Threat of a chemical attack here in Britain greater than originally thought?

Few details have emerged about this reported foiled chemical attack on Britain. But new details are emerging about how far the terrorists have come in developing chemical or biological weapons. This is chilling stuff from Financial Times.

Small groups of chemicals experts have been detected in several European countries and have developed ways of communicating with each other that allowed them to avoid being exposed.

In January French anti-terrorist police arrested five people in the Lyons suburb of Venisseux - three of them from the same family - on suspicion of involvement in planning terrorist attacks. Nicolas Sarkozy, then interior minister, said that one of the detainees, Menad Benchallali, "was trained to produce chemical substances".

Two of the detainees admitted a plan had been devised to attack Russian targets in France using ricin poison and botulinum bacteria. French officials say Mr Benchellali received chemical weapons training in Georgia's Pankisi Gorge, a haven for Chechen fighters.

"The Pakistani element [in developing these weapons] was also totally underestimated, as was the experience developed in Chechnya," said the French official. He added that militants within the Pakistani Islamist group Lashkar-i-Toiba, which has close links to al-Qaeda, had helped develop chemical weapons skills now dispersed to several parts of the al-Qaeda network.

"The thing that is most clear is that the people with the knowledge of chemicals are very organised," the French official said. "There are links between the groups that have chemical expertise. These groups are not present everywhere, though Chechnya is where they learned this skill."

How long will it be - weeks, months or years; but it will come.

Remember the Sarin gas attack in Japan? It happened in an underground rail line. Now think of a cruise ship with thousands of passengers at sea far from help. You do not smuggle a bomb on board, you smuggle parts of it on and then assemble it at sea. Fertilizer hidden in sacks of flour, a deadly chemical in a perfume bottle and the fuel is already on board. The bomb doesn't have to be big; you don't need to sink the ship, just make sure it gets in the air ventilation system.

Is any cruise ship on guard for such an attack? How many would die at sea before help could reach them.

Chilling!