U.K. police chief fears strike in financial district

updated 6:11 p.m. ET Aug. 10, 2005

LONDON - The police chief for London’s financial district warned Wednesday that terrorists will likely strike the British capital’s biggest business hub, where they have already surveyed targets in the area.

The warning came as police said they have charged another man under anti-terror laws in the botched bombings against London’s transit system on July 21.

Abdul Sharif, 28, of South London, was charged with withholding information that could have helped police apprehend bombing suspect Osman Hussain. Sharif has been in custody since his arrest Aug. 1.

Hussain, also known as Hamdi Issac, fled Britain after the failed bomb attacks and is being held in Rome on international terrorism charges. Britain wants to extradite Issac from Italy.

Nearly five weeks after four suicide bombers attacked London on July 7, killing themselves and 52 other people, police chief James Hart said there was no specific intelligence about a forthcoming attack but insisted the financial district was at risk.

“We are vulnerable, there are people out there who wish us harm and we should be aware of that,” the Hart told The Associated Press. “If you hit the financial center of the United Kingdom, it’s a high-profile thing to do.”

Asked if it was a question of when the financial district would be struck, rather than if, Hart replied: “Yes, I don’t doubt that at all.”

‘Hostile surveillance’
Known as the City, London’s business quarter houses hundreds of banks, insurance companies, law firms and other institutions — including the London Stock Exchange and the Bank of England. It is a leading international center for trading in metals, oil and other commodities.

Aldgate subway station, one of the targets in the July 7 bombings, lies on the eastern edge of the City, a dense network of narrow streets dotted with skyscrapers. The tiny district has its own police force — distinct from the Metropolitan Police, which operates in the rest of the capital — and officers beefed up security there in the 1990s after a string of Irish Republican Army bombings.

“We are always vulnerable as a financial center, as we have been for the last three decades,” Hart said.

Hart also said that “most successful terrorist operatives pre-survey their targets.” Asked if this had happened in the City, he answered: “It has already occurred,” but added that officers had disrupted “hostile surveillance.”

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