Police hunting two al Qaeda suicide bombers in UK

3.00pm

LONDON - Police are hunting two men in Britain who have been trained as suicide bombers by al Qaeda, the Sunday Times newspaper reported.

It said the two men were a British Asian and a black Muslim convert who used to worship at the same London mosque as Richard Reid, the "shoebomber" who was convicted in the United States in January for trying to blow up a plane over the Atlantic.

Scotland Yard declined to comment on the report.

The Sunday Times said sketches of the men had been circulated in the headquarters of MI5, the British domestic intelligence service.

It said the sketches were made by an American artist on the basis of descriptions given by detainees held at the US military camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Some of the detainees told authorities the two men were prepared to carry out suicide missions, the paper said.

It quoted a senior British Home (Interior) Office source as saying that if the two men were still committed to al Qaeda "they could be ticking time bombs".

Britain has long feared it might be targeted by the al Qaeda militant network due to its unflinching support of the United States in Washington's self-proclaimed "war on terror". British troops fought alongside the Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In a tape broadcast by Arab television channel al-Jazeera this week, a top aide to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden threatened holy war against Britain as well as the United States, Australia and Norway.

Fears of attacks have been heightened by suicide bombings this month in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh and in Morocco's biggest city Casablanca that together killed 75 people.

- REUTERS