Europe on Terror Alert

Merkel told reporters that the current threats facing Western countries meant Germany must rethink its postwar constitutional restrictions on using its troops.

"The old separation of domestic security and security abroad is yesterday's news," Merkel said at the headquarters of her conservative Christian Democrats during a presentation of their draft party platform.

"We have to think in a completely different context. Only then will freedom and security be kept in balance in light of this new threat."

She said the attacks in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001, which were planned by students living in Germany, had led to "a sea change with consequences."

Under Germany's Basic Law adopted after the Nazi era, the military may only be deployed in the event of a disaster or to provide medical back-up during major public events.

Coalition divided over deployment issue

Conservatives have stepped up calls since the September 11 attacks for the government to have more leeway to send troops to defend against a specific threat to the civilian population. But the Social Democrats, partners in Germany's left-right ruling coalition, oppose the move as a violation of the country's strict postwar separation of the mandates of its security services.

The debate in Germany has been revived by the series of thwarted terror attacks in Britain.

An interior ministry spokesman said Monday that German and British authorities had stepped up their cooperation in recent days. But he added that there was no indication Germany faced a specific threat of imminent attacks.

German authorities announced June 22 they had boosted security measures in response to a greater threat of attacks at home and abroad due to the country's military involvement in Afghanistan.

EU chief urges more collaboration

In the wake of the failed attacks, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said that the European Union should step up joint action against terrorist threats.

"The recent attacks, fortunately foiled, in London and Glasgow have demonstrated the need for us to work together and complete our agenda in the fight against terrorism," Barroso told a news conference on Monday.

Barroso added that EU legislation on storing data had helped British authorities monitor suspect terrorists before the planned attacks.

"The fact we had adopted a directive, according to which data could be stored for longer, played an important role in enabling British police to monitor a number of suspect networks," he said.

"Terrorists do not respect frontiers; consequently it makes no sense to fight terrorism purely through inter-governmental mechanisms. We need supranational instruments if we are to be effective against terrorism."

Britain will not bend, says home secretary

Meanwhile, British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said that Britain will not be intimidated by terrorism in a statement to parliament Monday on the weekend's failed car bombings in London and Glasgow.

Smith confirmed that six people were under arrest in connection with the police investigation into the incidents, while a further person in hospital was of interest.

She said that police searches had been carried out at 19 locations across the country. "Our top priority has to be the success of the investigation," Smith told members of Parliament in the lower House of Commons.

"Terrorists are criminals whose victims come from all walks of life," she said, adding: "It is through our unity that the terrorists will eventually be defeated."

"My aim as home secretary is to allow the British public to live their lives as they would wish, within the law," she added. The "strongest message" needed to go out "to those who wish to destroy our way of life and our freedoms that we will not be intimidated by terror."

UK remains on highest terror alert

Britain remains on a "critical" state of terror alert, the highest grade possible, after the attempted attacks, which started off with a Mercedes car filled with gasoline, gas and nails, parked outside a busy London nightclub in the early hours of last Friday.

Officers were able to defuse the device after being alerted to a "smoldering car" by members of an ambulance crew which happened to be in the central London area, at Haymarket, at the time.

Hours later, police were able to defuse a second Mercedes car bomb in a vehicle which had been parked nearby before being towed to a compound after receiving a ticket for being parked illegally.

On Saturday afternoon, two men drove a blazing Jeep into the main airport terminal building at Glasgow, Scotland, in an attempted attack linked to the events in London a day earlier, police said.