Police chief warns of attacks on London's financial district

The City of London Police Commissioner has warned that it is only a matter of time before terrorists launch an attack on London’s financial district.

In an interview with the ‘Financial Times’, James Hart said that since the September 11 attacks in Manhattan and Washington, there had been “hostile reconnaissance” of the City several times.

The City area houses the offices of numerous banks and financial institutions, as well as the London Stock Exchange and the Bank of England.

Mr Hart said: "Every successful terrorist group pre-surveys its target. There’s no doubt we’ve been subject to that surveillance and that sort of thing has been successfully disrupted."

The police commissioner also warned that only 50% of firms in the area had drawn up contingency plans in case of a terrorist attack.

Mr Hart said that the City had been a terrorist target for many years.

The IRA attacked the area several times – a bomb outside the Baltic Exchange killed three people in 1992 and the following year, one person died in an explosion in the Bishopgate area. The IRA also devastated the area again in 1996, when a large bomb exploded in the Docklands area.

Mr Hart said that potential targets included prominent sites, businesses and buildings: "If you want to hurt the government, hurt people at the same time and you want to cause maximum disruption… where better to hit than at the financial centre?”

London remains on a high security alert, following the July 7 suicide bombings on the capital’s transport network, which killed 52 people and similar attempted bombings two weeks later on Thursday July 21.

(KMcA/SP)