PAKISTAN: Security officials in Pakistan were yesterday questioning a British man arrested on suspicion of playing a key role in the bombings in London in which 56 people died.
Haroon Rashid Aswat was carrying a belt packed with explosives, a British passport and a substantial amount of cash when he was seized, according to Pakistani intelligence sources.
His name is understood to have been passed to Pakistan's security agency, Inter Services Intelligence, by British authorities after it emerged following an examination of the mobile telephones used by the four bombers.
The arrested man is thought to have been born in Dewsbury, in Yorkshire in the north of England, and grown up in Batley, Yorkshire, a short distance from the three suicide bombers who were from Leeds, Yorkshire, and the fourth, who grew up in Huddersfield, also in Yorkshire.
Counter-terrorism officials in the UK said they believed the detainee and a 30-year-old from Yorkshire, who has the same name, are probably the same person.
The Briton being questioned in Pakistan was also hunted by the FBI for several years after he allegedly travelled from London to Oregon in November 1999 in an attempt to establish an al-Qaeda training camp. That search was scaled down, however, after the agency heard that he had been killed while fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan. It was unclear whether Aswat was also the name used by the so-called "fifth man", a known al-Qaeda suspect who was reported to have slipped into the UK through a seaport on the east coast of Britain, several weeks before the attacks, but who was not placed under surveillance and flew out of the country on July 6th.
UK counter-terrorism officials said they were "interested" in the British detainee, but added that there was no firm evidence to link him to the blasts on three tube trains and a bus two weeks ago.
Aswat was being held for questioning in Islamabad last night after being flown by helicopter from the small town of Sargodha, 177km (110 miles) west of Lahore, where he was arrested four days ago. He is expected to be questioned also by British intelligence officials based in the city.
A second Briton, Zeeshan Siddiqui (24) from Hounslow, west London, is also being questioned in Pakistan about an alleged plot to bomb targets in the UK. Siddiqui, who was arrested in Peshawar on May 18th, was a close schoolfriend of Asif Hanif, also from Hounslow, who killed himself and three other people in a suicide bomb attack on a bar in Tel Aviv in April 2003.
Police had rounded up about 200 men in raids on mosques and madrasas within 24 hours of Tony Blair saying he was anxious to see Pakistan crack down on militant teaching in religious schools. Some were being questioned about possible links with the three suicide bombers from Leeds - Mohammad Sidique Khan (30), Shehzad Tanweer (22) and Hasib Hussain (18) - whose families originated in Pakistan, and who are known to have travelled there late last year.
Several security sources in the country, who did not wish to be named, said Aswat was arrested when police first began rounding up suspected militants. "We have arrested Haroon Rashid in Sargodha three days ago," said one security official.
Pakistan's interior minister, Aftan Khan Sherpao, and information minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed yesterday denied the arrest. Intelligence sources insisted, however, that Aswat had been detained.