Britain has prevented Sept 11-style terrorist attack: report

Yahoo! News - Britain has prevented Sept 11-style terrorist attack: report

Britain has prevented Sept 11-style terrorist attack: report

Mon Nov 22, 6:39 PM ET

LONDON (AFP) - British security services have foiled an Al-Qaeda plot to fly planes into targets in London in a September 11-style attack, Britain's independent ITV News network reported.

'This is the story of what could have been a nightmare averted,' said ITV's political editor Nick Robinson. 'A story not of failure, but of success.'

'That, at least, is what I am told by a senior authoritative source who says that the security services managed to avert a plot to fly planes into Canary Wharf here, and also into Heathrow Airport,' he said.

'I simply do not know the details of how they found out, how they stopped it, how close the plot got, but I am in no doubt that this was a genuine feeling on the behalf of those in the security services that they had managed to foil a plot and make us safer,' he added.

ITV News confirmed to AFP that their journalist's 'non-attributable source' was in 'the arena' of the security services or government, but would not be specific.

Britain's Home Office and London's Metropolitan Police declined to comment on the report.