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| Britain |
| Al-Qaeda attack on London inevitable |
| 2005-02-05 |
| It is "inevitable" that Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network will try to stage an attack in London, the British capital's new police chief said in an interview. Sir Ian Blair's warning in the Daily Telegraph newspaper echoed similar concerns expressed a year ago by Sir John Stevens, his predecessor as Metropolitan Police commissioner. "It is inevitable that terrorists connected with Al-Qaeda will attempt to carry out an atrocity in London," said Blair, 51, who took over as Britain's most senior police officer on Tuesday. "I know that because they have. It is difficult to calculate whether it is inevitable that they will get through." Al-Qaeda, perpetrator of the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington in 2001, is regarded by the British government as "the most significant terrorist threat" to the nation. Besides day-to-day policing in greater London, the Metropolitan Police is responsible for anti-terrorist operations all over Britain. Blair told the Daily Telegraph that he backed the introduction of identity cards in Britain, saying they would help identify suspects in anti-terrorist raids. He also called for telephone wiretaps to be allowed as evidence in terrorist trials. Stevens, who has retired, spoke of the "inevitability" of an Al-Qaeda attack on London shortly after the Madrid commuter train bombings in March last year in which 191 people died. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |