British Muslims, Pakistan, face scrutiny

British and Pakistani investigators are tracking possible links between a group of local Muslims and suspected terrorists in Pakistan who allegedly planned to blow up as many as 12 passenger planes leaving from London-area airports.

Officials said they believed they have arrested the principal figures in the planned terrorist attacks after a series of raids in Britain and Pakistan. But they said that airports would remain at high alert for the foreseeable future.

"We believe it was a major, major plot," said Home Secretary John Reid, in a television interview on Sunday. He said "the main targets" were in custody, but he warned that other operatives might still be at large.

The arrests of two dozen people in Britain, all of them apparently British citizens and most of Pakistani descent, in connection with the alleged bombing scheme have once again raised concern about the alienation of some of the country's 1.7 million Muslims. And the plot's threads back to Pakistan are likely to further concerns that the South Asian nation has become a hub for international terrorism.

As was the case following last July's bombings in London, which were attributed to British Muslims, the arrests have also spurred some disbelief. Several of the suspects, in the words of their neighbors, were "football and fish-and-chips" men, devout but not murderous. Some British Muslims have complained that they have become the targets of over-zealous police surveillance and have been stereotyped as fanatics because of the radical actions of a tiny minority.

Early Thursday, British police arrested 24 people in raids on a neighborhood in east London, the small town of High Wycombe and Birmingham, in connection with the alleged bombing plot. One person was subsequently released, a police spokeswoman said. She would not provide any details.

Over the weekend, police also raided several Internet cafes, removing hard disks and other material, and carting away documents, computers, and electronic equipment from homes and businesses associated with the suspects.

In an unusual move that drew criticism from some quarters, the Bank of England also published the names of 19 of the suspects and announced it was freezing their assets. Those identified ranged in age from 17 to 35, with most appearing to be the children or grandchildren of Pakistani immigrants.

British newspapers reported that at least two of the suspects were recent converts to Islam.

While several of those arrested lived in the same neighborhoods, it was not immediately clear whether all of the suspects knew each other. That would not be unusual, according to terrorism experts. To reduce the possibility of having a plot discovered, individual operatives may be kept in the dark about others involved.

Some of the suspects had been under surveillance since last December, when British authorities received a tip about their contacts with people in Pakistan, according to an intelligence source in London.

Some of the biggest leads in the case are believed to have come through cooperation with Pakistani officials. Last week, a British citizen of Pakistani origin named Rashid Rauf was arrested in the city of Bahawalpur in southern Punjab state. Mr. Rauf, a brother of one of the suspects arrested in England, has been described in some media reports as having connections to Al Qaeda and the Pakistani militant group Jaish-e-Muhammed (based in Bahawalpur), and is believed to have been in Pakistan to raise funds and to consort with other militants in plotting the scheme.

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