Brits 'thwarted' UK 9/11
2004-11-23 10:53
London - British security services thwarted planned September 11-style terror attacks on Heathrow Airport and skyscrapers in Canary Wharf, a financial district of London, a television station and a newspaper reported.
But the reports, which quoted unidentified sources, did not say when or where the plots were uncovered, or how close they came to being carried out.
The plans to crash planes into the two high-profile targets were among four or five attacks planned by terrorists linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network that security chiefs believe they prevented, ITV News said on Monday night and the Daily Mail newspaper reported in its Tuesday editions.
ITV News also said that British authorities had disrupted training programmes for suicide pilots.
One of world's busiest airports
Officials at Britain's Home Office and Metropolitan Police in London refused to comment. A spokesperson at Prime Minister Tony Blair's Downing Street office said: "We never comment on security matters."
The Home Office and Britain's MI5 domestic security service are responsible for protecting the country against terrorist attacks.
Heathrow is one of the world's busiest airports. Canary Wharf, on the River Thames in east London, is the second-largest financial district in the capital and its three skyscrapers are home to companies such as Citibank and HSBC bank.
A year and a half ago, Blair was accused of alarmism when British troops in armoured vehicles surrounded Heathrow Airport. Blair's government insisted that the dramatic action came in response to specific intelligence.
Last summer, Pakistan gave British officials intelligence suggesting that al-Qaeda had plotted to attack Heathrow airport. The information was found on the computers of two accused members of Osama bin Laden's terror network arrested in Pakistan. The computers held images of Heathrow.
On November 8, the head of the MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller, said that counterterrorism efforts have helped to prevent attacks in Britain since the September 11 2001, attacks in the United States. She provided no details about such operations, but she said that Britons face a "serious and sustained threat" of terror attacks at home and abroad.
Sir John Stevens, the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, recently complained that he was not able to publicly discuss anti-terror successes for security reasons.
The ITV and Daily Mail reports came one day before Blair's government planned to outline its legislative programme for the coming year, with crime and security likely to be the focus. Plans for a national identity card in Britain were expected to be announced.
- AP