Exlusive:

MI5 WARNS OF THREAT TO PALACE CEREMONIAL GUARDS

By Gordon Thomas

Monday, February 12, 2007

London-MI5 has warned that ceremonial guards on duty at Buckingham Palace and other royal homes are now prime targets for radical Islamic groups in Britain.

The security service has discovered terrorists posing as tourists have photographed the guards and posted them on al-Qaeda websites asking for details of where the soldiers come from in this country.

"Al-Qaeda is building up a list of targets to attack when they are on home leave", revealed a senior intelligence officer. "To do so they have built up a network of informers in the Muslim community".

MI5 has established that a known radical in the Midlands visited a Birmingham hospital two weeks ago where servicemen, recovering from wounds received in Iraq or Afghanistan, are being treated in civilian wards.

"This may have been a reconnaissance to try and establish when one of the military patients is to be discharged and where he comes from", said the intelligence officer.

The hospitalised soldiers have no special security in the wards. There have been severe cutbacks in the number of military hospitals.

Marines guarding the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square have also been told to only wear civvies when off-duty -- and never reveal where they work.

A similar reminder has been sent to all base commanders of US Forces in Britain by the Pentagon.

And last week an SAS unit arrived in London to respond to a hostage rescue mission "within minutes of it happening".

Eliza Manningham-Buller, the head of MI5, has told Home Secretary John Reid there is a "real possibility of an attack on off-duty soldiers".

The warning came after MI5 analysts studied tapes found during a raid in the Birmingham area two weeks ago.

The tapes had been made by the Islamic fanatic, Omar Bakri Mohammed. Banned from Britain last year, the cleric, 48, now lives in Beirut. From there he runs a campaign of hate against this country.

On one tape he says: "When you meet the enemy on his home ground, slice his neck open. And when you spill his blood, find the next enemy".

© Gordon Thomas 2007