Daily Mail : Britons arrested in Pakistan 'have Al Qaeda connections'

Britons arrested in Pakistan 'have Al Qaeda connections'

18:15pm 11th August 2006

There is evidence of an Al Qaeda connection to the plot to blow up planes in mid-flight from the UK to the US, it has been revealed.

Pakistani officials said there are indications of an 'Afghanistan-based Al Qaeda connection' to the planned attacks, naming Rashid Rauf as one of the two British nationals arrested in connection with the plot last week. Five other suspects were also detained.

In a statement, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said arrests made in Pakistan had triggered arrests in Britain on the night of August 9 and 10. It named British national Rashid Rauf, who was arrested in Pakistan, as a "key person" in the alleged plot.

The statement said the arrests underscored "the very important role that has been played by Pakistan in breaking this international terrorist network."

It said there were "indications of Afghanistan-based al-Qaida connection" in the case, but did not elaborate further.

Pakistani investigators were still establishing the identities of the other five people arrested.

Pakistan said the plot was thwarted after active co-ordination between Pakistani, British and US intelligence agencies, leading to the arrest of 24 people in Britain.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said, Pakistani citizens were not involved in the plot. Adding the suspects "had been monitored for quite some time" before they were arrested.

'Days from attack'

Suspected suicide bombers were just days from simultaneous attacks on aircraft flying from Britain to the United States, in what one British official said could have been "mass murder on an unimaginable scale". The plot bore the hallmarks of Al Qaeda, some security analysts said.

There were similarities to the September 11, 2001 hijacking of US airliners for the attacks on New York and Washington and "Operation Bojinka", a plan never carried out, to blow up passenger planes over the Pacific Ocean in 1995. Those conspiracies were hatched by Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the Al Qaeda operations planner arrested in Pakistan in 2003.

Several Al Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri, are believed to be hiding in Pakistan or across the border in Afghanistan, and their network has forged links with some Pakistani groups.

At least two of the British Muslims involved in the bomb attacks on London underground trains and a bus that killed 52 people in July last year had visited Pakistan months earlier, raising suspicions they had ties to militants in the country.