Britain is top Al-Qaeda target, says report
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
London, Oct 19, IRNA
UK-Terror threats
Britain has become the main target for a resurgent Al-Qaeda despite a four-year military campaign to seek out and kill its leaders, it was reported Thursday.
Counter-terrorist officials said that Al-Qaeda had successfully regrouped and now presents a greater threat than ever before, according to the Guardian newspaper.
"Intelligence experts fear the UK is a target as never before, with extremists intent on carrying out a huge spectacular, on the scale of the US atrocities in 2001," the daily reported.
"They viewed 7/7 as just the beginning," one senior source was quoted as saying.
"Al-Qaeda sees the UK as a massive opportunity to cause loss of life and embarrassment to the authorities," the source said.
Intelligence chiefs with access to the most comprehensive and up to date information told the Guardian that Al-Qaeda has"substantially recovered its organization in Pakistan."
It was said to have revised their views about the strength of the network abroad and the methods terrorists are able to use in the UK.
More worrying, officials said, is evidence of new techniques that would-be terrorists within the UK have adopted.
The structure of cells was said to be self-contained units similar to the organization of the IRA in Northern Ireland.
Even though the police and M15 security service had disrupted terror plots and groups influenced by Al-Qaeda, counter-intelligence officials said the networks were "very resilient" and there was a "frightening number of young men" willing to replace those arrested.
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