ISLAMABAD, 27 August 2006 — Top security officials of Britain and Pakistan are negotiating the extradition of Rashid Rauf, the key suspect in the plot to blow up US-bound passenger aircraft from London, although there is no extradition treaty in place between the two countries.

Britain is waiting expiry of the physical remand of Rauf, whose arrest was registered in airport police station for holding tampered traveling documents, sources said.

London has also sought credentials of all those who were held here on suspicion of being linked with the terror plot, official sources said.

Foreign Office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam confirmed the possibility of shifting Rauf to Britain where he is required in the extensive probe into the London terror plot.

“Although we don’t have an extradition treaty but the possibility is very much there,” Aslam said.

Rauf, brought up in Birmingham, has family ties with Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM) founder Maulana Masood Azhar and has left his family in a recently purchased house under the care of Azhar’s father in Bahawalpur, Punjab, as per media reports here.

He was born in Pakistan, but Pakistan government maintains that he is a British national. Aslam said there was no doubt about Rauf’s nationality. A tipoff from Rauf through a phone call is believed to have been the green signal for the plot that was foiled by the timely arrests in Pakistan and in London suburbs.

As per Pakistan’s intelligence, the held suspects were allegedly orchestrating a plan to blow up several trans-Atlantic flights midair with the collaboration of a Kunar-based Al-Qaeda linchpin in neighboring Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the commander of US Army’s Central Command (CENTCOM) Gen. John Abizaid will visit here today, a spokesman of the Inter-Services Public Relations told Arab News.

He is expected to call on President Pervez Musharraf and meet other senior army officials.

It is learned that his visit is meant for mutual consultations on the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s border regions with Afghanistan. He will later proceed to Kabul.

Pakistan, Afghanistan and US military commanders recently met and decided to have regular patrolling of the Pak-Afghan border to keep Al-Qaeda and Taleban at bay.

Recently Taleban have intensified their activities in Afghanistan particularly in the southern provinces.

There has been a huge increase in violent attacks by Taleban against NATO forces in the southern provinces.

Kabul blames most of the violence on what it calls “enemies of Afghanistan.”