Theme: This ARI reviews the recent developments in the UK’s Counter-terrorism policies and the new Prime Minister’s 25 July ‘Statement on Security’ within the wider context of the response to multi-faceted CT challenges.
Summary: In this ARI the UK’s counter-terrorism (CT) response strategies and structures are shown to be dynamic in character, reflecting the experiences from terrorist attacks, evidence from disrupted plots and the recognition of organisational weaknesses. The Paper explains the rationale behind the major organisational change in the remit of the UK’s ‘lead’ CT Ministry, the Home Office, and the renewed emphasis on the need for inter-departmental coordination. It critically analyses the new Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s 25 July ‘Statement on Security’ within the wider context of the response to multi-faceted CT challenges and, more specifically, considers his proposals by reference to an initial analysis of the attempted terrorism-related car bomb attacks (VBIED) in June 2007 in central London and at Glasgow Airport.
Analysis
‘… a generation-long challenge to defeat al-Qaeda-inspired violence’
(Prime Minister Gordon Brown, July 2007)
Introduction
The UK has made some very significant changes to its counter-terrorism (CT) governance structures during the last 12 months and plans to continue to make further changes.[1] Whilst these do not amount to the establishment of a US DHS type of structure, they do represent, in totality, the recognition that the UK’s counter-terrorism effort needed more central drive, cohesion, integration and accountability. Part of this has been achieved by creating a Government departmental structure more akin to that found in other EU states by slimming down the Home Office into more of an Interior Ministry and creating a separate Ministry of Justice. During this period, the UK has had a major change in the top leadership of the Labour Government with Gordon Brown replacing Tony Blair as Prime Minister in June 2007. That month also saw the UK experiencing its first Islamist terrorism-related car bomb incidents (VBIEDs), two in London and one at Glasgow Airport Terminal.
It is a little early in a new Prime Minister’s office to assess any real degree of change in CT policy and practice, especially as some of the structural changes only took place in the last months of the Blair period. However, there does seem to be a conscious move towards enhancing the consensual and bipartisan approach to CT policy. This is particularly seen in the approach to lengthening the permitted period of pre-charge detention, under judicial supervision, to more than the 28 days available under the Terrorism Act 2006 (TA 2006). In the summer of 2005, the former PM Tony Blair had, effectively, demanded that Parliament agree to a 90-day maximum period increase from the then permitted 14 days to reflect a police service ‘ideal’ period for complex investigations, a demand that Parliament rejected.
Whilst the UK remains committed to its ‘lead department’ governance model for the management of the three main types of civil contingencies ‘natural disasters, man-made disasters and acts of terrorism’, it remains very evident that interdepartmental and inter agency co-ordination and co-operation is a fundamental prerequisite for the effective working of the ‘lead department’ system. This point relates particularly to three aspects of current UK CT strategy. First, the Action Plan ‘Preventing Violent Extremism: winning hearts and minds depends upon co-operation and co-ordination between the Home Office (HO), Foreign Office (FCO), the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) and a myriad of local authorities and bodies such as the Commission for Integration and Cohesion.[2]
Secondly, for nearly two decades, the UK has periodically reflected upon the issue of the desirability of having a single border control service. UK border controls are exercised by the preventive border controls division of HM Revenue and Customs, the Immigration and Nationalities Service (under the HO) and the Police Special Branch Ports and Airports Units of the UK police Forces. After the London bombings of July 2005, PM Blair seemed to be proposing to move quickly to set up a unified service but nothing significant happened. However, in his ‘Statement on Security’ of 25 July 2007, PM Brown announced that the UK would have a unified border force to ” strengthen the powers and surveillance capacity” of the border control personnel.[3] The initiative aims to bring together the HO’s Border and Immigration Agency (BIA), which includes UK Visas and HM Revenue and Customs Border Controls staff. Moreover, the BIA Borders staff has become a uniformed element of that agency. This initiative is, however, not quite what it seems. The BIA was actually created in April 2007 ‘although it will not achieve full operational status until 2008’, proposals to uniform some BIA personnel were outlined by the former Home Secretary John Reid and discussions about the relationship of the Police Borders presence to the unified Borders Force have yet to be concluded.[4]
Quite what the PM has in mind is not too clear, despite the high profile announcement. His statement of 25 July 2007 said ” we will now integrate the vital work of the Border and Immigration Agency, Customs and UK Visas overseas and at the main points of entry to the UK and establish a unified Border Force.'[5] The Cabinet Secretary is expected to report in October 2007 on the implementations stages and ” whether there is a case for going further”, presumably by bringing in the police. Yet on 2 July 2007, the Government Minister Lord Bassam of Brighton was telling the House of Lords that ‘we would not consider merging these three distinct services with their specialisms’ but we insist they co-ordinate their intelligence and tactical deployment’.[6] Does the disparity between the two statements indicate that part of the reflections on the car bomb attempts suggested the need for a real impetus on strengthening border controls?
The third issue of inter-departmental and inter-agency coordination relates to the capacity to match resources to the demands of specific person-checking systems. Most seriously, seven terrorist suspects subject to control orders under TA2006 have managed to evade their personal control regimes and go missing. In another policy area context, several of those who came to attention in respect of the car bomb incidents were doctors from overseas working in the National Health Service (NHS). All new medical staff, both from within the UK and from overseas should undergo security checks before starting employment. However, because of problems with a new junior-doctors’ training scheme, in 2007 ” hundreds of junior doctors, including overseas staff, will be employed by hospitals’ without [previously] undergoing proper security checks’.[7] Jeremy Levy, Director of Medical Educational at the Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust in West London, said ‘Overseas doctors can take months to check. We have no choice but to allow them to work until we have received full police clearance’.[8] These three areas of problematic CT-related inter-departmental and inter-agency co-ordination have been identified to act as reality caveats in relation to PM Brown’s aspirations for enhancing UK CT plc.
This analysis will consider: general issues of CT strategy and structure, the implications of the VBIED attempts and, against this background, review the Prime Minister’s Statement of 25 July 2007 and its associated supporting documents.
Strategy and Structure: A Further Elaboration
In strategy terms, the UK currently has the overarching ‘Contest’ or ‘4Ps’ (Prevention, Pursuit, Protection and Preparedness) CT strategy[9] and a number of linked and specialised strategies with associated programmes, such as the Action Plan ‘Preventing Violent Extremism: Winning Hearts and Minds’ and the ‘Security Counter-Terrorism Science Innovation Strategy 2007′. However, in his 25 July speech, PM Brown set out his new aim of publishing Britain’s first national security strategy in the autumn of 2007 and creating a single security budget. This appears to be linked to the perception that ” our country and all countries’ have to confront a generation-long challenge to defeat al-Qaeda-inspired violence’.[10]
It is also linked to the structural changes in CT governance that accompanied the splitting of the HO at the end of PM Blair’s period of office. The broad portfolio of responsibilities that was covered by the remit of the HO was a long-standing problem. Matters came to a head in 2006 after a series of examples of serious administrative weakness in the handling of asylum and immigration cases coupled with the post-completion of sentence disposal of foreign prisoners by deportation. The then Home Secretary stated that parts of the HO were not ‘fit for purpose’. Rather suddenly and without any public consultation process PM Blair approved a proposal, in February 2007, to move responsibilities for prisons and the criminal justice system to a new Ministry of Justice, currently headed by Jack Straw. This left the HO with those responsibilities that were similar to an Interior Ministry as found in other EU states. Those responsibilities basically covered the internal security areas of crime prevention and control, counter-terrorism, immigration and asylum, the police service and MI5.[11]
An important feature of these changes has been the establishment of a more visibly focussed governance structure for the delivery of UK CT policy. At the top is a Ministerial Committee on Security and CT (called by PM Brown the National Security Committee), chaired by the PM and meeting monthly. Additionally, a Weekly Security Briefing is held under the chairmanship of the Home Secretary. Moreover, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has gone outside the normal range of Party MPs or Peers for specific skills in this area and has appointed a retired Admiral with experience in the intelligence area, now Lord West of Spithead, as Home Office Minister with special responsibility for security and counter-terrorism and a former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, now Lord Stevens, as his adviser on international terrorism.