HUNDREDS of people are being closely watched by police and the intelligence services in Britain because of the terrorist threat they pose.

Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, disclosed the scale of the huge surveillance operation as he told MPs yesterday that two terrorist attacks on London last year had been thwarted. He also admitted that he had imposed the first control order on a foreign-born British citizen and that more people suspected of involvement in terrorism could be placed under virtual house arrest.

Prisons had also become “hot spots” for radicalising young Muslims, he said. Mr Clarke, along with Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, and Ken Livingstone the Mayor of London, appeared before the Home Affairs Select Committee, which is holding a public inquiry into the July terrorist attacks in London. Sir Ian came face to face with the family of Jean Charles de Menezes, minutes after telling the committee that the policy of shooting to kill suspected suicide bombers would remain.

Sitting only three three rows in front of three cousins of Mr de Menezes, who was shot dead at Stockwell Tube station on July 22, Sir Ian insisted that the tactic for dealing with suspected suicide bombers was “the least worst option”. Later, the cousins refused to meet Sir Ian when he sought to apologise personally to them.

In a statement, Alessandro Pereira, 25, Vivian Figueiredo, 22, and Patricia da Silva Armani, 31, called for the shoot-to-kill policy to be suspended.

Sir Ian said that the policy had been reviewed after the death of Mr de Menezes, 27, who was shot eight times. “We made a small number of administrative changes but the essential thrust of the tactics remains the same. There is no question that a suicide bomber, deadly and determined, who is intent on murder, is perhaps the highest level of threat that we face and we must have an option to deal with it.”

It would have been much worse to come before MPs and admit that the Metropolitan Police had no policy to deal with “suicide bombers on the loose”, he said. Sir Ian disclosed that the policy had been developed after the September 11 attacks in the United States. He said that the events of July meant that a “watershed” had passed and the issues should be publicly debated without disclosing the detail of tactics.

Earlier Mr Clarke told MPs: “There are certainly hundreds of people who we believe need to be very closely surveilled because of the threat they pose.” Home Office evidence added that a further 100 people living abroad had been identified because their behaviour could lead to them being excluded from entering Britain. Mr Clarke told MPs that two plots to mount terrorist attacks in London last year had been thwarted. He would not disclose any further details because of forthcoming trials.

He said there had been a “slight shift” in thinking that there was an international dimension to both the July attacks. “I certainly think the foreign link is a very important link to look at,” he said. “There has marginally been a slight shift of opinion towards there being international links.”

Mr Clarke said that Parliament was to be asked to look at new criteria for banning militant organisations. This is necessary because under the present criteria the Government will find it impossible to meet the Prime Minister’s promise to ban Hizb ut Tahrir and al-Muhajiroun.

He took a much more conciliatory attitude towards the judiciary than the Prime Minister and said he did not think that they operated in an “eccentric” manner in interpreting the Human Rights Act. The committee was also told about concerns of the role that prison was playing in radicalising young Muslims.

The Home Secretary refused to put a time on how long he expected the threat against Britain to continue. He said: “The fact is that we have what I would call a nihilist terrorist threat, something that will only be beaten by demonstrating it cannot succeed. Unlike the IRA, where there was a specific political ambition, we are facing a different kind of threat.”

THE BOMBINGS IN NUMBERS

4 bombs exploded

4 attempted attacks

54 killed in explosions

38,000 exhibits held in two warehouses

80,000 videos seized from CCTV cameras

1,400 fingerprints

160 crime scenes

£60 million cost to Metropolitan Police of which half is overtime and payments to other forces providing additional manpower

44,000 people tried to contact Metropolitan police bureau in hour after July 7 attack

72 faith hate crimes in London in three weeks before July 7

256 faith hate crimes in London in three weeks afterwards

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