British police question suspects amid reports of Heathrow plot
LONDON -- Armed with new intelligence from Pakistan suggesting Al Qaeda plotted to attack London's Heathrow Airport, police yesterday questioned a dozen terror suspects, including a man said to be a key Al Qaeda operative, and announced the arrest of a man wanted in the United States on charges of raising money for terrorism.
Intelligence officials in Pakistan saidthey found images of Heathrow and other sites on the computers of two fugitives from Osama bin Laden's terrorist network arrested in the country last month, and that this information was passed to British officials.
An official said that there are linkages between the arrests in Pakistan and the arrests of the 12 suspects in Britain on Tuesday. Among the 12 was an alleged senior Al Qaeda member, known as Abu Eisa al-Hindi or Abu Musa al-Hindi, who media reported was involved in a Heathrow plot.
The official called Hindi ''a key Al Qaeda operative." Authorities are looking into whether Hindi is connected to the radical London cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri, whose extradition the United States is seeking on charges he attempted to establish a terrorist training camp in Oregon.
Yesterday, police gained court approval to continue questioning the detainees until Sunday afternoon. Further extensions up to a total of two weeks are possible.
Police also said yesterday they had arrested a British man, Babar Ahmad, wanted on terrorism charges in a warrant issued by a federal prosecutor in Connecticut, and that antiterrorism officials were searching three ''residential premises" and one business in southwest London on behalf of US authorities.
Ahmad, 30, is accused in the United States of trying to raise funds for ''terrorism in Chechnya and Afghanistan" from 1998 through 2003, according to the US extradition warrant. His detention was not believed to be linked to the arrest of the 12 on Tuesday.
Earlier, Peter Hain, leader of the House of Commons, told British Broadcasting Corp. radio that those detained Tuesday ''are important arrests" but declined to comment on reports of a plot against Heathrow.
''If we had evidence of a specific threat, then we would tell everybody," he said. ''Now the situation is not that at this stage."
A Heathrow spokeswoman said airport authorities had not heard anything from the government ''to suggest the threat level to Heathrow has increased in recent weeks."
At the airport, Europe's busiest, many took the news in stride.
Mohammad Iqbal, 32, was flipping through The Sun newspaper and -- apparently overlooking the front-page headline blaring ''HEATHROW BOMB PLOT" -- said he was unaware of any alert.
''I'm not frightened," he said. ''When my time is up, it is up."
Barbara Asell, a 60-year-old British woman flying to Boston to visit her son, said the scare was ''one of those things you have no control over . . . I've just got to get on with it."
Cuong Vuong, a 24-year-old student headed to Singapore, said he had heard about the reported plot on the radio. ''I am a little bit frightened," he said.
Maps, photographs, and other details of possible targets in the United States and Britain were found on computers belonging to Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani -- a Tanzanian indicted for his role in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in East Africa -- and a Pakistani computer specialist identified as Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, said two Pakistani officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
An intelligence official based in Lahore, Pakistan, who was involved in the investigation following the July 13 arrest of Khan said his computer contained photographs of Heathrow Airport, as well as pictures of underpasses that run beneath several buildings in London.
Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayyat of Pakistan told reporters the arrests in Britain were not based on ''specific information" from Pakistan.
''What we do is that whenever we feel the need that certain information could be relevant or of use for our coalition partners, we do exchange information and we do share information and intelligence," he said.
Hayyat told Britain's Channel 4 news that talk of a Heathrow plot was ''purely speculative."
''We certainly do not have any specific information which would back up that suggestion," he said.
The CIA provided information that contributed to the detention of Hindi, as well as information that led the Pakistanis to detain Khan. The
Police and the Home Office refused to comment on the reported Heathrow plot or whether Hindi was among the 13 suspects they arrested on suspicion of involvement in the ''commission, preparation, or instigation of acts of terrorism." One man has since been released. Police haven't said what they suspect the men of doing.
Heathrow has been at the center of terrorism fears before. In February 2003, the government deployed tanks and troops there after police warned that Al Qaeda might try attacking London. .
