UK atrocities planned - Met chief

BBC
Dec. 22, 2005

Terrorist groups are "currently planning atrocities in the United Kingdom", Metropolitan Police Chief Commissioner Sir Ian Blair has warned.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today he knew this was the case because "we are listening to some of them, and we are watching some of them".

The key question, he said, was whether they were tracking "all of them".

Sir Ian said three plots had been disrupted since July, adding: "The threat is real. It's present with us."

He told the programme police were "carrying out 75% more" anti-terror operations than before the 7 July attacks in London.

Unlike bombers of the 1970s and 1980s, groups were capable of "mass atrocity without warning", he added.

'Threat is real'

Sir Ian said: "There are people in the United Kingdom who are currently planning atrocities in the United Kingdom.... it doesn't mean that they will get through but it does mean that we are facing a new morality."

He was asked about the Independent Police Complaints Commission's inquiry into Sir Ian's handling of the aftermath of the death of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes on 22 July.

Police had mistakenly suspected he was a potential bomber.

Mr Menezes' family says Sir Ian "misled" the public after police shot the electrician dead at Stockwell Tube station.

Sir Ian, who said he could not go into detail while the inquiry was on-going, told Today: "On that morning, the Metropolitan Police was facing its greatest operational crisis it had ever known."

Four bombers were "on the loose", but he added: "That's not an excuse; it's merely part of the context."

Sir Ian said the Met would be transparent, but asked if he would "carry the can" for the killing, he said: "No.... the man at the top is responsible, utterly responsible, and I will deal with that in due course.

"Conjecture about possible resignations is, frankly, not worth the air time."

A second aspect of the Menezes family's complaint - that Scotland Yard delayed informing it of the death - will be incorporated into the main IPCC inquiry expected to conclude by the end of the year.