them, are not discussing ‘if’ there is a new attack but ‘when’ and ‘by whom,’” he said.  “There is a threat to the European Union, to the institutions of the EU and citizens of the EU” (Reuters/Yahoo.com, June 19).

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said today that the risk of terrorist attacks remains high.

“I don’t think we should stop being vigilant at all.  The threat levels are still there.  They are high,” he said (Reuters, June 20).

Calls for Better Intelligence

Meanwhile, the British Foreign Affairs select committee issued a report today saying the United Kingdom is “appallingly vulnerable” to a major terrorist attack and called for better intelligence efforts.

“If one lesson comes out of our consideration of why the attacks at 11 Sept., 2001, were able to succeed, it is that priority must be given to the gathering, assessment and use of high-grade intelligence information,” the report said.

Before Sept. 11, British and U.S. intelligence agencies cooperated closely, according to the report, but information was not properly shared, interpreted and acted upon (see GSN, Dec. 6, 2001).

The committee also called on British authorities to clarify their view of U.S. President George W. Bush’s policy to use nuclear weapons first if necessary against states that sponsor terrorism (AFX European Focus, June 20).

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