Ministers plan UK reaction force

Ministers are drawing up plans for a 6,000-strong "reaction force" drawn from the armed forces reserve to aid the police if terrorists strike Britain in an 11 September-style attack.

The Ministry of Defence is expected to publish the proposals tomorrow after months of studying the potential terrorist threat to the UK.

The plan does not go nearly as far as the big domestic shake-up already announced for the US by President Bush, which includes a full-scale department of homeland security.

The MoD's plan does not include proposals to set up special military units dedicated to home defence, causing senior defence staff to claim it does not go far enough. Instead, the planned force would hand new responsibilites to the 50,000 existing volunteerists who are drawn from civilians. They have been under threat from cutbacks after 1998's Strategic Defence Review.

The reservists are to be brought into play because of the large numbers of regular forces deployed overseas and in Northern Ireland. They are set to receive about "five or six" days extra training a year on top of their warfighting duties.

The report claims terrorist attacks on Britain are likely to be "infrequent and unpredictable" while the use of chemical, biological and nuclear devices "cannot be ruled out". The new force could deal with mass casualties, transport, communications, site clearance and other operational tasks.

Its key elements would be on offer to the police "within a few hours" of any attack.

Meanwhile, Scotland Yard is probing claims that British Muslim terrorists in Kashmir are behind attacks which have brought India and Pakistan to the brink of nuclear conflict.

Inquiries centre on an east London charity, the Kashmir International Relief Fund, and the Regent's Park mosque, where clerics have reportedly admitted that money raised by worshippers was being sent to "freedom fighters" in Kashmir.

It is claimed that the mosque and the charity are involved in transferring money to banned terror groups - including Lashkar-e-Toiba, which killed 14 people in an attack on the Indian parliament, and Jaish-e-Mohammed, whose members murdered US journalist Daniel Pearl.

Both organisations were banned in this country in January. Recently a dossier was passed to the Government by the Indian authorities outlining how the two groups are illegally raising up to £5 million a year through clandestine supporters in this country.

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