British police believe they have foiled a nerve-gas attack by the al-Qaeda terrorist network on the British parliament, the Sunday Times reported.
The newspaper said the plot to target the House of Commons, or lower house, was prepared last year and had been discovered in coded e-mails on computers seized from terror suspects in the UK and Pakistan.
"Police and [domestic intelligence agency] MI5 then identified an al-Qaeda cell that had carried out extensive research and video-recorded reconnaissance missions in preparation for the attack," it said.
The paper based its report on an internal police document it said it had obtained detailing a meeting of senior police officers held last month.
It quoted an unnamed senior police officer as saying that the plot involved a gas or chemical "dirty bomb" attack against parliament.
"The House of Commons was one of their targets as well as the Tube [Underground subway network]," he reportedly said.
"They were planning to use chemicals, a dirty bomb and sarin gas. They looked at all sorts of ways of delivering it," he said.
The report said police had decoded the e-mails with the help of an informant from al-Qaeda, which sprung to international notoriety with attacks including the Sept. 11, 2001 strikes against the US.
The network is also believed to have at least inspired, if not directed, last month's bomb attacks on London.
"By revealing the terrorists' code he [the informant] was also able to help MI5 and GCHQ, the government's eavesdropping center at Cheltenham, to crack several more plots," the report said.
As a result, security had been increased around the British parliament in the middle of this year, the report said.
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