Some 60,000 people, from shopping-centre security guards to hotel workers, are being trained to respond to the threat of terrorism, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said yesterday.

Some 60,000 people, from shopping-centre security guards to hotel workers, are being trained to respond to the threat of terrorism, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said yesterday.

Her comments came two days ahead of the publication of a counter-terrorism strategy which ministers are billing as the most comprehensive approach to tackling the threat issued by any government in the world.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown yesterday issued a warning that the public must remain "vigilant at all times" to the threat from al Qaida terrorists, who he said were "intent on inflicting mass casualties without warning, including through suicide bombings".

Writing in a Sunday newspaper, Mr Brown said: "Today, not only the police, security and intelligence officers and our armed forces, but also the emergency services, local councils, businesses and community groups are involved in state-of-the-art civil contingency planning."

He said there was a "duty on all of us" to stand up to people who advocate violence and preach hate. "Terrorism threatens the rights that all in this country should hold dear, including the most fundamental human right of all - the right to life," he said.

Ms Smith said the document being published by the Home Office - known as Contest Two - would provide "a complete strategy to address counter-terror".

She said ministers were determined to be open about the steps they are taking to prevent people turning to extremism, to track down and detain those involved in terror plots, to protect British citizens and UK interests against attack and to deal with the consequences of any outrage.

"It's the nature of this work that quite often in the past it's been the sort of thing that's happened in secret, behind closed doors," said the Home Secretary.

"What we're completely clear about is that if we're going to address the threat from terrorism, we need to do that alongside the 60,000 people that we're now training up to respond to a terrorist threat, in everywhere from our shopping centres to our hotels."

Ms Smith said the document would make clear that at the heart of the fight against terror is a defence of the shared values of the British people.

"At the heart of our counter-terror strategy is promoting the shared values of democracy, of tolerance, of human rights, which the vast majority of people in this country live by," she said.

She added: "Our approach to countering terror has to be based on shared values and that's what, effectively, terrorists are seeking to attack - values like our belief in democracy, in human rights, in tolerance.

"If those things are attacked, that actually creates a space in which it makes it more likely potentially that people can be radicalised and turn to violent extremism. So we need to emphasise those shared values and provide a challenge to those who attack them."

Tomorrow's document will reflect security services' judgment that the most serious threat to the UK continues to come from international groups linked to or influenced by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.