BRITAIN: Fears of a major terrorist attack on British interests intensified last night after the UK government said it was taking the unprecedented step of deploying armed sky marshals on flights between the UK and America.
The move, which will see plainclothed officers mingling with passengers, follows the heightened state of alert in the US and coincided with a government warning yesterday that terrorists could be in the final stages of planning an attack in Saudi Arabia.
In a joint statement, the British transport secretary, Mr Alistair Darling, and the home secretary, Mr David Blunkett, said the introduction of armed officers was a "a responsible and prudent step" and that the sky marshals would be deployed "where appropriate".
Last week the US homeland security department raised the national alert to its second-highest level, code orange, following reports that terrorists were planning to hijack a French airliner and use it as a missile against a US city.
Air France cancelled several transatlantic passenger flights after officials passed on "credible" security threats involving passengers scheduled to fly to Los Angeles on flights from Paris.
Last night Mr Blunkett said: "The last few days have seen the United States increase their general threat and security levels and what we are proposing is a proportionate and appropriate level of response at a time when the threat to both our countries and around the world remains real and serious." But the British Airline Pilots Association (Balpa) reacted angrily to the plans.
"Our view has always been that putting sky marshals on planes is the worst thing you can do - we don't want guns on planes," said the general secretary, Mr Jim McAuslan.
British Airways and Virgin, which have both expressed concern about the introduction of sky marshals in the past, last night refused to comment on the proposals, referring all questions to the Department of Transport.
Plans to introduce armed officers on UK passenger planes were first mooted in December last year following a review of in-flight security measures.
Despite the move, Mr Blunkett said Britons should not be afraid to fly. "I can assure the travelling public that if we believed it was not safe for them to travel or fly, we would say so," he said.
On Thursday Australia said that armed sky marshals would guard some Qantas flights between Australia and Singapore, and may be put on flights to the United States.
Australia has posted armed undercover security officers randomly on domestic flights since the September 11th, 2001 attacks in the US.
In February this year troops and tanks were deployed at London's Heathrow airport after police warned that al-Qaeda might attack the airport.