LONDON, April 10, (AFP) - British police searched houses and properties and questioned 11 Pakistanis yesterday in a probe into an alleged planned al-Qaeda attack, as London and Islamabad traded accusations over fighting terrorism.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who wants more assistance from Pakistan in rooting out extremists targeting Britain, held telephone talks with President Asif Ali Zardari.
But Pakistan's ambassador to London insisted that Islamabad was doing all it could to fight extremists and said Britain needed to do more to tighten up its borders and help Pakistan stop terrorism from spreading.
Police searched 10 properties across northwest England, where officers had carried out hastily arranged raids in broad daylight Wednesday after Britain's top anti-terror officer inadvertently revealed details of the operation.
The men arrested were allegedly planning to attack shopping centres and a nightclub in Manchester.
Brown's Downing Street office said he and Zardari “agreed that the UK and Pakistan share a serious threat from terrorism and violent extremism, and committed to work together to address this common challenge.”
In an interview with Al Jazeera English television, Brown said that two-thirds of the terror plots investigated in Britain originated from Pakistan. “Pakistan has got the problems of an economic set of difficulties at the moment but also groups of terrorists in their country operating from their country,” he said.
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