POLICE have stepped up their investigation into three firebomb attacks

in the Lothians in the last fortnight amid growing concern that they are

the work of a group of Animal Liberation Front activists in Scotland.

The latest incendiary attack came early yesterday morning on a tannery

in Currie, just outside Edinburgh. At one stage more than 50 firemen

fought the blaze in the two-storey leather factory in Lanark Road West,

battling for two hours to bring it under control and prevent it

spreading to an adjoining five-floor building.

An Animal Liberation Front spokesman said he was confident the group's

activists were behind the current campaign in Scotland, but that for

security reasons the cells had not contacted him. He denied human life

was threatened but said attacks on property would probably continue.

The recent incidents include:

* On November 27 there were arson attacks on three laboratories at the

Bush Estate, near Penicuik, with Edinburgh University's centre for

tropical medicine worst hit -- #20,000 in damage and years of research

lost. The Bush Estate had been attacked two years ago in an attack

claimed by the Animal Liberation Front. No claim was made this time.

* On December 2 drivers arriving for work at a Linlithgow abattoir

found their lorries attached to incendiary devices with timers. There

was little damage. A butcher's shop in Edinburgh's Craigmillar was also

burned out early that same day.

* On December 4 there was a firebomb attack on the Institute of

Terrestrial Ecology near Banchory in Aberdeenshire, again resulting in

the loss of years of research data.

* On December 6 an attack was carried out on the kennels of the

Houston Hunt in Renfrewshire.

* On Saturday night, December 7, another meat factory was firebombed,

this time at Tamfourhill industrial estate at Camelon, near Falkirk.

* Early yesterday, attackers hit the J. Hewit & Sons leather factory

at Currie.

Although police are refusing to be drawn on whether the attacks are

linked, the Penicuik, Linlithgow, and Currie bombings are being dealt

with from a single incident room at Dalkeith police station, where

Detective Superintendent Norman Henderson is in charge of a team of

about two dozen officers.

A spokesman for Lothian and Borders Police said: ''They are clearly

incidents of a similar nature, and are therefore being dealt with

centrally.''

A spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers of Scotland

confirmed yesterday that all the forces involved are working together in

an effort to establish whether the attacks are part of a campaign. A

Strathclyde Police spokesman said officers from different forces were

pooling information and would meet later this week to compare notes.

In Cambridge, Animal Liberation Front spokesman Robin Webb said he

believed there may well be more than one ALF cell operating in Scotland.

He insisted that ALF firebombers took great care to ensure that only

property was damaged and neither humans nor animals were at risk.

However, other animal rights activists condemned the current

firebombing campaign.

Advocates for Animals director Les Ward said: ''If these goons reckon

that by firebombing buildings they are going to change Government

policy, they are off their heads. They will kill someone eventually, I

believe.''