Ricin find sparks fear among Britons

Britons, readying for possible war with Iraq as reserve troops were mobilised, were troubled by fears of a battle at home after the seizure of the deadly toxin ricin sparked fears of a looming terror campaign.

Anti-terrorist police said they were questioning six north African men after seizing a small amount of the lethal poison in raids in north London at the weekend.

As security agents worked to establish whether any of the toxin had been distributed around Britain or abroad, doctors and hospitals around the country were put on alert for symptoms.

News of the find came in the same hour the government announced the call-up of reserve troops for possible war with Iraq, although it insisted military action was not a foregone conclusion.

But that announcement was overshadowed as the spectre of a different kind of war on the home front dominated headlines and the minds of ordinary Britons.

Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon said the arrests were a "very considerable success" for security services but denied that Britain needed to work on defending the home front rather than attacking Iraq.

"It's part of our overall effort to ensure the world is a safer and more secure place," he told BBC television.

"Terrorism is clearly disturbing particularly when it is so close to home but at the same time we have an obligation as a matter of the United Nations Security Council...to ensure that the threat posed by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein cannot materialise."

Londoner Simon Birkbeck, 34, a financial web producer, told Reuters that many people were convinced action in the Gulf would lead to terror attacks at home and the ricin find only heightened those fears.

"If there is a war on one front, Iraq, there is bound to be a war on another front, home. It is inescapable, they are interlinked."

Ricin, which some experts have linked to al-Qaeda, is one of the world's deadliest poisons and is easily derived from the castor oil bean. There is no known antidote.

Developed during World War II by the United States and its allies, it has a long history of use in international espionage but experts say it is hard to use as an agent of mass death.

The discovery is the latest security scare in Europe, where several cells of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda movement have been found and many arrests made.

Germany, France and Britain have all issued warnings of potential terror attacks to their populations in recent months, with Britain thought to be particularly at risk because of its strong support for the US led war on terror.

Although fears of a potential chemical attack have swirled around Europe for months, this is the first hard evidence made public of the manufacture of a substance which could be used.

Inhaled, injected or ingested, less than a milligram of ricin would kill a 70kg (154lb) man, causing flu-like symptoms before death. Its best-known victim was Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov assassinated by a jab to the leg with a poison-tipped umbrella in London in 1978.