British police search for Liverpool bomb factory

British police were searching for a "bomb factory" in Liverpool as they quizzed 11 Pakistani suspects arrested over a terrorist plot linked to al-Qaeda.

The search for the terrorist bomb factory, which may have been used to store explosives, was being concentrated on a rundown block of flats east of Liverpool city centre, the media here reported.

Police stepped up its search operation following the arrest of a dozen al-Qaeda suspects, including 11 Pakistani who were in the UK on student visas, in raids in 14 properties across northwest England on Wednesday.

The terror suspects were questioned on Friday night amid reports that they had planned a massive bomb attack within days, possibly as soon as Easter Monday.

Some had been seen by surveillance officers filming shopping centres in Manchester, which would be packed on a bank holiday.

The 14 raids in Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside had to be advanced after anti-terror chief Bob Quick was photographed holding a secret document detailing the targets. Quick, 49, resigned on Thursday.

Far from studying, at least four of the suspects had been working as security guards, two at a large hardware store where the gang would have had access to potential bomb-making materials.

Staff at the new branch of Homebase store in Clitheroe, Lancashire, on Friday night said they had been ordered to carry out a stock check. They were focussing on materials such as fertiliser and inflammable household liquids which could have been used for a bomb.

Two of the arrested men were staying at a local bed and breakfast facility, which was also searched. They were employed by a Newcastle-based company called Sky Interseve UK, acting as a sub-contractor for the Essex firm Manpower Direct.

Two other suspects arrested in a house at the multi-ethnic Manchester suburb of Cheetham Hill also worked as security guards. Neighbours said they were Pashtuns, originally from Afghanistan, and aged around 30 and 40.

One of them had told neighbours he was attending a college which has actually closed.

Immigration minister Phil Woolas said on Friday night that foreign students were checked against watchlists of criminals and suspects from other countries.

"It's naive to think that we don't check, we do work very closely with the Pakistan authorities, indeed we've been criticised for doing so," he said, only a week after he said student visas were "the major loophole in Britain's border controls".

His comments follow Pakistan's high commissioner to the UK Wajid Shamsul Hasan's remarks that it was Britain that was responsible for not doing enough to carry out security checks on foreign students.

Police moved in on the suspects after uncovering coded e-mails and internet 'chatter', indicating that the suspects were close to an attack.

Woolas told BBC that there were 285 million people coming in and out of the country every year, including nearly 400,000 issued with student visas.

"We do have these systems of checking these people to the best of our ability and we are acknowledged in international police circles as being one of the best in the world."

Out of 12 suspects arrested, only one is understood to have been studying at a reputed institution. Officials believe they lied about their financial resources to evade a Home Office test of their ability to pay for their studies.

One of the suspects, Sultan Sher, was arrested at the Cyber Net cafe in the Cheetham Hill area of Manchester, alongside a man known as Tariq. Abid Naseer was arrested from a house in the same area, while one of his housemates, Hamza Shenwari, was nabbed from the nearby motorway M602.

Another person Abdul Khan was arrested in Liverpool, as was John Moores University student Muhammad Adil, who was later released. Police continued to search homes on Friday.

With more than 40,000 visas given to Pakistani students in the last four years alone, there are fears that more terror cells are at large.

Students from abroad require a bank statement showing enough cash to pay fees of 10,000 pounds or more a year, plus 6,000 pounds living costs.

With the Pakistanis all believed to originate from poor tribal regions, there is suspicion that funds may have been provided directly by the al-Qaeda or the Taliban.