Buckingham Palace: Key target?

A firm of risk specialists has ranked Britain 10th in a league table of countries vulnerable to terrorist attack.

The rating places the UK ahead of Yemen, Liberia, Russia and Lebanon because of "a sophisticated militant Islamic network", a high number of symbolic targets and the government's close relationship with the US.

In contrast France and Germany, who both opposed war with Iraq, come 23rd and 41st respectively, according to a study by the World Markets Research Centre.

Colombia came top of the poll, closely followed by Israel, with America in fourth position.

Speaking to the BBC Radio 4 Today programme on Monday, Guy Dunn of the WMRC warned that Britain was a "prize target" for terrorist groups.

"If the attack on the World Trade Centre is an attack against western capitalism, or US capitalism, what price an attack against the mother of parliaments?" he asked.

It was "sobering" to see America so high on the list, he said.

"One of the real reasons why the US is so high is not just because of the potential threat of a further attack on US soil, but also the high risk to US commercial and business interests worldwide, where they are considered softer targets than on US soil."

Multinational companies should now consider terrorism a "key business risk", he warned.

A Home Office spokeswoman said that the government was aware of the threat to the UK.

"We are still in a designated public state of emergency in regard to international terrorism so this index, the WMRC index, does not tell us anything we do not already know," she said.

"Britain is used to the changing nature of the terrorist threat and for a number of years we lived in a heightened state of threat from Irish republican terrorism."

The Home Office also called on Britons to "remain vigilant to new types of threat including from chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons".

"Events in Bali in October, in Mombassa in November and in Riyadh and Casablanca in May show that terrorism are prepared to attack the least protected targets," the spokeswoman added.