Britain reacts to India MI5 warning
Tiffany PhillipsIndian officials are said to have given a warning to intelligence agencies in Britain concerning a suspected plot spearheaded by terrorists in Pakistan linked to al-Qaeda.
The alleged plot consisted of hijacking an Indian Airlines or Air India aircraft taking off form either Mumbai or Delhi, and crashing it into a city in Britain.
The revelation by the Indian authorities arrived 24 hours after the UK government acted on information which prompted the raising of the national level of terror threat to “severe”.
The move was suggesting that a terrorist attack was “highly likely”. However, Home Secretary Alan Johnson claimed the raise in the terror threat level was not related to a particular threat.
The Sunday Times claimed in a front-page article that Indian authorities informed their counterparts in MI5 about the alleged plot as early as last week following an interrogation with suspected militant Amjad Khwaja, who had been recently arrested in India.
Indian officials described Khwaja as a Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami “leader”. The group is believed to be behind terror attacks in India in the past.
The Sunday Times claimed that the Indian Intelligence Bureau had sent M15 a detailed threat assessment.
The report revealed that Britain was not a specific target, although security sources within the police the news had exacerbated fears in that a British city might be aimed at.
The news echoes the 2003 move by then Prime Minister Tony Blair to send armoured vehicles towards London’s Heathrow airport because of reports claiming al-Qaeda was planning to crash a hijacked plane.
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Filed under Politics, UK News, World News