And one certainty is that there will be more.
“Fifteen terrorist attacks in Britain have been foiled since the 7/7 London bombings,” from the Daily Mail (thanks to all who sent this in):
Fifteen planned terrorist attacks in Britain have been foiled since the 2005 London bombings, Met chiefs said today.
The revelation came as Met Commissioner Sir Ian Blair warned that the country was being threatened by dangerous extremists who were emerging from “left field” to attempt terrorist attacks.
Sir Ian added that some suspects were moving “very fast” to carry out their plots, forcing police to make pre-emptive arrests to protect the public.
The warning came as Sir Ian and the Met’s most senior anti-terrorism officer, Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick, told a parliamentary committee scrutinising the Government’s counter-terrorism Bill that they backed an extension of the pre-charge detention limit.
The Met Commissioner said he feared that the current 28-day limit, which the Government wants to extend to 42 days, would soon prove insufficient because of the growing complexities, scale and international scope of plots that police and the security service were detecting.
Sir Ian rejected suggestions from some MPs that suspects could be detained on lesser charges instead and warned that in many cases police were forced to act on the basis of intelligence when virtually no evidence that would be admissible in court existed.
He said this meant that prolonged investigations were needed to gather material to bring prosecutions and that it was a “pragmatic inference” that pre-charge detentions longer than 28 days would soon be required.
“Part of the problem that we have is the way in which individuals and groups go from what appears to be facilitating into active attack planning very fast. There are people who are emerging from left field about whom we know very little and about whom we become very concerned.”
In his evidence, Mr Quick, who is also the Association of Chief Police Officers’ spokesman on terrorism, said about 15 terrorist plots had been thwarted since the 7 July London bombings of 2005….