UK Anarchist Groups Said Planning Mass Bomb Scare May 1

Anarchist groups plan to disrupt emergency services in their

campaign of chaos on May 1 by encouraging their followers

to make hundreds of bogus alarm calls. They want protesters

to create bomb scares at London,- main rail and Underground

stations, which would swiftly paralyse the capital. The leaders

are also suggesting raising fire alarms in streets choked with

protesters. Police are worried about the dangers to genuine

emergency calls if the groups carry out their threat, which

one senior officer described as ,"mindless and irresponsible,".



The anarchists also plan to set up fake road-blocks and

immobilise vehicles to increase the chaos.



The promise by Tony Blair, Scotland Yard and Ken

Livingstone, the Mayor of London, of a ,"zero tolerance,"

policy to ensure that the city stays open is regarded as a

challenge by the protest organisers.



One leading figure said yesterday: ,"They boast that it will be

business as usual on May 1, and we will show them

otherwise to make our point.,"



Public buildings will again be a target, with a plan to barricade

No 10 by padlocking the gates of Downing Street. The climax

of the protest will be in Oxford Street, where protesters are

being urged to pour into shops and department stores to block

the doors so that customers cannot come or go. As soon as

police arrive, the protesters will be told to disperse and move

to a different target.



Specialist police teams are intensifying their electronic

warfare against the organisers to unmask the ringleaders and

discover their targets. Detectives know that they are being

bombarded with misinformation in this high-tech battle and

are trying to crack encrypted e-mails that the leaders are

using to discuss tactics.



Police have the power to shut down Internet sites, but they

say that they prefer to leave them running and to monitor

them. It was through electronic mail that police first found

details of the Mayday Monopoly, where demonstrators pick

addresses from the board game to match targets for the

protest.



Homeless groups will descend on Park Lane, protesters

against Third World debt will gather in the Strand, and groups

trying to drive cars off London,- streets will begin the day

with a slow cycle ride at King,- Cross station.



The latest threat on the Internet is a campaign of looting

designated businesses called ,"Sale of the Century,", taken

from the Seventies television game show of that name. Some

student groups have threatened to boycott the May 1 protests

if the looting is not dropped.



Police are investigating links between British groups and a

band of international anarchists called Black Bloc, which was

heavily involved in the weekend,- riots at the Summit of the

Americas in Quebec. Three of its leaders were among the

masked figures arrested during the trade summit siege.



Black Bloc was at the centre of attempts to disrupt George

W. Bush,- presidential inauguration in January and the violent

protests at the World Trade Organisation summit in Seattle

last year. It has proposed joining the London demonstration

and has sent ideas on how to disrupt the city.



Their plans have been translated into four languages and

distributed on the Internet to make it easier for activists from

Europe to join the protest. The Italian anarchist movement

known as Ya Basta is expected to attend. It has been linked

to the hijacking of a train in Italy, and British protest groups

are known to have studied its tactics and been in contact with

its leadership.