'Terror plot' suspects questioned
Anti-terrorist detectives are continuing to question 22 people over an alleged plot to commit mass murder on transatlantic passenger jets.
In Pakistan, police are questioning a Briton suspected of being at the centre of the alleged plot.
Rashid Rauf has been described by senior Pakistani officials as having ties with al Qaida and being a "key" suspect. They said Rauf was a "close relative" of Tayib Rauf, one of 24 people arrested in the UK over the alleged plot to use liquid-based bombs to blow aeroplanes from the UK to the US out of the sky.
Officials in Pakistan have also indicated that arrests in that country triggered Thursday's raids in the the UK - in London, High Wycombe, Bucks, and Birmingham.
On Saturday it emerged that an intercepted telephone call from Pakistan to Britain may have played a pivotal role in unravelling the alleged plot. Officials said that the arrest of Rashid Rauf appeared to have prompted an unnamed associate to call plotters in the UK urging them to go ahead with the attacks.
"This telephone call intercept in Karachi and the arrest of Rashid Rauf helped a lot to foil the terror plan," a senior Pakistani security official said.
But Tasnim Aslam, spokeswoman for Pakistan's foreign ministry, denied that Pakistan's action had forced the hand of police in Britain. She said that Rashid Rauf had been arrested "immediately before" the arrests in the UK but added that the idea that "just because we did something, that the British government had to take action" was "incorrect".
She confirmed that officials were confident the plot had links to al Qaida in Afghanistan but added there was also a "wider international dimension".
Tayib Rauf, 22, from Birmingham, was among those arrested when British police moved in to halt the alleged conspiracy at what was described as a "critical point".
Two British nationals, including Rashid Rauf, are among seven people picked up in Karachi and Lahore. Reports suggested that a further 10 people had been arrested on Friday in the district of Bhawalpur, about 310 miles south west of Islamabad.
