Yard doubles anti-terror operations since July

Scotland Yard has almost doubled its anti-terrorist operations since the London bombings, the Metropolitan Police commissioner said yesterday.

Sir Ian Blair told a Westminster conference that counter-terrorism officers have been getting high-grade intelligence reports daily since 7 July, whereas previously they came in about once a month. Three conspiracies had been thwarted since July, but there were terrorists still at large, plotting mass atrocities, he warned.

The Commissioner was speaking at an event entitled Together Against Terror? organised by the Metropolitan Police Authority. Referring to the nature of the terrorist threat since 7 July, Sir Ian said: "Since then we have had an increase of 75 per cent in the operations we are carrying out. We are now further flat-out than we could have ever imagined ourselves to be."

On the high-grade intelligence reports, he added: "My colleague, Andy Hayman [assistant commissioner, specialist operations], would expect to get, before July, maybe one of these intelligence reports arriving every month. Now we are seeing them almost daily."

He continued: "There are people in the UK as we speak who are planning mass atrocities and who will use suicide as a weapon. That is a different place to where we have been in my lifetime and in my service.

"What matters is that the terrorists are here ... We have to find the right methodology, community relationships and legislative framework to defeat them."

Jenny Jones, a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority, described the current threat as "chilling". She told delegates: "If you knew what we knew, you would really be scared."

Sir John Gieve, permanent secretary at the Home Office, said there was "no doubt" that Britain remained a target for al-Qa'ida.