Bill's Comment Page

The threat of terrorism in the UK remains severe

The arrest yesterday of 8 individuals in connection with the discovery of a cache of a half tonne of ammonium nitrate fertiliser in a self-storage facility in Hanwell, West London appears to have thwarted plans for major bomb-making efforts here in the UK. The eight, all UK citizens born in this country, are apparently of Pakistani descent. No doubt we will hear in coming days where this investigation is leading.

Whilst this is obviously good news, it would not be prudent to become complacent. There are very probably other plans being hatched of which we, the public at least, know nothing at present. It is said that the arrests and security raids yesterday were the culmination of several weeks of surveillance and planning - I hope that if there are other terrorist outrages in the planning stage that the security forces are similarly alerted before real damage can be done. The article I link to makes the point that ammonium nitrate was used in other recent acts of terrorism elsewhere (Bali, Istanbul and even Oklahoma City, which was not even moslem-related).

I am not sure what the bomb-making materials were which were discovered a week before the Madrid disaster, and that thwarted plot is also thought not to be moslem-related. What I am saying is this, though - the fact that a major plot was discovered one week in Spain didn't prevent a 'success' occurring a week later. That's why, even if we can be pleased that a potential threat here seems to have been averted, it doesn't mean that another plot may not succeed in coming days or weeks.