Terrorists Targeted England Hot Spots

With terror attacks planned for as early as this symbolic four-day Easter holiday weekend in England, Muslim terrorists who used student visas to enter the country had identified crowded shopping malls and nightclubs as likely targets as they sought to maximize casualties, according to counter-terrorism sources.

Police are continuing to search 10 properties across the north-west of England in connection with an alleged planned terror bomb attack.

They have found pictures of popular Manchester shopping centres and a nightclub, the BBC has learned.

Twelve men – 11 of them Pakistani, and most of them students – are still being questioned over the alleged plot.

Gordon Brown and Pakistan’s president are “committed to working together” to combat terror, says Downing Street.

Although the police previously insisted there was no intelligence pointing to any specific targets, sources have told the BBC photographs of four popular Manchester locations were recovered during searches.

These were the Arndale and Trafford Centre shopping complexes, Birdcage nightclub and St Ann’s Square.

On Thursday, security staff at the Trafford Centre and officials at Manchester Arndale said they had not been informed of any threat.

An Arndale spokesman said: “Both Manchester Arndale and the The Birdcage will be operating as normal over the Easter weekend.”

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Al-Qaeda Terror Plot To Bomb Easter Shoppers Broken Up – UK

An al-Qaeda cell was days away from carrying out an “Easter spectacular” of co-ordinated suicide bomb attacks on shopping centres in Manchester, police believe.

Sources told The Daily Telegraph that the arrests of 12 men in the north west of England on Wednesday were linked to a suspected plan to launch a devastating attack this weekend.

Some of the suspects were watched by MI5 agents as they filmed themselves outside the Trafford Centre on the edge of Manchester, the Arndale Centre in the city centre, and the nearby St Ann’s Square.

Police were forced to round up the alleged plotters after they were overheard discussing dates, understood to include the Easter bank holiday, one of the busiest shopping weekends of the year.

“It could have been the next few days and they were talking about 10 days at the outside,” one source said. “We had to act.” Police are now engaged in a search for an alleged bomb factory, where explosives might have been assembled.

If such a plot was carried out, it would almost certainly have been Britain’s worst terrorist attack, with the potential to cause more deaths than the suicide attacks of July 7, 2005, when 52 people were murdered.

A plan to arrest the suspects in a series of co-ordinated raids yesterday morning had to be hastily brought forward to Wednesday afternoon after the country’s most senior anti-terrorism officer, Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick, of the Metropolitan Police, was photographed going into Downing Street carrying a briefing paper with top secret details of Operation Pathway in full view.

Yesterday morning, Mr Quick resigned after he was told by the Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, that he had lost her confidence and that of MI5.

As a result of his blunder, hundreds of police officers had to be scrambled to arrest the suspects, who were being monitored round the clock.

Former police chiefs pointed out that rounding up suspected suicide bombers in public places in Liverpool, Manchester and Clitheroe, Lancs, had put other people at risk and could also have compromised the operation.

Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, described the alleged plot as “very big” and said investigators were looking at links with Pakistan.

Mr Brown said: “We know that there are links between terrorists in Britain and terrorists in Pakistan. That is an important issue for us to follow through and that’s why I will be talking to President Zardari about what Pakistan can do to help us in the future.”

All but one of the men arrested were Pakistani nationals who came to Britain on student visas. This suggested a possible new tactic by al-Qaeda, which had previously used British-based extremists who travelled to Pakistan for training.

The issue of student visas represents a potential security nightmare for the police and MI5. There are 330,000 foreign students in Britain and around 10,000 such visas are issued every year to Pakistanis alone.

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United States President Barack Obama on Wednesday said Al Qaeda was planning attacks on the US from its hideouts in Pakistan, a private TV channel reported.

Obama said the US would “chase and defeat the terrorist organisation wherever it is present in the world”, the channel said. Addressing a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in London, Obama said US policy was clear for both Pakistan and Afghanistan and Kabul would not be allowed to become a safe haven for Al Qaeda. Read more

UK – Terrorists Could Launch Dirty Bomb Attack

It is becoming “more realistic” that terrorists could get hold of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons to attack the United Kingdom, the British Home Office said today. The warning was included in an updated counter-terrorism strategy designed to tackle what Home Office officials called an evolving terrorist threat.

Rather than acquiring a nuclear warhead, British officials worry more that terrorists could gather radioactive material to build a so-called “dirty-bomb.” That risk has existed for some time, but it’s increased due to the security situation in several failed states as well as a growing market in radioactive materials.

In an off-camera press briefing this morning for a handful of journalists, British officials said they continue to track a large number of British nationals of Pakistani origin who are traveling to Pakistan for terror training, and to fight in the insurgency, or both. However, they said there are some hopeful signs from Pakistan’s new government.

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British Terror Arrests Linked To Threat to Kill Brown

The arrest of three terror suspects in northern England earlier this month was linked to an online threat to kill Prime Minister Gordon Brown, British media reported Friday.

The British Broadcasting Corp. said the three men were being held in connection with an Internet posting signed “al-Qaida in Britain,” which threatened the life of Brown and former prime minister Tony Blair.

The statement, posted on a radical website earlier this year, demanded the withdrawal of British forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, and the release of Muslim inmates from Britain’s Belmarsh Prison, a high-security facility that houses many convicted terrorists.

The BBC did not cite a source for its report or explain the suspects’ alleged connection to the Internet posting. However, Britain’s Press Association news agency quoted unidentified police sources as confirming the BBC report.

Lancashire police in northern England were not immediately available for comment about the reports Friday evening. Brown’s office declined comment. Neither did Britain’s Home Office, which handles media queries for the country’s domestic intelligence agency MI5.

The three men were arrested Aug. 14, two of them at Manchester Airport, about 300 kilometres north of London, and the third in the nearby town of Accrington. The BBC said the two arrested at the airport were about to board a plane for Finland, and that British counterterrorism police have travelled there as part their investigation.

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