Sunday Times (London) - December 26, 1999
ANARCHIST ATTACK FEARS TURN CITY INTO NO-GO AREA
Nick Fielding and James Clark
THE City of London is bracing itself for violent attacks over the millennium holiday after threats by anarchists to start a new Great Fire of London.
Police are to isolate the City after receiving a warning of the plan, as well as intelligence about Islamic fundamentalists and Irish republican splinter groups. Access will be possible only through seven tightly controlled entrances and exits. "It will effectively be a no-go area," said a Corporation of London spokesman.
Armed troops will also be on stand-by at three bases around the capital in case of public disorder if the millennium bug causes chaos. The government's emergency planning committee, chaired by Jack Straw, the home secretary, will sit for 24 hours over millennium night and New Year's Day to monitor essential services and public safety. One barracks will be used as a helicopter port. A military communications network, including police and key Whitehall departments, will also stand ready.
Security at the Millennium Dome in Greenwich, which will be attended by the Queen, the prime minister and other dignitaries, will be unprecedented. Bridges across the Thames will be closed, tunnels emptied and aircraft forbidden to fly over the site. Up to 32 police vessels will patrol the Thames, including two fire tenders. Members of the navy's elite Special Boat Squadron will be on duty.
Scotland Yard's response is being co-ordinated by a millennium unit involving the anti-terrorist squad, special branch and liaison between MI5 and MI6, the Home Office and other government departments.
The unit's concerns include Islamic terror groups based in Europe and linked to Osama Bin Laden, the terrorist described by the CIA as the world's most wanted man.
The FBI said this week that one such group, based in Frankfurt, Germany, was planning to send a string of parcel bombs to British and American targets over the holiday period. The warning came as anti-terrorist police in Britain arrested an Algerian asylum-seeker linked to an Islamic terror group. Ramdane Zouabri, 26, has been charged with threatening to kill an Algerian community leader after he was allegedly filmed making calls from a north London telephone box. Zouabri's brother is leader of the Algerian Groupe Islamique Armé (GIA), which killed 30 people on Christmas Eve at a roadblock near Khemis Miliana, west of the Algerian capital, Algiers.
Deputy assistant commissioner Alan Fry, head of Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist branch, has asked members of the public to be on their guard and to contact police if they notice anything suspicious.
Additional reporting: Adam Nathan; Matthew Campbell, Washington, and Uzi Mahnaimi, Jerusalem