Airports and London railway terminals have been put on heightened alert against terrorist threats, according to reports this morning.
The BBC said it understood that the terrorist threat level specific to major UK transport hubs has been raised from ‘substantial’ to ‘severe’, although there is no suggestion of any intelligence of an imminent attack.
Security officials are stressing the change is precautionary but the overall national threat level at severe means a terrorist attack is highly likely.
Beneath this are a series of threat levels for specific sectors of the national infrastructure which are not normally made public.
Security officials say if there was any intelligence of an imminent threat or a plot under way the threat level would be raised to its highest level, ‘critical’.
However, the move means more police are likely to be visible at airports and railway stations from today (Friday).
Concerns have been raised in recent months over the possibility of Mumbai-style gun attacks in Europe and the intelligence that led to this change is believed to cover Europe as a whole.