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Suicide attacks 'logical'
04/09/2003 21:25 - (SA)
London - The possibility of London being hit by a suicide bombing is the "logical conclusion" of events across the world since the September 11, 2001 attacks, Britain's interior minister, David Blunkett, said on Thursday.
Home Secretary Blunkett refused to describe an attack on the capital as "inevitable" but said Londoners had to be prepared for the possibility and that the government could not "guarantee" complete public safety.
His comments came a day after a warning from Britain's top police chief Sir John Stevens, who said a terrorist attack on Britain was inevitable.
Asked whether a suicide bombing in London was inevitable, Blunkett said:
"I am not using 'inevitability', I am simply drawing on the fact that this has been said both by Sir John previously and the head of MI5 (Britain's domestic intelligence service), and it's a logical conclusion from everything that has happened across the world, that we need to be prepared for that."
Blunkett was speaking as he toured a new healthcare centre at a young offenders institute in London. Anti-terror exercise
His comments came ahead of a major anti-terror exercise in central London on Sunday to simulate a chemical or biological attack on the underground rail system.
Blunkett said the exercise, being staged by emergency services, "is part of the preparation, the resilience, the making sure that we block the loopholes, learn the lessons, that where there are weaknesses we overcome them.
"It is the preparation, the good intelligence, the security that is protecting us at the moment," he added.
"We cannot, in the end, guarantee to the public that we will always be able to protect them from the kind of suicide, the kind of intimidation, the kind of terror that we have seen happening right across the world since September 11, 2001."
Sunday's emergency drill will see the area around Bank metro station, in the heart of London's busy financial district, turned into a temporary ghost town as the emergency response to a terrorist attack is rehearsed.
The plan was first announced by Blunkett in March but was postponed because of the war in Iraq. Two major alerts
Since the start of 2003, London has faced two major security alerts believed to be linked to al-Qaeda, the group blamed for the September 11 terror attacks on the United States.
In January, police seized traces of the deadly poison ricin from a north London flat.
The following month, armed troops and tanks formed a ring around London's busy Heathrow airport following another scare.
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