BRITAIN: Up to 50 people across the world may have been part of the alleged conspiracy to explode bombs on aircraft heading from Britain to the United States, it emerged yesterday. New details about the alleged plot are contained in a briefing document from the counter-terrorism section of the New York police department.
It says: "Bombs were to be placed on up to 10 different airliners. Explosives were to be detonated mid-flight over the Atlantic . . . Liquid explosives were to be used as the main charge . . . [ they] would have been smuggled on board . . . then assembled on board." The document says three terrorists would have been assigned to each plane.
Britain's most senior police officer yesterday said there was so much intelligence by last Wednesday about the alleged plot that action had to be taken.
Ian Blair, commissioner of London's Metropolitan police, said: "We have been behind this group of people for some time. What we always have to do is balance waiting to gather more evidence and make sure you get all the people, against the risk to the public by not moving in earlier."
In another sign of the global nature of the investigation, 15 more people were reported to have been arrested in Pakistan.
Known militants already serving sentences are also understood to have been interviewed in Pakistani prisons.
Most attention is still focused on a Briton, Rashid Rauf, who was arrested in Pakistan and has been described by authorities in Pakistan and Britain as a key player in the alleged plot. Though it is thought Mr Rauf will be extradited, the British High Commission said yesterday it had been given no access to him.
The British Charity Commission is launching an inquiry into allegations that a charity that raised funds for the Pakistani earthquake was used to finance the alleged plot.
Abdul Rauf - father of Rashid Rauf, who has been arrested in Pakistan, and his younger brothers Maroof and Tayib, who were arrested in Birmingham - was a founding director of Crescent Relief, based in Dagenham, east London.
No suggestion has been made that Abdul Rauf or the charity were aware that funds may have been siphoned off.
Meanwhile, British home secretary John Reid said the downgrading of the threat of a terrorist attack from "critical", the highest level, to "severe", did not mean the danger of an attack had passed, but that police believed they had wrapped up most loose ends.
Police obtained a judge's permission to hold until tomorrow the 23 people it detained last week in connection with the alleged plot.