[12] Within the HO what was the former and rather low-profile Terrorism Protection Unit, later lost from view under the umbrella of ‘crime prevention and community safety’, has been revitalised as the Office for Security and Counter Terrorism (OSCT). Its aims are stated to be ” to bring a new drive, more cohesion and greater strategic capacity to our fight against terrorism…’ and ‘… to deliver a system that is inclusive and integrated with real political accountability’.[13] OSCT has a Director-General level civil servant in charge, Charles Farr, a former FCO official who has held senior security and CT posts since 2003. It is reported that ‘… Whitehall sources said he was now the key figure behind the Government’s drive to develop strategies to deal with international terrorism’.[14] Moreover, perhaps underlining the aspirations for Mr Farr’s new role, the status of the previously powerful Permanent Secretary for Security, Intelligence and Resilience in the Cabinet Office has been downgraded to below the rank of Permanent Secretary. The implications of these aims and changes are that since 9/11, notwithstanding the improvements in UK CT capacity and CT operational successes, there have been weaknesses in the central oversight and management of CT.
This theme of a new emphasis on central leadership, as opposed to a tendency to go for headline-grabbing initiatives that characterised the Blair administration, is repeated in the remit of the HO’s new Research, Information and Communities Unit (RICU) which is ‘… to lead a seamless international and domestic approach to counter the ideological and other factors which drive groups and individuals into extremism’.[15] RICU will report to a Ministerial Supervisory Board drawn from the HO, FCO and DCLG. Both OSCT and RICU appear, prima facie, to be potentially substantive developments as they will have the budgetary resources to recruit about 100 extra staff ” from a range of backgrounds and disciplines’.[16] However, if OSCT and RICU are to carry out their remits effectively there is the need for other departments and agencies to actively acknowledge and support OSCT’s and RICU’s lead or coordinating role.[17] Against this background of strategic and systemic changes in the delivery of UK CT policy, this paper will examine the implications of the three car bomb attempts and then explore linkages between these incidents and the proposals contained in the PM’s 25 July Statement on Security to Parliament.
The Car Bomb Attempts in Central London and at Glasgow Airport (June 2007)
The VBIED was not unexpected and was one of the possible means of suicide bomb attempts identified in the UK police response to 9/11. Tactical counter-measures were set out in the police suicide-bomber response manuals, ‘Kratos’ for a surprise attack and ‘Clydesdale’ for a situation where some prior intelligence might be available.[18] These measures were modified after the July 21 attacks and the subsequent police shooting of a person thought to be a suspect suicide bomber, Jean Charles De Menezes, who turned out to be totally innocent. For the Metropolitan Police ‘Operation Kratos’ is now a generic operation title for terrorist attacks that might involve suicide bombers. Under ‘Kratos’ there is ‘Operation Andromeda’ ‘to deal with the spontaneous sighting by a member of the public of a suspected suicide bomber’, ‘Operation Beach’ ‘where there is an intelligence-led covert operation to locate and arrest persons suspected of involvement in acts of terrorism’ and ‘Operation Clydesdale’ ‘where there is intelligence or a credible threat of a suicide attack on a pre-planned event’.[19] Preventive preparations against VBIEDs were also developed including the use of Corus block barriers around key sites like Parliament.[20]
Furthermore, intelligence has been used very successfully in Operation Crevice to disrupt in March 2004 a plot to use 600kg of ammonium nitrate fertiliser to make IEDs. Among the possible uses for any IED that might have been made using the ammonium nitrate, was the use of a VBIED outside a London night club, in a shopping centre and to attack the gas network. In March 2006, seven men (British nationals) of Pakistani ethnic origin, aged between 19 and 31, from Crawley, Luton and Ilford in the London area went on trial.
