Pakistan's Role in Uncovering Conspiracy

Pakistan appears to have played a vital role in uncovering the terror plot, helping British security agencies to break the international network.

Two or three suspects have been arrested by Pakistani authorities in recent days, but the Pakistan foreign ministry has refused to give details of their identities. It is understood they were "local people" who were arrested in Lahore and Karachi.

An Islamic militant arrested near the Afghan-Pakistan border several weeks ago also provided a lead that played a role in "unearthing the plot", a Pakistani intelligence official said.

Yesterday the founder of the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group was put under house arrest in the eastern city of Lahore. Lashkar, an Islamic group fights for Kashmir's "freedom", was closed down in Pakistan after the September 11 attacks, but Hafiz Mohammad Saeed continued to run a religious charity called Jamaat-ud-Dawa. The US has designated both as terrorist organisations.

On Tuesday Pakistani authorities had ordered hundreds of foreign students be expelled from madrassas.

"The major work was done by the British agents, but they got a major clue from Pakistan," he said. The information Pakistan obtained was "quickly verified and shared" with Britain, he added, and Pakistan had learned al-Qaida people "while sitting in Afghanistan had discussed this plan."

However even if those in police custody - most of whom are of Pakistani origin - did visit Pakistan for a few weeks, so do vast numbers of Britain's Pakistanis. The question is whether they met radical ideologues and organisations while there.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said the arrests in Britain followed intelligence cooperation between Britain, Pakistan and the US.

While Pakistan is a key ally of Britain and the US in the war on terrorism, it is also troubled by Islamic militancy on its own soil.

Attention is likely to focus in coming days on Pakistan and the 13,000 madrassas or religious schools in the country. In the wake of the bombings of July 7 in London last year it was revealed that two of the London suicide bombers had been to Pakistan before the attacks, where one had visited a madrassa. At the time President Pervez Musharraf promised to crack down on foreigners attending the religious seminaries - some of which are known to provide an education rich in fundamentalist ideology.