London
British authorities thwarted al Qaida plans to fly airplanes into Heathrow Airport and three skyscrapers at London’s Canary Wharf, the London Daily Mail reported this week. The British newspaper cited an anonymous security official, who did not say when the attacks had been scheduled for or how close they had come to being realized. Other reports said authorities had disrupted training programs for would-be suicide pilots. The government refused to comment on the report. But Home Secretary David Blunkett said Britain was considering adopting stronger anti-terrorism laws that would allow the use of wiretap evidence and the creation of a special court where terror suspects could be tried without a jury. “We will have to take whatever steps are necessary, particularly in terms of security and intelligence, because it’s no good picking the pieces up—literally—afterwards,” he said.
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