Britain monitoring hundreds who plot "active terrorism"

LONDON — British spies are watching 1,600 people in 200 cells believed to be plotting terrorist acts in Britain or overseas, according to the head of Britain's domestic spy agency.

"More and more people are moving from passive sympathy towards active terrorism," said Eliza Manningham-Buller, director general of the MI5 intelligence agency. The spy chief, who rarely speaks publicly, delivered her stark assessment Thursday in a speech at the University of London's Queen Mary College. A transcript of her remarks was posted Friday on MI5's Web site.

A growing number of people are plotting to kill others and damage the British economy, Manningham-Buller said, motivated "by a sense of grievance and injustice driven by their interpretation of the history between the West and the Muslim world."

She described the terrorists' "propaganda machine" as "sophisticated," noting that footage of attacks in Iraq is posted on the Internet within 30 minutes by teams that edit the video, translate the audio into many languages and package the material for a global audience. "And, chillingly, we see the results here," she said. " ... Teenagers being groomed to be suicide bombers."

Responding to her remarks, Prime Minister Tony Blair said, "It's a very long and deep struggle, but we have to stand up and be counted for what we believe in and take the fight to those people who want to entice young people into something wicked and violent but utterly futile." He said he agreed with the assessment that this terrorist threat would last a generation.

The spy chief said her agency was aware of about 30 plots, which "often have links back to al-Qaida in Pakistan." It is through those links, she said, that al-Qaida gives "guidance and training to its largely British foot soldiers here on an extensive and growing scale."

A British court this week sentenced al-Qaida operative Dhiren Barot, 34, to life in prison. Prosecutors said Barot had made a detailed proposal to financiers in Pakistan. He had plotted synchronized bomb attacks on U.S. financial institutions, along with London hotels and other sites in Britain.

U.S. intelligence officials have not publicly estimated the number of terrorist cells they are watching. In September, however, President Bush delivered a speech in which he detailed eight plots that had been thwarted as a result of intelligence gleaned from detainees in the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.