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Al-Qaeda suspect held in U.K.

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON NOV. 28. The British police were today trying to calm fears that the arrest of an alleged Al-Qaeda suspect of Pakistani origin in a northern England town on Thursday was in anyway linked to a specific terrorist plot, and officials dismissed as "pure speculation'' reports that a member of the royal family or a football stadium could have been a target.

The arrest of the 24-year-old British-born Sajid Mohammed Badat under the tough Terrorism Act in Gloucester touched off a media frenzy fuelled by the Home Secretary, David Blunkett's alarming comment that the man posed a "very real threat to the life and liberty of our country''.

But Scotland Yard said that only a "relatively small amount'' of explosives had been found in Mr. Badat's house. The nature of the explosives was not specified. Unnamed security sources were quoted as saying that he may have had links with Richard Reid, a Briton, now serving a life sentence in America for allegedly trying to blow up a plane in 2001 by concealing a bomb in his shoe.

It was stated that Mr. Badat, who attended the College of Islamic Knowledge and Guidance, had been under police surveillance for sometime.

The arrest was marked by high drama with the police evacuating some 100 families in the Muslim-dominated neighbourhood while his house was searched.

The Islamic College and several other addresses were also searched but it was not known if anything was found. A statement from the Lancashire Council of Mosques and the Islamic College said that "as far we know nothing has been found in this Islamic college to link it with the arrest''.

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