Posted on 12/22/2002 9:44:09 AM PST by knighthawk
FEARS of a terrorist attack in Scotland were played down yesterday after police made a second wave of raids in Edinburgh.
Police and civic leaders moved to quell public fears of an al-Qaeda bomb attack, after claims that the capital’s massive Hogmanay celebrations could be hit, along with a simultaneous attack in London’s Trafalgar Square.
The move came after an MI5 source claimed that terrorists had hatched plans to place Bali-style car bombs as close as possible to crowds in Princes Street in an attempt to inflict hundreds of casualties.
Terrorism experts last night agreed Edinburgh’s Hogmanay celebrations posed a tempting target for al-Qaeda members intent on causing maximum carnage.
However, senior police officers, keen to reduce public panic and damage to the celebrations, insisted there was no specific intelligence to suggest an attack had been planned.
The Hogmanay street party attracts 100,000 people and is one of the biggest in Europe.
It is understood that police are confident Hogmanay is not a target because previous al-Qaeda-linked attacks have been on soft targets and that the 1,000 police and security staff at Edinburgh’s Hogmanay would deter a strike.
Rumours that an attack was being planned came after police confirmed that raids at two addresses in Edinburgh were in connection with last Wednesday’s operation in which three properties were searched and three Algerians arrested. It is understood that the operation has been months in the planning.
The latest raids were launched at 8am on addresses in the city’s Broughton Road and Albion Road. No arrests were made.
Officers, some wearing white protective clothing, searched two tenement flats, one of them directly opposite a property which had been searched by police last week.
Albion Road residents, many of whom witnessed last Wednesday’s dawn raids, expressed fear and disbelief that anti-terrorist police were in the area again.
Margaret McKay, who lives just doors away from the searched address on Broughton Road said: "To think this sort of thing is happening here. It’s quite shocking really."
Earlier yesterday, the MI5 source insisted that specific information had been received that Edinburgh’s Hogmanay was a target.
"The intelligence was that terrorists with al-Qaeda links were planning an attack on Princes Street and Trafalgar Square celebrations using Bali-style bombs," said the source.
But police vehemently discounted the MI5 information. It is understood that the painstaking investigation is being hampered by having to interview the men through interpreters, although there is a suspicion that their English is better than they are leading officers to believe. "There are questions we cannot answer just now, and we have a lot of inquiries still to make," said one officer.
A spokeswoman for Edinburgh City Council said: "Our message is for people to come along and join in the Hogmanay fun."
Three Algerian men remain in custody following last Wednesday’s armed operation in Edinburgh, which involved MI5 and anti-terrorism officers from the Metropolitan Police.
Tony Blair last night personally intervened as part of a move to prevent the government’s war on terror descending into chaos after senior officials admitted that the public were being unnecessarily scared and confused about the level of threat from terrorists in the UK.
If people want on or off this list, please let me know.
Hmmm...
Q:How are suspected Algerian terrorists like cue balls?
A: The harder you hit them, the better the English.
It was only after the shock of the Edinburgh raids had subsided that a neighbour recalled something unusual about one of the flats where the men are understood to have lived.
A satellite telephone dish - allowing signals to be sent to, and received from almost anywhere in the world - had been set up in the Albion Road apartment. The neighbour remembered that whatever the weather, even when it was bitterly cold outside, the window in the room where the equipment was stored remained open.
Gordon Crowe, who owns a garage in Edinburgh’s Albion Road, said he had seen the equipment last month.
"About a month ago I spotted a satellite phone aerial and dish inside the flat," he said.
"In that particular room the window was always wide open, even in the coldest weather, and I always thought that it really strange."
The three men seized on Wednesday are now being held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act at the high security police station in Govan, Glasgow, one of the national holding centres for suspected terrorists. They are expected to make their first formal appearance in court on Christmas Eve.
Hmmm... A satellite dish phone, to keep up with the folks back home I guess. Now, my question is, if the phones they used were seized, is it possible to review what numbers were contacted?
Wake up lady! They're all over the world.
No, I think I'll pass on Edinburgh this New Year's Eve.
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