On 30 April 2007, five of these men, Omar Khayam, Waheed Mahmood, Jawal Akbar, Salah Uddin Amin and Anthony Garcia were all given life sentences for offences relating to conspiracy to cause explosions and endanger life. Two others, Nabeel Hussain and Shujah Mahamod, were found not guilty. The Head of the Metropolitan Police Counter-Terrorism Command and National Co-ordinator for Terrorist Investigations, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, said of the convicted men: ‘This was not a group of youthful idealists. They were trained, dedicated, ruthless terrorists’ It was the first time since 9/11 that we, in the UK, had seen a group of British men intent on committing mass murder against their fellow citizens’.[21]
One of the features of the 2007 car bomb attempts, the 7 July and 21 July 2005 bomb attacks in London and Operation Crevice is that some of those involved were in the MI5 database but not as significant current surveillance targets, either as suspects or as associates of suspects. This has led to media speculation about whether opportunities to pre-empt the 2005 London bombings and the 2007 London and Glasgow car bomb attempts were missed. Given the information on suspect knowledge by the authorities that has come from trial materials, the question about possible missed pre-emption opportunities is a fair one. However, this critical comment needs to be set against the pressures on the resources available to the intelligence services and the police in a period when the scale of the problem has become very clear from official figures. In his 25 July statement, PM Brown told the House of Commons that current CT operations were covering 30 known plots, monitoring 200+ groupings or networks amounting, in total, to about 2,000 suspect individuals.
Notwithstanding the above caveats, it remains a clearly established fact that none of the people linked to either the 2005 London bombings or the June 2007 London and Glasgow Airport VBIED attempts featured in either the 30 known plots or the 200+ groupings known to the CT agencies in either time period in more than a peripheral sense.[22] Although two weeks before the 2007 London VBIED attempts night clubs and other businesses were alerted by the distribution of a 53-page document on the VBIED as a possible terrorist threat, this was more in the nature of routine raising of consciousness.
In summary, the information in the public domain is that on the night of 29-30 June 2007 in central London, first, a silver Mercedes packed with 600 litres of petrol, nails and patio (propane) gas containers was left outside the ‘Tiger Tiger’ night club in the Haymarket and later a blue Mercedes with a similar explosive mix was left in Cockspur Street. Propane gas has also featured in recent IEDs used in Iraq.[23] These two cars were, by chance, checked and the emergency services and bomb disposal personnel called to the two scenes where the contents were rendered harmless. It was reported that detonation was planned to be via mobile phone technology in both cases. Then in the afternoon of 30 June, in Scotland, two men drove a Jeep Cherokee filled with a similar explosive mix at the entrance to Glasgow Airport Terminal building.[24] The vehicle burned fiercely and again the emergency services responded. The two men in the Jeep were an Iraqi doctor, Bilal Tula Ahmed Abdullah, aged 27, working at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley near Glasgow, and Kafeel Ahmed, aged 27, an Indian engineering graduate from Bangalore. The two men met in Cambridge and may have been connected to the same religious group in that city and also to some forms of non-mainstream religious views elsewhere such as those found in Bangalore. In the Glasgow VBIED attempt Kafeel Ahmed set alight to himself and suffered severe burns from which he has since died. The police have stated that these two men were the prime suspects in all three VBIED attempts. On 6 July Bilal Abdullah was charged with conspiracy to cause explosions likely to endanger life.
