LONDON, 6 February 2005 — It is “inevitable” that Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network will try to stage an attack in London, the British capital’s new police chief said in an interview yesterday.

Sir Ian Blair’s warning in the Daily Telegraph newspaper echoed similar concerns expressed a year ago by Sir John Stevens, his predecessor as Metropolitan Police commissioner.

“It is inevitable that terrorists connected with Al-Qaeda will attempt to carry out an atrocity in London,” said Blair, 51, who took over as Britain’s most senior police officer on Tuesday.

“I know that because they have. It is difficult to calculate whether it is inevitable that they will get through.”

Al-Qaeda, perpetrator of the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington in 2001, is regarded by the British government as “the most significant terrorist threat” to the nation.

Besides day-to-day policing in greater London, the Metropolitan Police is responsible for anti-terrorist operations all over Britain.

Blair told the Daily Telegraph that he backed the introduction of identity cards in Britain, saying they would help identify suspects in anti-terrorist raids. He also called for telephone wiretaps to be allowed as evidence in terrorist trials.

Stevens, who has retired, spoke of the “inevitability” of an Al-Qaeda attack on London shortly after the Madrid commuter train bombings in March last year in which 191 people died.

The police officer has urged the government to scrap plans to hold terror suspects under house arrest and instead allow the use of wiretap evidence, according to remarks in a newspaper interview.

The comments by Blair will add to the pressure on the government’s proposed revision of Britain’s anti-terror laws.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke unveiled the changes late last month after the government’s policy of unlimited detention without trial for foreign terror suspects was declared illegal by the nation’s highest court.

At the same time, Clarke passed up the chance to lift rules preventing the use of eavesdropped evidence in court. The omission prompted dismay among police and defense lawyers.

“I have long been in favor of intercept evidence being used in court. The court can then weigh it up. At the moment, nobody can test it,” Blair was quoted as saying by the Telegraph.

“In policing terms (the use of intercept evidence) would make my job much easier,” he added.

Blair’s office had nothing to say on the interview and the Home Office declined comment.

The newspaper said Blair accepted there were “very legitimate” arguments against wiretap evidence.

It said he countered that police would struggle to win confidence in Muslim communities if they were stationed outside detainees’ houses.

“The community will say to us: ‘What are you doing with these people? Why don’t you tell us what you’ve got?’”

The government freed an Egyptian terror suspect from prison this week after he had been held for three years without trial.

The announcement added to the scorn lawyers, relatives and human rights groups had poured on proposed reforms of emergency anti-terrorism laws introduced after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

Seventeen foreigners were rounded up by the police using the old law.

Seven have now been freed and on Monday Britain said three others would be released on bail.