Police dissident terror warning

A bomb blamed on the Real IRA went off outside the BBC in 2001

Anti-terrorism police have warned that dissident Irish republicans may be planning attacks in Britain in the run-up to a general election.

The police sent a warning e-mail to businesses in London on Friday, the Observer newspaper reported.

The e-mail said the threat level had been raised to "substantial".

A Scotland Yard spokesman would neither confirm nor deny the existence of the e-mail but said there was no intelligence on specific targets.

'Incendiary devices'

The "substantial" threat is just one below the "severe-general" level currently applied to al-Qaeda operations.

Reporting indicates that dissident Irish republican terrorists are currently planning to mount attacks on the UK mainland Police e-mail, reported in the Observer

The internal threat assessment, used by the Anti-Terrorist Branch, the army, MI5 and MI6, is thought to have been passed to more than 300 major companies, educational institutions and NHS Trusts.

The system was introduced to help counter terrorism after the bombings on the Indonesian island of Bali in October 2002 that killed 202 people.

A Scotland Yard spokesman would only say: "There is no specific intelligence that indicates places, events or people in the UK that would lead us to issue specific warnings to the public."

The Omagh bomb killed 29 people, including unborn twins

The Observer said it had seen an e-mail sent from a counter-terrorism inspector in the Metropolitan Police to the London First lobby group which helps promote the capital.

It said the note read: "Reporting indicates that dissident Irish republican terrorists are currently planning to mount attacks on the UK mainland."

The note warned of "incendiary and improved explosive devices", "postal devices" and "shooting attacks".

The BBC's home affairs correspondent, Margaret Gilmore, said MI5 had received new intelligence that dissident republican groups had a new will to carry out mainland attacks.

She said that although the new warning was significant, most businesses were already operating on the higher threat level relating to al-Qaeda operations.

The IRA has observed a ceasefire in its attacks in Britain since 1997.

But the breakaway Real IRA was believed responsible for the Omagh bombing in 1998 and several mainland attacks up to 2001.

Security analysts believed that the group has largely broken up, although there may be threats from further splinter groups.