Al-Qaeda had info on Heathrow

2004-08-05 07:18

London - Police in Britain are holding a senior al-Qaeda operative who was allegedly planning an attack on London's main Heathrow airport, major British newspapers reported on Thursday.

In a front-page report, The Times said the man was arrested after a tip-off from Pakistani intelligence, which claimed that he was getting orders direct from Osama bin Laden "as head of al-Qaeda operations in Britain".

It quoted Pakistani officials as saying that details about Heathrow - the world's busiest international airport - were found in the computer of an al-Qaeda member arrested last month in Pakistan whose job it was to send coded messages to al-Qaeda agents worldwide.

The Daily Telegraph, in a broadly similar front-page report, said the suspect used the alias Abu Eisa Al Hindi.

Capture is a "good signal"

"He was planning some sort of attack in Britain and his capture is a good signal that intelligence obtained from al-Qaeda operatives here (in Pakistan) is producing results," it quoted a Pakistani official as saying.

It added that police would not say whether the man was among the 12 terrorism suspects who were being held for a second night on Wednesday following their arrest in "intelligence-led" raids in London and other parts of England. All of the men were reportedly of south Asian origin, with at least some of them British citizens.

London's Metropolitan Police, which spearheaded Tuesday's operation, refused to comment on Thursday's press reports.

The Guardian said British security sources were playing down any claims that they had foiled an imminent bomb plot, nor linking it to seizure of computer files in Pakistan which suggested a threat to United States financial institutions.

But it quoted British government officials as saying that Tuesday's operation was "not insignificant".

The Sun newspaper, however, said the raids were prompted by detailed information about Heathrow pulled from the computer of Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, a suspected al-Qaeda agent nabbed in Pakistan in July after a gunfight.

According to The Times, Khan had visited Britain at least six times in recent years, and had disclosed after his arrest that the chief of al-Qaeda operations in Britain went by the code name "Bilal".

"Officials insist that Mr Khan was in 'direct contact' with Bilal over the Heathrow mission," the newspaper wrote. "But only Bilal knew the identities of others in the UK who would be used in the Heathrow operation."

It said its Pakistani intelligence source would not divulge details of any timetable for a Heathrow attack, or say whether the perpetrators intended to fire missiles at an airliner or strike a terminal with a truck bomb.

Heathrow was ringed by troops and police last February in what security experts at the time said appeared to be a major security operation to prevent missiles being shot at a departing airliner.

- AFP