UK rejects Pakistan criticism on counter-terrorism
10 Apr 2009 18:43:55 GMT Source: Reuters
* British minister defends security screening * Pakistan envoy says more checks needed at UK end * Police continue search, 2 days after arresting 12 * Brown says two-thirds of UK plots originate in Pakistan (Adds Brown quotes) By Frank Prenesti LONDON, April 10 (Reuters) - Britain rejected Pakistani criticism over security screening on Friday as police in northwest England investigated a suspected al Qaeda plot involving Pakistani nationals who entered on student visas. Immigration minister Phil Woolas described as a "red herring" criticism from Pakistan's high commissioner of British checks on foreign students. Responding to British demands that Pakistan do more to combat terrorism, the diplomat, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, said Pakistani authorities could help carry out background checks on student visa applicants but had not been allowed to. "It is at your end, you have to do something more...Every day we are raiding people...we are arresting suspects wherever we find them," Hasan told BBC television. "If they allow us to make inquiries first, if they ask us to scrutinise those people who are seeking visas, we can help them." In a major counter-terrorism operation, police on Wednesday arrested 12 people including 11 Pakistani nationals, all but one of whom were on student visas. None has yet been charged. Police said on Friday they were searching a 10th address, in the northwest city of Liverpool. Most terrorist plots in Britain since Sept. 11, 2001 have had links to Pakistan, including suicide bombings in July 2005 which killed 52 people on London's underground and bus network. Prime Minister Gordon Brown told Al Jazeera television that "most of al Qaeda's base is in Pakistan" and "we need all the cooperation that we have with the Pakistani authorities" to deal with terrorists operating from that country. ORDERS FROM PAKISTAN "Two-thirds of terrorist plots that we've had to identify and deal with in Britain, either successful or unsuccessful plots, have originated from Pakistan, and clearly instruction's been made from leaders in Pakistan rather than in Britain," said Brown, who spoke with Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari by telephone on Thursday night. His office said they agreed their countries "share a serious threat from terrorism and violent extremism", and had committed to "work together to address this common challenge". Immigration minister Woolas said entrance requirements for foreign students were tightened last week. "There is no evidence to suggest that these people, who may be involved in a terrorist plot, were not studying at university," he told Sky News. "People aren't terrorists or students, they are sometimes both. I think there's a bit of a red herring going on in this idea that the visa check overseas would have stopped some of these operations." Some security experts have warned for years of a threat from Islamist militants based at British universities, including foreigners on student visas. Wednesday's raids had to be brought forward because of a security blunder by Britain's top counter-terrorism officer, Bob Quick, who was photographed entering Brown's 10 Downing Street residence carrying a secret document on the operation. The document, headlined "Briefing Note: Operation Pathway" and marked "secret", described it as a "Security Service-led investigation into suspected AQ (al Qaeda) driven attack planning within the UK". Quick resigned on Thursday, acknowledging that "my action could have compromised a major counter-terrorism operation". (Additional reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
The mother of Showkat Ahmad Pal, a missing Kashmiri youth, wipes her tears during a demonstration organised by the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) in Srinigar, April 10, 2009. ...
