London - Britain, already on high security alert following the failed car bombings in London and Glasgow ten days ago, has been given a chilling warning over its decision to award a knighthood to Salman Rushdie, the Anglo-Indian author of The Satanic Verses. Security and intelligence agencies were Wednesday checking the authenticity of a threat from the al-Qaeda network over the controversial honour, proposed by former prime minister Tony Blair in recognition of Rushdie's "services to literature."
The author, now Sir Salman, still has to be given a date to visit the royal palace for an investiture with Queen Elizabeth II, which involves the monarch touching his shoulder lightly with a sword.
The palace is said to be "embarrassed" about having been drawn into the controversy, sources said. Honours are given twice yearly by the Queen, at the suggestion of the government of the day.
Ayman al-Zawahiri, regarded as deputy of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, warned late Tuesday that the organization was preparing a "very precise response" to Britain honouring the novelist whose 1998 book, The Satanic Verses, caused violent protest across the Muslim world.
The threat, addressed directly to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown - came in a 20-minute audio-tape posted on a website used by Islamic militants.
"I say to Blair's successor (Brown) that the policy of your predecessor drew catastrophes in Afghanistan and Iraq and even in the centre of London," it said.
"If you did not learn the lesson then we are ready to repeat it, God willing, until we are sure you have fully understood."
Security sources in Britain said they did not believe that the recent attempted car bombings in London and Glasgow were linked to the Rushdie controversy, even though a claim to that effect was made on a website.
Such conspiracies took "months to prepare" and often involved the potential perpetrators travelling to Pakistan for training in advance, sources said.
However, it was realized that the al-Qaeda leadership saw "great propaganda value in using the knighthood to justify any attacks already planned," said one source.
Reports said Wednesday that Scotland Yard was "reviewing" police protection for Rushdie, who lives in London and New York.
The author, who recently celebrated his 60th birthday, was divorced from his fourth wife, Indian actress Padma Lakshmi, at her request, earlier this month.
Responding to the threat late Tuesday, the British government said it would "not allow terrorists to undermine the British way of life."
"The British people will remain united, resolute and strong," a spokesman for Brown said.
The Satanic Verses unleashed widespread protest in 1989, when Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa ordering the author's execution.
For the nine years that followed, Rushdie lived as a virtual prisoner, changing addresses constantly and making public appearances only in disguise.
His round-the-clock surveillance by British security is believed to have cost the British taxpayer an estimated 10 million pounds (20 million dollars).
"We have learned nothing from those years, the story has come full circle," a British commentator said Wednesday.
There was little support for Rushdie's predicament among Britain's literary circles Wednesday.
BBC broadcaster Melvyn Bragg said it was "wrong" to be intimidated.
"Why should we in this country change our way of behaviour ... just because we are bullied by threatening remarks," he said.
A British Foreign Office spokesperson said in an earlier response to al-Zawahiri's latest message that the knighthood for Rushdie was a reflection of Rushdie's contribution to literature.
"The government has already made clear that Rushdie's honour was not intended as an insult to Islam or the Prophet Muhammad," the spokesperson said.
However, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said it was "quite predictable" that al-Qaeda would "try to use the knighthood to further their own goals of polarizing Muslims and the West."
"To reward Rushdie with a knighthood was an ill-thought-out decision, it was bound to cause outrage among Muslims around the world," said MCB spokesman Inayat Bunglawala.