In the wider investigation, Dr Sabeel Ahmed from Liverpool, aged 26, the brother of Kafeel Ahmed, was charged on 14 July with not disclosing information that could have helped police arrest a suspected terrorist. After an arrest on the M26 Motorway in Cheshire, Dr Mohammed Asha, aged 26, from Jordan and working at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital was charged with conspiracy to cause explosions. His wife, a 27-year old Jordanian working as a health technician at the same hospital was arrested with him. In Brisbane, Australia, the second cousin of Safeel Ahmed was arrested but subsequently released and allowed to return to Bangalore. Two trainee doctors from the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley were also arrested but subsequently released without charge. The pace of the post-incidents investigation was helped by the forensic material recovered from the two Mercedes, especially from the mobile phones.
The Prime Ministerial Statement on Security of 25 July 2007
Although the statement came after the three VBIED incidents, it clearly reflects a much longer review process on UK CT strategic priorities. The content of the Statement will also have been partly influenced by the mass of information, presented as evidence, in four terrorist cases which were concluded in July 2007 with convictions in all the cases. On 5 July 2007, three men were sentenced to a total of 24 years in prison after admitting charges of inciting terrorist murder using the Internet. They were aiming to incite and recruit suicide bombers to kill ‘infidels’. On 6 July 2007, Omar Altimi of Bolton, Lancashire, was sentenced to nine years in prison for six offences under TA 2000. Commenting on the case, Detective Chief Superintendent Tony Porter said: ” he appears to have been a ‘sleeper’, living in the shadows and preparing for action’ he had support and links with terrorists across the world’. Most significantly, on 12 July 2007, four men were convicted for their parts in the 21 July 2005 London Bomb Plot and they received minimum imprisonment terms of 40 years. Finally, on 26 July 2007, five students were sentenced for possessing materials for terrorist purposes. They had the intention of undertaking terrorist training in camps in Afghanistan or Pakistan. Among the issues highlighted by these cases are those of the international linkages, the use of the Internet and the overlapping of terrorist and non-terrorist criminality in some instances.
Some of the 15 points set out in the Statement have been discussed earlier in the section on ‘Strategy and Structure’. This section will consider some of the more generic CT issues raised in the Statement and note where they might have linkages with incidents such as the VBIEDs. As a result of the controversy surrounding perceptions of a linkage between intelligence assessments and political presentation over the Iraq WMD Dossier, the Government has responded to the Butler Report[25] by clarifying the role of the official holding the post of Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee. The Statement says: ” the sole responsibility of the Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee will be to provide Ministers with assessments which have been formulated independently of the political process and to improve across government the effectiveness of intelligence analysis’.[26] This move should further contribute to the maintenance of a bi-partisan approach to the problem of international terrorism. In a similar vein, the Statement refers to a consultation process about strengthening and making more transparent the public accountability processes of the committee of parliamentarians, the Intelligence and Security Committee, which oversees the UK’s three security and intelligence agencies.
