London/ New Delhi: The United Kingdom raised its terror alert to “severe” after India’s Intelligence Bureau reportedly warned it of a possible attack before January 26.
Airports in India and across South Asia were put on alert two days ago after an intelligence warning that an Indian commercial airliner may be hijacked closer to republic day. The Intelligence Bureau subsequently told Britain's MI5 that there were reports that a hijacked Indian passenger plane may be crashed somewhere in Britain.
The Sunday Times reported that the threat to hijack an Indian aircraft was uncovered during the interrogation of Amjad Khwaja, said to be a leader of Harkat-ul-Jihad-al- Islami, who was arrested in India.
The paper claimed that MI5, the British internal intelligence agency, was told by the Indian authorities earlier 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 to Delhi.
The warning, which came after the capture of Khwaja, was contained in a detailed "threat assessment" sent to MI5 by the Intelligence Bureau, the report claimed.
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.
British Home Secretary Alan Johnson on Friday announced that the threat level to Britain was being raised from "substantial"-- meaning a strong possibility of a terrorist attack -- to "severe", indicating such an attack is considered 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.
(With inputs from PTI and CNN-IBN Correspondents.)
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