UK cops foiled gas attack on parliament

The newspaper said the plot to target the House of Commons, or lower house, was prepared last year and had been discovered in coded emails on computers seized from terror suspects in Britain and Pakistan.

"Police and (domestic intelligence agency) MI5 then identified an Al-Qaeda cell that had carried out extensive research and video-recorded reconnaissance missions in preparation for the attack," it said.

The paper based its report on an internal police document it said it had obtained detailing a meeting of senior police officers held last month.

It quoted an unnamed senior police officer as saying that the plot involved a gas or chemical "dirty bomb" attack against parliament.

"The House of Commons was one of their targets as well as the Tube (Underground subway network)," he reportedly said.

"They were planning to use chemicals, a dirty bomb and sarin gas. They looked at all sorts of ways of delivering it."

The report said police had decoded the emails with the help of an informant from al-Qaeda, which sprung to international notoriety with attacks including the September 11, 2001 strikes against the United States.

Meanwhile, the Sunday Times said police believe they have thwarted "an al-Qaeda gas attack" hatched last year that would have targeted the British parliament and Prime Minister Tony Blair's government.

The threat was cited in a memo of a meeting of senior police officers at the Metropolitan Police unit responsible for security at the Houses of Parliament, and drawn up after the July 7 bombings, it said.

"The House of Commons was one of their targets as well as the Tube," or subway system, a senior police officer was quoted as saying.