KARACHI The recent anti-terror raids carried out in the UK were based on intelligence acquired from Pakistan-focused MI6 operations, the Guardian reported on Saturday. Intelligence provided from within the UK and ‘abroad’ warned security agencies of an ‘imminent attempt of bomb attacks in the UK’ but no such evidence was found during the raids carried out on Thursday.‘One senior source said ‘nothing of huge significance’ had been found, and accepted it was possible that no evidence could emerge before the 28-day limit to hold terrorism suspect expires,’ the paper adds According to the report, the MI6 carried out intelligence operations inside Pakistan ‘two to three weeks’ back and led the investigators to believe that ‘al Qaeda driven’ terror plots were being hatched in the UK, which led the security agencies to launch a massive surveillance operation.While early clues were based on suspects taking photographs of crowded areas in Manchester, the urgency in carrying out the operation was caused first by the careless handling of raid plans by a police official and later, following surveillance acquired from ‘discussion about dates, including the Easter bank holiday weekend, taken as a reference to a possible date to stage the attack.’All intelligence agencies involved in the operation concluded that this information was sufficient to launch the raids. One driving factor was the scale of feared casualties. ‘Is this territory where you can take a risk; no it’s not,’ said a source quoted by the paper.The operations have been ‘scaled-down’ but have managed to stir fear among people living in the Manchester, Liverpool and Lancashire localities from where the suspects were arrested.
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