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Britain said it faced a terror threat of the kind that tore down the Twin Towers and denied it was over-reacting by erecting an armed guard around its airports.
Speaking a day after al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden renewed his call to Muslims to fight the "allies of the devil", ministers stressed the potential threat to Britain, key partner of the United States, was real and immediate.
Prime Minister Tony Blair told parliament the security measures were "necessary in order to give people the protection and security they need" while Home Secretary (interior minister) David Blunkett revealed the government had even considered closing Heathrow airport, among the world's busiest.
"This is not a game. This is about a threat of the nature that massacred thousands of people in New York," said John Reid, chairman of the ruling Labour Party.
"I am not even going to take seriously those people who suggest this is part of some sort of game."
Britain's steadfast support for Washington's war on terror and its hawkish stance on Iraq have raised fears that the country might be targeted by Islamic extremists.
But the government faced questions about the exact nature of the terror threat, which comes as the United States and Britain face steep opposition to their drive to disarm Iraq.
Speaking to reporters in the northern city of Manchester, Reid lost his temper when asked if the government had been heavy handed by deploying light tanks, armoured cars and 450 soldiers at Heathrow airport, west of London.
He rebuffed any suggestion that the government - famous for its skill at massaging unpalatable messages - wanted to exploit fears of terrorism to rally support for its unpopular Iraq line.
"The idea that any government... would use such a serious subject as international terrorism, which gave us such things as New York, for their own purposes of spin or public relations, I just found pretty contemptible."
With 17,000 police now manning counter-terrorist operations across London, police said this was no political charade.
"We are on an extremely high level of alert," a police source said.
Britain is used to dealing with Irish republican outrages but terror experts agreed the threat was now greater.
"I cannot think of anything we have faced in the UK since September 11 2001 that comes near it," Garth Whitty of the Royal United Services Institute told Reuters.
Flight paths secured
Hundreds of soldiers patrolled Heathrow for the second day and security was tightened at Manchester Airport and along flight paths near major air terminals after what a police source called the threat of an al Qaeda rocket attack.
On the London Stock Exchange, shares in travel and transport companies like British Airways and Channel Tunnel operator Eurotunnel were hit by news of the risk.
"There is always the danger of a catastrophic attack by al Qaeda," London's outspoken mayor Ken Livingstone said.
He told reporters the measures at Heathrow were an attempt "to so saturate an area with security forces that... it makes it very difficult for terrorists to strike."
Home Secretary Blunkett admitted the government had even considered closing Heathrow but decided the impact would have been too grave.
"For those who are threatening us it would have been a victory," he told reporters. "Trade would have suffered and the transport of people would have been disrupted - this would have been a catastrophic thing to have done."
Troops on the streets of London may have to follow in order to deal with the terror threat, said the country's most senior policeman, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens.
© Reuters
