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Deadly chemical gives Britain the jitters

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON JAN. 8. Panic-prone Britain was in jitters today and went on a "terror alert'' after the police found traces of a deadly poison, Ricin, from a suspected Al-Qaeda cell in a north London flat prompting fears of a possible terrorist plot to launch a chemical attack.

The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, was quick to seize it to justify support for the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism saying that the development was a proof that "this danger is present and real... and its potential is huge''.

Security agencies, sounding equally grim, said this was the first real evidence of a potential terrorist threat to Britain. They warned that Britain faced a "range of terrorist threats from a number of different groups'', but urged people not to panic.

``The message is alert, not alarm'', a senior Scotland Yard officer in charge of counter-terrorism said.

Six youths of north African origin, mostly Algerians, who had been under police surveillance for some time were arrested from five different addresses, though only one was reported to be living in the flat where Ricin was found. Among other things, police were trying to establish if the arrested men had any accomplices but it was made clear that none of them had any links with Iraq.

Hospitals were alerted to watch patients for Ricin-related symptoms and emergency services were on standby even as experts explained that although Ricin, extracted from castor oil beans, was a deadly substance it was more likely to be used to target individuals rather than cause mass casualties. There was also confusion whether a person could succumb to its effects by simply inhaling it or whether it needed to be injected. The only known case of its use in Britain was the assassination of a Bulgarian dissident, Georgi Markov, in London in 1978 when he was jabbed with a tip of an umbrella which had been treated with Ricin. He developed symptoms of natural illness and died in hospital three days later.

``This is an extremely nasty substance. Half a milligram killed Markov. It is such a clever thing to use in assassinations because the fever symptoms mimic actual illness. The patient dies from lots of tiny haemorrhages in the heart,'' Dr Rufus Crompton, the pathologist who worked on the Markov case told The Guardian. The poison has no antidote.

There were suggestions that the significance of the Ricin "breakthrough'' was being talked up to justify repeated intelligence warnings about a possible terrorist attack. In recent weeks, intelligence agencies have drawn flak for creating public scare, particularly after the panic over reports of a plot to release a chemical gas in the London Underground.

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