POLICE across Europe have launched a round-up of Islamic militants amid fears of a terrorist attack over Christmas and the new year.

Groups linked to al-Qaeda have been thwarted for three successive years from staging attacks in Europe, and security chiefs believe that they will try again.

The latest arrests came in Britain after a joint operation yesterday between Scotland Yard anti-terrorist officers and police in Edinburgh who seized seven men. The suspects, all said to be in their thirties, were still being questioned at a police station in Scotland last night.

Four of the men were arrested in a dawn raid in West London, while the others were seized in the Meadowbank area of Edinburgh.

These arrests come after French police seized four men said to have links to militants in Britain on suspicion of plotting a chemical attack on a European target.

French chemists confirmed yesterday that one of two chemicals seized was a potentially explosive substance, identified as iron perchloride. The second substance was still being analysed by a military laboratory in the Paris area late last night.

Scientists were also to check a used protective suit that had been seized at the same time as the chemicals. Traces of possible chemicals were also found on dirty jeans belonging to one of the suspects arrested in France on Monday.

Scotland Yard said last night that the latest arrests were not thought to be linked to the French operation.

Security in British cities and at airports and ferry terminals has, though, been stepped up, as it has in all big European capitals in the run-up to the festive season. As Tony Blair was telling the Commons that al-Qaeda is still active in Britain and Whitehall chiefs were admitting that “sooner or later they will get through”, police in Europe acknowledged that they were nervous about a holiday attack.

One senior British security source said: “Al-Qaeda have chosen this period in the past and were thwarted. Their pattern is to return and finish the job, so we are right to be on our guard.

“So far they haven’t struck in Europe and we believe they are determined to do so. They will also try something they haven’t done before, which leads to suspicions about using chemical agents. The panic factor that would cause is a new dimension for them.”

Richard Reid, a social misfit and petty criminal from South London, has admitted trying to blow up a passenger jet from Paris to Miami by detonating explosives hidden in his shoe last December.

There was a plot to bomb a market and the cathedral in Strasbourg in December 2000. Twelve months earlier, several European cities are believed to have been targeted in a millennium bomb plot. French police have arrested 20 people in recent weeks. Nicholas Sarkozy, the French Interior Minister, described those arrested in Paris as “very serious suspects”.

• Terrorist haven: European security chiefs still regard Britain as a safe haven for al-Qaeda units. Since September 11 there have been three minor prosecutions for terrorist offences in the UK, all for being members of groups that are banned in Britain. A senior French security source said that Britain’s record since the attacks was abysmal.

  Up to the end of last month 238 people had been arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000; 208 were arrested since September 11. Only 15 trials are pending.

  Another 13 foreign nationals were arrested in Britain under new anti-terrorist legislation allowing them to be held without trial.

  There are seven men awaiting extradition from Britain on terrorist charges. Since the attacks, nobody has been extradited from the UK.

  Eight Britons are still detained at the US military base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Another four are believed to be held at US bases in Afghanistan.

Explore World News

• World Agenda

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Afghanistan News

• Asia News

• Africa News

• Ireland News

Times Recommends

• Both sides blame US for worsening relations
• Stieg Larsson: losing the plot over his cash
• Odd creature paralysed by incompatible parts