8月10日，英国《金融时报》援引英国警方的话报道说，伦敦金融城已经成为恐怖分子袭击目标，金融城遭袭只是迟早的事情。外电报道如下：A new terrorist attack on London's key financial district, the City of London, is only a matter of time, the police chief for the area responsible says.

James Hart, commissioner¹ of the City of London Police, told the Financial Times there had been "hostile reconnaissance" of the City on several occasions since September 11, 2001.

"Every successful terrorist group pre-surveys its target. There's no doubt that we've been subject to that surveillance and that sort of thing has been successfully disrupted," he told the newspaper.

He said that the area had been a terrorist target for three decades, saying: "Look at the number of time we were hit by the IRA. I think (another attack) is a question of when rather than if."

Reconnaissance表示“侦察，搜索，踏勘”，尤指为收集军事信息而进行的这种活动，相关词组有：high reconnaissance（高空侦察）；field reconnaissance（野外查勘）；make a reconnaissance of the work to be done（对要做的工作要事先考查）等。

伦敦金融城是伦敦的城中之城，面积约为5平方公里，是世界三大金融中心之一。这里聚集了500多家外国银行，180多个外国证券交易中心，每天的外汇交易量达6300亿美元。