The issue of the international linkages evident from, for example, the trial evidence from the 21 July London bombs case, Operation Crevice and the background of the arrestees in the suspect car bomb incidents, is the subject of a number of initiatives being proposed on information sharing. First, the Government proposes to further support information sharing across EU data bases and bi-lateral information sharing between EU Member States. Within this initiative, the UK clearly sets out its support for the new EU ‘principle of availability’ by saying it will promote the joining up of the criminal records databases in the EU. This point is also linked to the Government’s proposal to spend ‘5 million to link the UK ‘watch list’ to the Interpol database of lost and stolen documents. Moreover, this highlighting of linkages to non-terrorist criminality can be seen as, in part, a reflection of the issue of possible ‘gaps’ in the information flows to and from the intelligence agencies and the police, which was referred to earlier. More specifically, a Home Office consultation paper, which refers in part to the issue of data-sharing powers for the intelligence agencies, suggests that legislation will be proposed to ” place the intelligence and security agencies onto a similar statutory footing to that of the Serious Organised Crime Agency in respect of their ability to acquire and disclose information’.[27] Secondly, building on the EU G6 linkages, the Prime Minister announced that on 7 July a Joint Working Group had been set up with France and Germany ” to share our experience and develop ways to expose and defeat terrorism’.[28]
In terms of the British CT system, three very important issues are highlighted in the Prime Minter’s Statement for wider public consultation. First, there is to be yet further consideration of whether intercept evidence will be permitted to be used in court proceedings. Secondly, again relating to the complexities of CT investigations with international linkages, the Government is to consult widely about extending the current pre-charge detention period beyond the 28 days.[29] Thirdly, the Government is even reflecting on whether there are transferable practices or lessons to be learnt from the French Examining Magistrates system, as applied in France to terrorist investigations.[30]
Other measures, in the form of legislative proposals, reflect both deeper knowledge of terrorist activities and the complexities of the investigative processes. For example, on financial disclosures, S.19 (1) (b) of the Terrorism Act 2000 will be changed to include charities among the bodies and professions with a duty to disclose such suspicious transactions; a legal basis will be sought for a ‘one stop’ police-run source of DNA samples usable by MI5 and more legal controls will be sought over those suspected of trying to travel overseas for terrorist purposes. Finally, the Government will legislate to amend the definition of terrorism in S1 of Terrorism Act 2000 to include ” terrorism motivated by a racial or ethnic cause’.[31]
Conclusions: The UK’s original assessments of the possible range of threats posed by Islamist terrorism have been shown to be well grounded as exemplified by the June 2007 VBIED attempts. The UK’s strategic and structural response to this terrorist challenge is clearly dynamic in character and reflects both attempts to correct structural weaknesses, including problems of inter-departmental and agency coordination and measures to enact further counter-terrorism legal powers where ‘gaps’ in legislation have been revealed either by investigations or from problems encountered from counter-terrorism operations. The June 2007 bombing attempts and the background evidence on those recently brought before the courts on terrorism-related charges show that the UK faces potential terrorist threats from suspects or perpetrators with a broad spectrum of individual backgrounds ranging from: those with UK nationality, non-nationals with various kinds of residence status and recent migrants. The influence of various sources of ‘radicalisation’ available within Islamic groups or communities is clearly a continuing motivational factor and will pose a significant challenge for the Government’s Action Plan ‘Preventing Violent Extremism: Winning Hearts and Minds’.
Frank Gregory
Professor of European Security and Jean Monnet Chair in European Political Integration, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton
[1] See the author’s earlier papers on the UK post 9/11response to terrorism published by the Elcano Royal Institute: ARI nr 94/2005, Working Paper nr 10/2006 and ARI nr 106/2006.
[2] See Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s ‘Statement on Security’ to Parliament, 25/VII/2007, and the letter to the Chairman of the Joint Lords and Commons Committee on Human Rights from the Rt. Hon. Ruth Kelly, MP, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, 27/VI/2007, 19th Report of the Joint Lords and Commons Committee on Human Rights, Session 2006-07, ‘Counter-Terrorism Policy and Human Rights: 28 days, intercept and post-charge questioning’, HL157 & HC 394, Ev. 67-8 7, The Stationery Office, London, 30/VII/2007.
[3] PM’s Statement, op. cit.
[4] See C. Kelly, ‘New Border and Immigration Agency Gets Started’, http://www.immigrationmatters.co.uk/070402_borders_and_immigration_agency_get, accessed 14/VIII/2007, and The Times, 26/VII/2007.
[5] PM’s Statement, op. cit.
[6] House of Lords Grand Committee, ‘The UK Borders Bill’, House of Lords, Col. GC36, 2/7/07, http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200607/ldhansard/text/70702-gc0001.htm, accessed 14/VIII/2007.
[7] The Times, 27/VII/2007. A similar problem exists in other occupations, like teachers, with long delays in security checks.
[8] Ibid.
