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Plot to kill Brown; 3 held

Gordon Brown

LONDON: Three young men of Pakistani origin have been arrested in connection with investigations into a threat to kill Prime Minister Gordon Brown and other leading British political leaders, including Tony Blair.

Two were detained at Manchester airport as they were about to board a flight to Helsinki, and the third was arrested in Accrington, Lancashire, where he worked as a security guard.

All were reported to be in their twenties and came from the Lancashire town of Blackburn which has a large Mirpuri Pakistani population.

Though the arrests were made on August 14, it emerged only on Saturday that they were linked to the threat to kill Mr. Brown.

Police said the arrests were not connected to any imminent terror plot.

The threat appeared on an Arabic extremist website al-Ekhlas on January 24 and was issued in the name of Sheikh Umar Rabie al-Khalaila “leader of Al-Qaeda in Britain”.

In a statement, he threatened a wave of attacks on Britain and its interests abroad if the group’s demands, which included complete withdrawal of British troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, were not met. The arrests caused surprise among Blackburn’s Muslim community. Neighbours of the three men described them as “normal everyday lads” with no known extremist background.

“They’ve never been in any trouble,” one neighbour told a newspaper.

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