Stevens says al Qaeda's Iraq tactics now in UK

LONDON (Reuters) - The foiled car-bomb plot in London shows al Qaeda has imported the tactics of Iraqi and Indonesian militants to Britain, the prime minister's top terrorism adviser said on Saturday.

"Make no mistake, this weekend's bomb attacks signal a major escalation in the war being waged on us by Islamic terrorists," John Stevens, the former commissioner of the London police, wrote in an article to be published in the News of the World on Sunday.

"Initially it was believed the main problem police faced was insulated groups of home-grown extremists. But now it is clear a loose but deadly network of interlinked operational cells has developed.

"The terror of July 7 (2005) was awful enough, but now al-Qaeda has imported the tactics of Baghdad and Bali to our streets. And it will get worse before it gets better."

Stevens' assessment follows the thwarting of a twin car-bomb plot in London on Friday, when police found two vehicles loaded with fuel, gas canisters and nails parked near a night club in the busy heart of the capital.

The bombs were defused but police said that if had they detonated they could have killed scores of people.

Then on Saturday, a four-by-four vehicle rammed into the terminal at Glasgow airport and exploded, prompting the Home Office to raise the national security alert level to "critical", indicating further attacks are expected imminently.

Witnesses described those in the vehicle as "Asian men" and one said he was sure they were intent on carrying out a "terrorist act". The two men were arrested.

London's top counter-terrorism officer said the planned attack bore similarities to another plot, uncovered in 2004, in which an al Qaeda militant planned to detonated gas-fuelled bombs hidden in limousines across London.