LONDON — British security sources have linked a foiled bomb plot in Britain to foreign terrorists with close ties to Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Islamic extremist wanted for murdering an American diplomat in Jordan.
U.S. authorities blame Zarqawi for the October 2002 assassination of Laurence Foley, ambassador to Jordan. They have also named Zarqawi as a key instigator of terrorist attacks inside Iraq and Turkey in recent months.
A senior British police source, briefing journalists anonymously on the plot foiled last week, said it also was linked to the bombings in Madrid last month.
Most worrying for international antiterrorism operations, the police source indicated that al Qaeda, rather than being in disarray, maintains a command structure and has been in communication with cells or supporters in Britain and other parts of Europe.
The source said recent wiretaps and the arrests of eight men in raids around London last week had shown there were “active groups operating under the al Qaeda umbrella and a chain of command going back to Pakistan — a surprise to us.”
In a wide-ranging security review after last week’s arrests, which included the seizure of a half-ton of ammonium nitrate, protective measures have been ordered around the Houses of Parliament. The fertilizer ammonium nitrate can be used to make homemade bombs.
Roads are being sealed to keep out suicide bombers while, inside the building, a bulletproof screen in being placed in the House of Commons to prevent assassination attempts.
The arrests, meanwhile, have sparked strife within Britain’s Muslim community of 2 million, the bulk of whom came to Britain from Pakistan and Bangladesh. Eight of those arrested last week were of Pakistani origin.
Arguments broke out on the normally placid sidewalks around Regent’s Park, where the country’s largest mosque is located, after Friday prayers.
Members of the Islamic radical group Al-Muhajiroun burned British flags and denounced imams inside the mosque as sellouts. The imams had just read an appeal calling on Muslims to inform the police if they note suspicious behavior.
Al-Muhajiroun says Islam forbids a Muslim to report any other Muslim, whether guilty of a crime or not, to the police.
British authorities are considering whether they can expel Al-Muhajiroun’s leader, Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad, 44, who has lived in London since fleeing Saudi Arabia in 1985.
Most of the men arrested in connection with the bomb plot last week had been members of his group, he said in an interview. But he said that 43 members formed their own breakaway group more than two years ago.
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