[9] On ‘Contest’ see HM Government, ‘Countering International Terrorism: The United Kingdom Government Strategy’, Cm. 6888, The Stationery Office, July 2006, and also ‘New Security and Counter-Terrorism Science and Innovation Strategy’, 11/VI/2007, http://security.homeoffice.gov.uk/news-publications/news/speeches/science-strategy, accessed 25/VII/2007.
[10] PM’s Statement, op. cit.
[11] On the splitting of the Home Office see, for instance, The Independent, 30/III/2007.
[12] See report on BBC News, 29/VI/2007.
[13] See the letter from the Rt. Hon. John Reid, MP, Home Secretary, to the Chairman of the Joint Lords and Commons Committee on Human Rights, 19th Report of the Joint Lords and Commons Committee on Human Rights, Session 2006-07, ‘Counter-Terrorism Policy and Human Rights: 28 days, intercept and post-charge questioning.’, HL157 & HC 394, Ev. 64, 4, The Stationery Office, London, 30/VII/2007.
[14] The Times, 30/VIII/2007.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Initial reports from OSCT ‘users’ is positive, information from ACPO-TAM/ESRC/Southampton University Workshop, 25-26/IX/2007.
[18] See ACPO, ‘The Police Service Response to the Threat Posed by Suicide Terrorism’, Review by the Association of Chief Police Officers Use of Firearms Committee, ACPO, March 2006.
[19] Report 8 of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police to the Metropolitan Police Authority, ‘Events of July 2005 ‘ MPS Response to Suicide Terrorism ‘ Update’, 23/II/2006, http://www.mpa.gov.uk/committees/mpa/2006/060223/08.htm, accessed 10/IX/2007.
[20] On Corus barriers see ‘New Scotland Yard Selects Corus Bi-Steel for Perimeter Security Wall’, http://www.corusgroup.com/en/news/news/2005/2005_New_Scotland_Yard_and_Bi-, accessed 31/VIII/2007.
[21] See ‘Operation Crevice: Metropolitan Police Service Statement’, http://www.cms.met.police.uk/met/layout/set/print/content/view/full/7347, accessed 17/VIII/2007, and see also ‘Five Convicted of UK Bomb Plot’, Home Office, 30/IV/2007, http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/about-us/news/five-vconvicted-uk-bomb-plot, accessed 17/VIII/2007.
[22] PM’s Statement, op. cit., and see also the detailed commentary by MI5 on the levels of intelligence known about various individuals associated with particular plots, ‘Rumours and Reality: Facts Behind the Myths’, http://www.mi5.gov.uk/output/Page385.html, accessed 17/VIII/2007.
[23] ‘News’, NBC International, autumn 2007, p. 7.
[24] See the statement to the House of Commons by the Home Secretary, the Rt. Hon. Jacqui Smith, MP, Hansard, 2/VII/2007, Cols 671-672, and see also the ‘Security Incidents updates ‘ Metropolitan Police Service’, 3/VII/2007, http://www.cms.met.police.uk/met/layout/set/print/content/view/full/8329, accessed 17/VIII/2007, and The Times, 30/VI/2007.
[25] PM’s Statement, op. cit. and see also Report of a Committee of Privy Councillors, ‘Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction’, Chairman Lord Butler [hereafter cited as ‘Butler Report’], HC 898, The Stationery Office, London, July 2004.
[26] Ibid.
[27] Home Office, ‘Possible Measures for Inclusion in a Future Counter-terrorism Bill’, 25/VII/2007, paras. 29-31.
[28] PM’s Statement, op. cit.; these links seem to have been utilised by the German authorities in the recent disruption of a major hydrogen-peroxide based bomb plot, see The Times, 6/IX/2007.
[29] Home Office, pre-charge detention consultation paper, July 2007.
[30] Home Office, ‘Terrorist Investigations and the French Examining Magistrates System’, July 2007.
[31] PM’s Statement, op. cit.