Indian hijack plot caused new UK terror alert

FEARS that Islamist terrorists plan to hijack an Indian passenger jet and crash it into a British city helped to prompt this weekend’s heightened terror alert. MI5 was told by the Indian authorities early last week about a suspected plot by militants linked to Al-Qaeda in Pakistan to hijack an Air India or Indian Airlines flight from Mumbai or Delhi. The warning, which came after the capture of a suspected Islamic leader, was contained in a detailed “threat assessment” sent to MI5 by the Indian Intelligence Bureau. It did not state that Britain was a specific target. But police security sources said it had raised fears in London that a British city might be attacked. The warning revived long-running concerns following an Al-Qaeda plot in 2003 in which a hijacked aircraft was to be flown into Heathrow airport. That incident led Tony Blair, then prime minister, to make the largely symbolic move of dispatching armoured vehicles to guard the airport perimeter. The Indian government has increased passenger screening and frisking at all main airports. It is deploying additional armed sky marshals to deal with the threat. Alan Johnson, the home secretary, revealed on Friday that the threat level to Britain was being raised from “substantial” to “severe”. That is the second-highest level and means that an attack is “highly likely”. The official terror threat was at the severe level for four years after the July 7 bombings in London in 2005. It was downgraded last July. The latest move comes exactly four weeks after the Christmas Day attempted suicide attack on an airliner over Detroit. The FBI has charged a former British student, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the so-called underpants bomber, with the failed attack. The authorities yesterday maintained their stance of being deliberately vague about the precise reasons why the threat level had been raised. A senior Whitehall official said only that the Detroit attack proved that Al-Qaeda had both the “capability and the intent” to attack western aircraft.