British Step Up Security for Royals

The changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, a colorful staple of London life, suddenly seems intended to impress terrorists more than tourists.

With ceremonial soldiers in red coats and bearskin hats conspicuous by their absence Monday, Queen Elizabeth II’s home and other palaces were patrolled by lean-and-hungry-looking troopers in camouflage with high-tech assault rifles. Princess Diana and other royals got armed bodyguards.

The soldiers at the palace, like ubiquitous police patrols and the gradual disappearance of curbside trash bins, reinforced a weekend warning from Scotland Yard:

“Following the discovery of significant quantities of bomb-making material and detailed documentation . . . we are warning of the possibility of imminent attacks by the IRA on the mainland,” said Cmdr. John Grieve, head of the antiterrorist squad, referring to the outlawed Irish Republican Army.

The bomb-making material was found at the London apartment of Edward O’Brien, a 21-year-old former altar boy who became a recruit for the IRA. He died when a bomb he was transporting exploded accidentally on a bus Feb. 18.

The IRA had marked the end of its 17-month cease-fire Feb. 9 with a huge truck bomb that killed two people and wounded dozens in the Docklands section of the capital along the Thames. Police defused a bomb in a phone booth in the West End theater district Feb. 15.

More evidence that the bad old days--marked by 25 years of terrorism by the largely Roman Catholic IRA and extremist Protestant militias--may be returning came Monday from divided Northern Ireland, where 400 reinforcing British troops of the Royal Dragoon Guards flew in battle-ready.

There are now 900 more soldiers in the province than there were on Feb. 8--17,400 in all in the six counties of Northern Ireland. Soldiers in battle dress once again shadow police through the tense streets of Belfast; once again there are pictures of the forces being taunted by young Catholic boys.

Straining against the drift toward renewed violence are hopeful plantings, but few blossoms. Tens of thousands of people filled the streets of cities in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic on Sunday in emotional parades for peace. There is overwhelming support for a peace settlement among all communities in both parts of the island, pollsters say, a fact that must weigh on the IRA, which seeks an end to British rule in the north.

On Monday, Martin McGuinness, the No. 2 leader of Sinn Fein, the political arm of the IRA, held the party’s first meeting with a British official since the bombing resumed. No British or Irish minister will receive Sinn Fein without a new cease-fire, but a lower-ranking official in Belfast heard his plea for an immediate date for all-party peace talks.

McGuinness said Sinn Fein asked for the meeting, meant to “examine how the peace process can be rebuilt.” Reporters in Belfast said he came away disappointed.

British Prime Minister John Major and Irish Prime Minister John Bruton are scrambling to solidify an initiative they hope to announce at a summit this week. Diplomatic sources say they are hoping to agree on two simultaneous votes: an election in Northern Ireland of delegates who would attend the all-party talks and an all-Ireland referendum demanding that political parties assert an irrevocable commitment to peaceful, democratic means. Sinn Fein rejects elections before talks begin and refuses to surrender any weapons before a peace conference.

Scotland Yard would not comment on stepped-up palace security, but the Sun newspaper and other British sources said maps and security plans for Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle were found under the floorboards of O’Brien’s apartment.

“The documents and battle plans basically showed the IRA were going after the royal family,” the Sun quoted an unidentified security official as saying.

The documents named the queen as the top target, and Windsor Castle as one place to go after her, the newspaper said.