Al-Qaida's "British chief" arrested in police raids

British police have seized a senior al-Qaida operative who was said to be in the final stages of planning an attack on London's Heathrow Airport, the local media reported Thursday.

The arrest followed a tip-off from Pakistani intelligence officials claiming that the head of al-Qaida operations in Britain,whose alias is Bilal, was receiving direct orders from Osama bin Laden, The Times newspaper reported.

Bilal was arrested along with other 12 men with Asian origin across England earlier this week.

"Detailed maps of Heathrow and other information about the airport were found on a computer belonging to Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, whose role was to send coded orders to al-Qaida agents around the world," the paper quoted Pakistani officials as saying.

Khan, a computer expert arrested in Pakistan last month for alleged links to extremists, described to interrogators how outline plans for the attack on Heathrow were sent to Bilal, the report said.

Pakistani officials have identified Bilal as Aub Musa al-Hindi,whose task was to carry out the terror operation.

Scotland Yard declined to confirm the reports, only saying the arrests in London and other cities earlier this week were the result of a long-planned, intelligence-led operation that began before recent arrests in Pakistan.

Source: Xinhua