LONDON — British police arrested a suspected Al Qaeda operative and searched his home and a mosque for explosives Thursday in raids that were carried out as counter-terrorism forces in much of Europe were on heightened alert.
Britain's top law enforcement official described the arrest of the 24-year-old Briton of Pakistani descent in the western city of Gloucester as "significant." Home Secretary David Blunkett indicated that intelligence agents may have broken up a terrorist plot in Britain just a week after suicide bombings of British targets in Turkey.
"It is the belief of the security [services] that this man has connections with the network of Al Qaeda groups," Blunkett said. "We would not have taken these steps if we did not believe that this individual posed a very real threat to the life and liberty of our country.... There has been an evacuation of a nearby mosque. There is a concern that this individual had in his possession explosives."
Deploying at dawn, authorities said, police cordoned off three streets and evacuated 119 homes in a mostly Asian immigrant area of central Gloucester, a cathedral city in a hilly region where the British royalty have rural estates. Investigators also searched a mosque and an Islamic college connected to the suspect in nearby Blackburn during the operation by local police, Scotland Yard and the MI5 domestic intelligence agency.
Police will conduct forensic tests on items confiscated during the raids, officials said, and are examining possible links between the suspect and Richard Reid, the British Al Qaeda terrorist convicted in the U.S. of trying to blow up a Paris-Miami flight with explosive-packed shoes in December 2001.
Police were investigating whether the suspect arrested Thursday tried to rig a similar explosive device in shoes.
The Gloucester suspect and a man arrested in Manchester on Thursday were held "on suspicion of involvement in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism," Scotland Yard said.
Britain has been on high alert since last week's bombings of the British Consulate and HSBC bank office in Istanbul, Turkey, which came five days after double suicide bombings of synagogues in that city. The violence killed 61 people and raised the fear of terrorist strikes in Europe and around the world.
