U.K. Monitoring Several Terror Plots

Britain's domestic intelligence agency is watching 200 groups and has foiled five major plots since the July 2005 attacks in London, the service's director general said Thursday.

Eliza Manningham-Buller, who has headed Britain's domestic spy agency, MI5, since 2002, said officials were "aware of numerous plots to kill people and to damage our economy," the British Broadcasting Corp. reported.

"What do I mean by numerous? Five? Ten?" she said. "No, nearer 30 that we currently know of. These plots often have linked back to al Qaeda in Pakistan, and through those links al Qaeda gives guidance and training to its largely British foot soldiers here on an extensive and growing scale."

Manning-Buller said Britain will see elements of chemical and even nuclear weapons in the future.

"Today we see the use of homemade improvised explosive devices, but I suggest tomorrow's threat will include the use of chemicals, bacteriological agents, radioactive materials, and even nuclear technology," said Manning-Buller, according to Britain's Press Association.

MI5 also believe al Qaeda in Pakistan is targeting the United Kingdom in a sustained campaign, CBS News reports.

Speaking to an invited audience, the BBC reported that Manningham-Buller said some of those plots could be less threatening, but that they still must be investigated.

MI5 agents are currently watching 200 groups or networks — "actively engaged in plotting, or facilitating, terrorist acts here and overseas," she said — and Manningham-Buller acknowledged it was likely there were more people involved in plots that the security services were not aware of.

Manningham-Buller warned that radicalization, especially of young people, was one of the biggest problems facing anti-terror investigators.

"It is the youth who are being actively targeted, groomed, radicalized and set on a path that frighteningly quickly could end in their involvement in mass murder of their fellow UK citizens," Manningham-Buller said. "Young teenagers are being groomed to be suicide bombers."