ISLAMABAD, Aug 12: An intercept of a telephone call made from Pakistan to Britain that urged plotters to go ahead with attacks on US-bound jetliners played a crucial role in foiling the alleged terror plan, Pakistani officials said on Saturday.

The arrest in Pakistan of a key suspect with alleged Al Qaeda links, British national Rashid Rauf, prompted an unidentified associate of his to make the call from Karachi to one of the suspects subsequently arrested in Britain, the officials said.

“This telephone call intercept in Karachi and the arrest of Rashid Rauf helped a lot to foil the terror plan,” a senior security official said.

It wasn’t clear exactly when the call was intercepted, but officials have said Rauf — one of at least two Britons of Pakistani descent arrested here — was nabbed about a week before the plot was busted in Britain on Thursday.

A US official disclosed that after the first arrests in Pakistan, word went from Pakistan to the London plotters to move ahead quickly, a message intercepted by an intelligence agency. That prompted British police to move in on the conspirators, long under watch.

The plotters allegedly planned to blow up as many as 10 jetliners flying to the United States from Britain.

Britain’s intelligence services asked Islamabad to trail Rashid Rauf for two weeks after he travelled to Pakistan and he was arrested in Bahawalpur, two senior officials said.

“When they interrogated Rauf he broke. He told them what we believe was not even in the knowledge of the US and the British — that they were actually planning to blow up airliners,” one of the officials said.

“When they had finished interrogating him for three or four days then they coordinated this information with the British authorities and they carried out the arrests in Britain,” the official added.

Britain’s Daily Telegraph quoted a Pakistani official as saying that Rauf’s brother, Tayib Rauf, 22, was arrested in Birmingham and is one of 19 people on a British list of suspects whose assets should be frozen.

The newspaper reported that Rashid Rauf is believed to be wanted for questioning by police investigating the stabbing to death of his uncle, Mohammed Saeed, 54, in April 2002.

Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said on Saturday that Islamabad was central to the discovery of the bomb scheme. “Pakistan played a key role with the United States and the United Kingdom to foil this plot.”

The ministry named Rauf in a statement late on Friday, saying he was a “key person” and adding that there were “indications of Afghanistan-based Al Qaeda connection” to his case.

Investigators said they were now closely examining Rauf’s links to Afghanistan.

“They managed to locate Rauf from a hideout in Bahawalpur on the night of Aug 4. He was staying at a former Afghan jihadi’s house, it was a very swift raid and not even the police were involved,” the security official said.

Rauf was believed to have appeared before a magistrate on Saturday.

Sources here rejected reports in Britain that a top Pakistani Al Qaeda militant named Matiur Rehman was allegedly involved in the conspiracy and had been arrested.

“Rehman is not a mastermind of the UK bombing plot, his name has not yet figured in the investigations,” another security official said, adding that Rehman was wanted for an assassination attempt on president.—Agencies