Pakistan arrested 2 Britons last week linked to plot

ISLAMABAD, Aug 11 (Reuters) Pakistan arrested two Britons of Pakistani descent last week as part of a coordinated operation to foil a plot to blow up transatlantic airliners, a senior government official said today.

''They are British nationals. They were arrested 8 to 10 days ago. One from Karachi and one from Lahore,'' the official said on condition of anonymity.

Pakistan said the plot was thwarted after active coordination between Pakistani, British and US intelligence agencies, leading to the arrest of 24 people in Britain.

''In fact, Pakistan played a very important role in uncovering and breaking this international terrorist network,'' Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said.

Suspected suicide bombers were just days from simultaneous attacks on aircraft flying from Britain to the United States, in what one British official said could have been ''mass murder on an unimaginable scale''.

Other media in Pakistan have reported more arrests in Pakistan, but there has been no official confirmation.

The plot bore the hallmarks of al Qaeda, some security analysts said.

There were similarities to the September.11, 2001 hijackings of US airliners for the attacks on New York and Washington and ''Operation Bojinka'', a plan never carried out, to blow up passenger planes over the Pacific Ocean in 1995.

Those conspiracies were hatched by Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the al Qaeda operations planner arrested in Pakistan in 2003.

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