The Queen was identified as “one of the severest enemies of Islam” in an al-Qaeda video issued after the July 7 London suicide bombings. The full text, including the reference to the Queen, was not revealed at the time.

Security sources confirmed that MI5 had carried out an assessment of the implied threat to the Queen, which had been passed to the Metropolitan Police Royalty Protection Branch (SO14).

The sources said that any additional protection measures for the Queen and the Royal Family were a matter for the police. Tighter security for the Queen is also expected later this month at the Commonwealth heads of government conference in Malta.

The video, which highlighted the Queen as an enemy of Islam for the first time, was broadcast in a statement by Ayman al-Zawahiri, who is Osama bin Laden’s deputy. He accused the Queen of being ultimately responsible for Britain’s “crusader laws” against Muslims.

With the memory of July’s London bombings still fresh in everyone’s minds, no one complained about the strict airport-style security at the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph.

Good-humoured queues of veterans and spectators filed slowly through a bank of security gates at the top of Whitehall. Their bags were checked and their bodies screened by metal detectors as hundreds of police marshalled the crowds.

On the stroke of 11am from Big Ben, those gathered fell silent to remember “The Glorious Dead”, as they are commemorated in the inscription on the white Portland stone. At that moment, the sun broke through the clouds, shining brightly on the assembled civic and military leaders.

The Queen, dressed in black, was first to lay a wreath, followed by the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, and the Princess Royal, all in military uniform. Tony Blair, Michael Howard, Charles Kennedy and other political leaders also placed wreaths at the foot of the monument.

Watching from a Foreign Office balcony were Prince William, an army recruit, and the Duchess of Cornwall, appearing at the commemoration for the first time. The duchess revealed a thrifty side by wearing the same hat for the second time in under a fortnight. The black and white creation by Philip Treacy appeared nine days earlier during her tour of the United States as she visited the Second World War memorial in Washington.

After the service about 8,000 veterans paraded past the Cenotaph, their medals glinting in the autumn sunshine. From Gurkhas to the scarlet-coated Chelsea Pensioners, the former servicemen were a moving sight as they marched in time to music such as It’s a Long Way to Tipperary.

At one point a walking stick was dropped, but the owner kept striding on and it was quickly retrieved by others further down the line. Every now and then a young boy would be among a detachment, holding his grandfather’s hand or perhaps walking in his place.

Joe Newman, 89, served with the Parachute Regiment and was present at Dunkirk and the D-Day landings. He also served in North Africa and Italy. “I like to remember my friends who fell,” he said, “I lost a lot of friends, especially at Dunkirk.”

The crowds who thronged the pavements reserved their loudest applause for the oldest veterans, many of whom were in wheelchairs or motorised buggies.

In a specially organised tribute, a silent message of remembrance was passed down the River Thames using semaphore. Veterans and signalmen, the first posted on the roof of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, used flags to make the secret code, which was decrypted at Whitehall and attached to a wreath which was laid at the Cenotaph.

The 16 signalling posts included the Cutty Sark, HMS Belfast and HMS St Vincent. The message read: “War turns us to stone. In remembrance we shine and rise to new days.”

In other services around the country, the Earl of Wessex laid a wreath in Sunderland, and in Liverpool a D-Day bomber dropped 100,000 poppies at the St George’s Hall Cenotaph.

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