Britain Raises Terror Alert Level, Reports Say

LONDON — Police officers armed with automatic weapons and accompanied by bomb-sniffing dogs stepped up patrols at airports on Friday amid reports that the terror alert for transportation hubs in Britain had been raised.

Local news reports quoted unnamed security officials as saying that the terror alert had been raised Friday for airports, rail stations and other transit centers.

Security officials said the measures were designed as precautions and there was no specific intelligence warning of an imminent attack, the news reports said, though the BBC reported that it had seen a government letter to aviation officials suggesting that Al Qaeda “may be considering an attack.”

The specific threat assessment for transport hubs was increased on Friday from “substantial” to “severe,” the officials said. The threat level for Britain as a whole has been at “severe” for a year, according to Scotland Yard.

The police would not confirm whether the threat levels had been raised.

British authorities use a twin-track security alert system, setting a national level that is usually made public while also making assessments of threats to specific areas, which are usually kept secret.

The first word of a possible heightened alert came on Thursday night when television stations reported that leave had been canceled for transport police.

News reports said the airports where security had been increased included London’s Heathrow and Luton, just north of the capital. It was not clear whether that alert was linked to a suicide bombing in Sweden last month by a Swede of Iraqi descent who had been living in Luton.

The newest alarm added to a catalog of counterterrorism measures in many parts of Europe.

In late December, after a series of coordinated raids in three cities, the police said they had charged nine of the 12 men they arrested, and released three without charge.

The nine men, including five who British news reports said were of Bangladeshi origin, were accused of offenses that included reconnoitering targets, reportedly including the American Embassy and the London Stock Exchange; conspiring to cause explosions and testing incendiary material. They are to appear again in court on Jan. 14.

In recent months, security authorities in several countries have said they are on the look-out for what they have termed a “Mumbai-style” attack, referring to the assault in 2008 in which 10 assailants rampaged through the Indian city, killing 163 people.

While the police have not made public the evidence on which their worries are based, the concerns echo a continuing drum-beat of alarms, beginning in October when the State Department in Washington warned about a planned attack in a European city.

On Dec. 14, the police in Germany moved against two Salafist networks accused of promoting the imposition of an Islamic state.

Then, at the end of December, the police in Denmark and Sweden rounded up a group of men they accused of plotting a revenge attack against a Danish newspaper that published satirical cartoons lampooning the Prophet Muhammad in 2005.

By: Alan Cowell (ny times)