The Message on Keith Abercrombie's doorstep was chilling: "Let Live Animals live. Or You Burn." Only then did Abercrombie, a 57-year-old cattle haulier from Heslington, North Yorkshire, realise the arsonists who set his lorries ablaze causing ú70,000 damage were no ordinary vandals.
"This was a terrorist act," he said. "I'm very, very sick. We've had two lorries totally destroyed. If the diesel tanks had blown up we could all have been killed. Now I'm out of business and I've had to lay off my son. If the IRA had done it we'd get compensation. It's time the government did something about it."
Abercrombie is one of the latest victims of a nationwide arson and bombing campaign by animal rights extremists. The campaign has escalated this summer, and Scotland Yard chiefs have moved rapidly to intervene.
A telex from the Yard's anti-terrorist branch, SO13, has been sent to all 43 police forces in England and Wales warning them about the emergence of "The Justice Department", a shadowy new offshoot of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF).
Last week animal rights activists caused an estimated ú2m damage during fire bombings against Boots, the chemist, and other shops in Newport and Ryde on the Isle of Wight. But it is not simply the scale of such damage that is causing alarm.
Police chiefs are worried by two new developments. The animal terrorists appear to have decided to target people as well as property. At the same time they have extended their violence from their traditional targets, such as companies involved in the fur trade, to include those, such as Abercrombie, who are involved in the routine transporting of animals.
One particular new target is the cross-channel ferries, which carry live animals for slaughter on the continent. Extremists have already bombed one ferry company. Two months ago a letter bomb addressed to a senior executive of Stena Sealink exploded at the company's head offices in Ashford, Kent, injuring a 57-year-old secretary. Police are now offering 24-hour protection to dozens of senior ferry executives.
The animal terrorists may well think their tactics are proving successful. Brittany Ferries announced on Monday that it was to stop carrying animals for slaughter. P&O and Stena Sealink are expected to impose bans on the ú4m annual trade next month. Although critics accuse them of giving in to terrorism, the ferry companies insist they are responding to widespread public concern over the live trade in cattle, sheep and pigs.
The intervention by Scotland Yard, however, has come after intelligence leaks from informers inside the animal rights movement that the extremists have decided now to target people rather than property.
The Justice Department, believed to be behind the ferry bombing campaign, has so far claimed responsibility for 32 bombs sent to laboratories and people connected with the meat trade since last October. At least 10 people have been injured.
The group has even threatened to mail bombs containing HIV-infected blood.
Things could get worse. Scotland Yard has discovered that animal rights extremists are trying to buy plastic explosives on the black market. They have also infiltrated the Territorial Army to obtain weapons and explosives. Senior Special Branch detectives say the group poses the biggest single threat to security on the mainland after the IRA.
Senior officers say it is just a matter of time before lives are lost in the new campaign. Last week army bomb disposal experts defused a letter bomb sent to William Stedman, a manufacturer of animal traps in Winsford, Cheshire. Some weeks earlier a package exploded at Ross Breeders, a chicken-rearing plant at Newbridge, Lothian. Doris Wylie, a 37-year-old secretary, required surgery for serious injuries to her face and body.
A similar tube blew up at the Pig Improvement Company, near Abingdon, Oxfordshire, and a man suffered hand injuries.
Another parcel bomb exploded at a livestock company in Cheltenham, Gloucester. "It blew up after the postman threw it on our front porch," said the wife of a livestock trader, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals. "The postman escaped with shock but this had the potential to kill someone. It was an attempted murder."
Police later raided a house in the Midlands and recovered ingredients for bomb-making equipment and a list of the activitists' alleged targets.
Despite some successes police are severely hampered because animal rights groups operate in small, tightly knit cells scattered across the country and are notoriously difficult to infiltrate. They number several dozen hard-core activists, "foot soldiers" who are given target lists by those masterminding the campaign. "It's led by a small handful of people," said one Home Office official.
Michael Howard, the home secretary, has ruled out new laws to target the bombers. However, the Home Office believes existing police strategy, which leaves the investigation of attacks with local CID officers, is inadequate. "If this goes boss-eyed, the anti-terrorist squad will be given a leading brief to deal with it," said one Special Branch detective.
Other politicians believe the time has come for a more radical change in tactics. John Greenway, Conservative MP for Ryedale and a member of the home affairs committee, said there was an urgent need for a change in police strategy. "There needs to be more central co-ordination of police intelligence and action against animal rights activists. This is clearly a nationally co-ordinated campaign," he said. Greenway wants ministers to consider asking MI5 to help to track the animal terror gangs.
In the meantime all that the potential targets of the bombers can do is exercise increased vigilance.
Peter Gilder is a livestock haulier who runs a family business with a ú4m-a-year turnover at Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire. In recent months he, his family and colleagues have received nearly 30 threatening telephone calls accusing them of being animal murderers. "They threaten to blow us up and blow up our drivers and vehicles," Gilder said.
They are not idle threats. In June Gilder received a parcel bomb concealed in poster tubes. Now he employs a full-time security guard to protect his home and workplace. "Every morning you have to get on you hands and knees and look under the car," he said. "We always feel at risk."
