Pakistan makes arrests after helping UK foil plot

ISLAMABAD, Aug 10 (Reuters) Pakistan made some arrests in coordination with arrests made in Britain to foil a plot to blow up airliners flying to the United States from Britain, Foreign Office spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said tiday.

''The arrests in the United Kingdom have followed active intelligence cooperation between Pakistan, the United Kingdom and the United States,'' 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. But she was unable to elaborate on who had been arrested in Pakistan.

''In fact Pakistan, played a very important role in uncovering and breaking this international terrorist network,'' Aslam said, adding that cooperation between the various intelligence agencies had been spread over a period of time.

The plot to blow up several airliners almost simultaneously 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 to militants in the country.

Pakistan has arrested hundreds of al Qaeda members since joining the US-led global war on terrorism following the attacks on the United States on September 21, 2001.

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

Last month, neighbouring India said Pakistan needed to do more to shut down militant networks after the July 11 rail bomb attacks in Mumbai, and Afghanistan often complains that the Taliban insurgency is being fuelled by fighters crossing over from Pakistan.

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