Al-Qaeda’s intention of carrying out an extensive attack in Britain is scary intelligence information which the security agencies need to investigate with urgency and foil any such plans chalked out by the dreaded terrorist organization.

A leaked intelligence report published in the ‘Times’ reading - ‘large-scale’ terrorist attacks by Iraqi Al-Qaeda leaders on Britain on ‘a par with Hiroshima and Nagasaki’ to ’shake the Roman throne’ (a reference to the West), has just traumatized not only the British think tank, but the policy makers around the world.

The seeped out report reminds us of the specter of al-Qaeda that haunts the Western world today as much as it did on September 11, 2001.

Why is the threat growing enormous?

The deadly shadow of al-Qaeda over the West grows longer and with the growing tactics and network of various terrorist groups under the brand name al-Qaeda, it is becoming increasingly difficult to foresee the threat. Moreover, the answer lies in the nature of al-Qaeda itself, and how it has evolved in response to the U.S. war on terror.

At this point I remember, former NY State Governor Mario Cuomo who summed up his mood after 9/11 bombing saying -

We encountered probably the dumbest terrorists we’ve ever encountered.

I don’t think if he still believes what he said that day. The West has bumped into one of the most thinking enemies that is getting stronger ideologically as well as operationally from the very day the war on terror was launched against them.

But how real or credible is this ‘warning’?

Whether the warning is real or not but now the fact is - al-qaeda has opened the second front in Europe, as the big war on terrorism grinds on in Iraq. It won’t be more 9/11s we must worry about, but more Madrids and Londons. The whole idea behind the warning seems to gobble down the west.

The warning sounds more perilous as al-Qaeda’s mode of operation to send foreign trained operatives form one or more cells to carry out operations has changed. Al-Qaeda as a ‘corporation’ may have been suppressed, but as a ‘franchise’ it is successful and ongoing.

With the leaked report West might thereby find a measure of bittersweet relief and intelligent resolve in concentrating their minds on this shared danger but whether such attacks are planned directly by al-Qaeda’s leadership or not hardly matters, the danger from terrorism remains global.