Ireland, Britain Push for More Intelligence Sharing

Britain and Ireland agreed on Monday to urge other European Union countries to share more intelligence to counter terrorist plots such as last month's failed car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow.

"I am delighted that the UK and Irish governments will now approach the European Union for better systems of data sharing so that we can deal with the potential threat," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told reporters after a meeting with Irish counterpart Bertie Ahern.

Brown's comments came a week after Interpol accused Britain of failing to share information on militants and said its counter-terrorism efforts were "in the wrong century".

Brown and Ahern, in Northern Ireland for a summit of regional government leaders in Britain and Ireland, said they would ask European partners to go beyond existing policing and information sharing pacts under the Schengen Agreement.

Intelligence on "people who are known to be suspected of terrorist activities" and on immigration as well as biometric data could all be shared, Brown said.

Outlining the scale of the threat on Monday, Britain's Security minister Alan West said UK security services were monitoring around 4,000 individuals in more than 200 networks.

Last week Interpol boss Ronald Noble criticised Britain for not passing on data about suspected militants.

"The UK has not shared its terrorist watch list with Interpol," he said in an open letter, adding that the failure to coordinate with other countries could allow suspects to "remain free to plan and carry out more terrorist attacks".