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Blair seeks to calm terrorism fears

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON NOV. 19. The British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has sought to calm growing public fears over reports of an imminent terrorist attack on Britain, saying people would be warned if there is a specific threat.

In what was seen an indirect criticism of his own Government agencies for "leaking'' unsubstantiated intelligence warnings to the media, which in recent days have caused widespread panic, Mr. Blair said: "We have got to be very wary of acting on general information, of issuing warnings when they are not really justified according to the evidence.''

In strong remarks, two days after sensational headlines claimed that there was a plot to launch a gas attack on the London Underground, the Prime Minister said issuing general warnings not backed by evidence caused confusion and "we end up doing the terrorists' job for them. ...'' ``If it's a very specific threat against a specific target, of course, it's right that we issue the information and we warn people but we are wary of acting on every piece of information that comes to us because there's a mass of it and it has to be sifted and weighed and judged,'' Mr Blair said in a TV interview as the Opposition pressed for a Government statement on the gravity of terrorist threats to Britain.

The alarming briefing given to the media by unidentified intelligence and security sources about an alleged plan to attack the Tube has embarrassed the Government after it emerged that three North African youths arrested by the police on suspicion of planning to release a toxic gas in the Underground were actually never questioned about it. Nor was any suspicious substance found on them.

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