Briton gave crucial leads on bomb plot

ISLAMABAD:  A British terror suspect gave Pakistani agents the critical details of an alleged Al-Qaeda plot to bomb US-bound jets that allowed Britain to foil the conspiracy, security officials said on Saturday. 

 Britain's intelligence services asked Islamabad to trail Rashid Rauf after he travelled to Pakistan and he was arrested on August 4 in the central city of Bahawalpur, two senior officials told AFP.   

"When they interrogated Rauf he broke. He told them what we believe was not even in the knowledge of the US and the British -- that they were actually planning to blow up airliners," one of the officials said.   

"When they had finished interrogating him for three or four days then they coordinated this information with the British authorities and they carried out the arrests in Britain," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.   

Britain's Daily Telegraph quoted a Pakistani official as saying that Rauf's brother, Tayib Rauf, 22, was arrested in Birmingham and is one of 19 people on a British list of suspects whose assets should be frozen.   

The newspaper reported that Rashid Rauf is believed to be wanted for questioning by West Midlands police investigating the stabbing to death of his uncle, Mohammed Saeed, 54, in April 2002.   

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam told AFP Saturday that Islamabad was central to the discovery of the bomb scheme. "Pakistan played a key role with the United States and the United Kingdom to foil this plot."   

The ministry named Rauf in a statement late on Friday, saying he was a "key person" and adding that there were "indications of Afghanistan-based Al-Qaeda connection" to his case.   

The case had "wider international dimensions", it said.   

Rauf was arrested on information earlier received from Britain, the statement added, without specifying what kind, which "triggered arrests on the nights between 9th and 10th August 2006 in Britain."   

The ministry did not give the number of arrests made in Pakistan but earlier government and security officials said seven suspects including two Britons and five Pakistani "facilitators" were held last week.    Investigators told AFP they were now closely examining Rauf's links to Afghanistan.   

They said that about two weeks ago British officials gave Pakistani intelligence a list of names, asking that they keep track of them and report their activities.   

"They managed to locate Rauf from a hideout in Bahawalpur on the night of August 4. He was staying at a former Afghan jihadi's (holy warrior) house, it was a very swift raid and not even the police were involved," the security official said. 

 Bahawalpur is known as a hotbed of militancy with links to Jaish-e-Mohammed, a group fighting Indian rule in divided Kashmir that is believed to have increasing links with Al-Qaeda.   

Under interrogation he gave full details of the airliner plot, the official said.   

"When they informed their British counterparts that this is the plan precisely, they carried out the arrests in Britain."   

Sources here rejected claims in some British newspapers that a top Pakistani Al-Qaeda militant named Matiur Rehman had led the bomb conspiracy -- and denied other reports that Rehman was an alias for Rauf, the Briton.   

"Rehman is not a mastermind of the UK bombing plot, his name has not yet figured in the investigations," another security official said, adding that Rehman was wanted for an assassination attempt on President Pervez Musharraf. 

Musharraf received a telephone call from British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Friday thanking him for helping to thwart the plot, while British Home Secretary John Reid also voiced appreciation.   

Musharraf came under pressure after the July 7, 2005 suicide attacks on the London transport system when it emerged that some of the British-born bombers had attended Islamic religious schools, or madrassas, here.