THE UK:Warnings were issued three months ago about the threat of a terrorist campaign to mark the end of Tony Blair's premiership, security sources have revealed.
As the threat level was raised to "critical" on Saturday, it emerged that two agencies - the Centre for the Protection of the National Infrastructure, which reports to MI5 [UK counterintelligence], and the
National Counter Terrorism Security Office, which reports to chief police officers - warned in April about the possibility of a renewed campaign.
Nightclub owners were recently told they could be the targets of car bombs in a precautionary exercise which saw them issued with pamphlets and given other guidance.
But sources yesterday denied claims by the US network ABC that intelligence officials were warned a fortnight ago of an impending attack on "airport infrastructure or aircraft" in Glasgow.
A senior security source said of the latest assessment: "The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre [Jtac] assessed that a group of individuals, it is not known how many, clearly had the capability and the intent to carry out attacks on the UK.
"Therefore there was a strong likelihood of further attacks," he said.
Jtac also warned that al-Qaeda's "Kurdish network in Iran [was] planning what we believe may be a large-scale attack against a western target".
It added: "A member of this network is reportedly involved in an operation which he believes requires al-Qaeda core authorisation. We assess that this operation is most likely to be a largescale mass casualty attack." Jtac's threat levels are based on current intelligence, recent events and what is known of terrorist intentions and capabilities.
The term "critical" denotes that an attack is "expected imminently". It is the result of an overall intelligence assessment, not specific intelligence.
Police have recently stepped up searches of vehicles, including
tankers, entering London. UK government officials, referring to
communications intercepts, said yesterday there had been "quite
loud chatter for months" of plans to attack Britain.
But they said there was nothing specific and such reports and claims came in every day. The threat level was last assessed as critical in August last year after the discovery of the alleged plot to blow up passenger airliners over the Atlantic. It was reduced to severe shortly afterwards.
Threat level warnings by Jtac - a group including officers from MI5, MI6 [UK secret service], GCHQ [the UK's main listening station], and British police's National Counter Terrorism Command - are based on intelligence- led assessments and involve difficult judgments.
Just how difficult became clear when the level was reduced a month before the July 7th London suicide bombings in 2005.
Some security and intelligence officials express concern about the threat level system, which was made public last August after a number of leaks of Jtac reports. Though the levels were given new names and their definitions simplified, they are open to misinterpretation, some officials believe.
Against the backdrop of the latest alert, five law lords will be asked this week to decide whether the control order regime for suspected terrorists violates the European convention on human rights.
Control orders, with restrictions which include 12-hour or 14-hour curfews, and bans on internet access and unauthorised visitors, were introduced in the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 after the law lords ruled indefinite detention without charge for foreign terror suspects in Belmarsh prison breached their human rights.
In a five-day hearing starting on Thursday, lawyers for nine men placed on control orders will argue that the system breaches their right to liberty under article 5 of the European convention, and their right to a fair trial under article 6.
The law lords will be asked to rule whether the system under which judges confirm control orders after looking at intelligence material concealed from the suspect is incompatible with the right to a fair trial.