Pakistan holds three in foiled UK bomb plot-reports

ISLAMABAD, Aug 11 (Reuters) Pakistan has arrested at least three men in connection with the foiled attempt to blow up airliners flying from Britain to the United States, media reports said to today.

Two men were arrested from the southern port city of Karachi and the third from the eastern city of Lahore, private Geo Television reported.

The report did not give other details.

Pakistan said the plot to blow up trans-Atlantic airliners 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 spokesman Tasnim Aslam said.

''There were some arrests in Pakistan, which were coordinated with the arrests in the UK,'' she said.

The suspects arrested in Britain were British nationals, Aslam said.

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

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

Al Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri, are believed to be hiding in Pakistan or across the border in Afghanistan, and their network has forged links with several Pakistani jihadi groups.

At least two of the British Muslims involved in the bomb attacks on London underground trains and a bus that killed 52 people in July last year had visited Pakistan months earlier, raising suspicions they had ties wite militants in the country.

Pakistan has arrested hundreds of al Qaeda members since joining the US-led global war on terrorism following attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.

But President Pervez Musharraf's government still has to battle against the country's image as a haven for militancy.

Meanwhile, airports in Pakistan have been put on ''high alert'' after unearthing of the bomb plot in Britain.

''There is no specific threat but we have tightened security at the airports,'' an official of the state-run Civil Aviation Authority said.

''The passengers are thoroughly checked, particularly their hand baggage,'' a security official at Islamabad airport said.

''The passengers are also being asked to take off their shoes for checking purposes. This has never happened here before.'' REUTERS PB RN1118