Britain said yesterday it had thwarted "at least" four major terror attacks since the July 7 bombings last year, while up to 24 separate threats were under investigation, as police probed the foiled bid to explode aircraft en route to the US.
Police had swooped on key suspects on Thursday over an alleged plot to wreak mass murder by smuggling liquids in hand baggage onto US-bound planes to assemble into bombs.
Questioned about how many terrorist attacks had been stopped since the London bombings in July last year, Home Secretary John Reid told the BBC News 24 television channel on yesterday: "I can tell you that at least four major plots have been thwarted."
Reid said that the plots would have led to significant loss of life and indicated that up to two dozen terror investigations were currently being pursued, confirming reports that police were hunting that number of terror cells in Britain.
"I'm not going to confirm an exact number but I wouldn't deny that that would indicate the number of major conspiracies that we are trying to look at," Reid said.
Regarding Thursday's terror raids, a Metropolitan Police spokewoman said yesterday that enquiries were ongoing and searches continuing while 23 suspects remained in custody.
"We think we have the main suspects in this particular plot," Reid added.
"I have to be honest and say on the basis of what we know, there could be others out there ... so the threat of a terrorist attack in the UK is still very substantial," he said.
Britain on Thursday upped its security alert to "critical."
Meanwhile, the global investigation into last week's alleged plot has turned increasingly to Pakistan and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, amid fears that worse plans could be afoot.
The Times yesterday said one of the suspects under arrest could be "Al-Qaeda's leader" in Britain. However, the newspaper did not name the suspect.
also see stories:
Terrorism experts cast doubt on al-Qaeda tie to arrests
Britons and others cast skeptical eyes on terror plot claims
Foiled UK terror plot casts cloud on airline industry
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
NO CONFIDENCE MOTION? The premier said that being toppled by the legislature for defending the Constitution would be a democratic badge of honor for him Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday announced that the Cabinet would not countersign the amendments to the local revenue-sharing law passed by the Legislative Yuan last month. Cho said the decision not to countersign the amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) was made in accordance with the Constitution. “The decision aims to safeguard our Constitution,” he said. The Constitution stipulates the president shall, in accordance with law, promulgate laws and issue mandates with the countersignature of the head of the Executive Yuan, or with the countersignatures of both the head of the Executive Yuan and ministers or
CABINET APPROVAL: People seeking assisted reproduction must be assessed to determine whether they would be adequate parents, the planned changes say Proposed amendments to the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) advanced yesterday by the Executive Yuan would grant married lesbian couples and single women access to legal assisted reproductive services. The proposed revisions are “based on the fundamental principle of respecting women’s reproductive autonomy,” Cabinet spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) quoted Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), who presided over a Cabinet meeting earlier yesterday, as saying at the briefing. The draft amendment would be submitted to the legislature for review. The Ministry of Health and Welfare, which proposed the amendments, said that experts on children’s rights, gender equality, law and medicine attended cross-disciplinary meetings, adding that
RSS