UK raises terror threat level

Britain raises terror threat level

Britain raised its terror threat level from substantial to severe on Friday, suggesting that an attack is "highly likely", Home Secretary Alan Johnson said.

The change comes just weeks after a failed plane bombing in the United States, and days ahead of two major international conferences on Yemen and Afghanistan in London on Wednesday and Thursday.

"The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre has today raised the threat to the UK from international terrorism from substantial to severe," Johnson said.

"This means that a terrorist attack is highly likely, but I should stress that there is no intelligence to suggest than an attack is imminent."

In a television statement shortly afterwards, Johnson refused to say whether the change in the threat level -- to the fourth in a five-level scale -- was linked to the failed Detroit plane bombing on December 25.

"We never say what the intelligence is and it would be pretty daft of us to do that," he said, adding: "It shouldn't be thought to be linked to Detroit or anywhere else for that matter."

He said the JTAC, a unit within the MI5 domestic intelligence agency, "looks at all factors and no one should draw any assumptions from this".

-News courtesy of Channel Newsasia-