"Al-Qaida's No. 3" was the mastermind behind the plot to blow up transatlantic flights, a Pakistani local newspaper Dawn Wednesday quoted an intelligence source as saying.

"It is not Osama bin Laden and it's not Aiman Al Zawahiri, but someone close to the rank of Abu Faraj Al-Libbi," the source said.

It is an al-Qaida connection, the source said with anonymity.

"It is the top hierarchy," he said.

Abu Faraj Al-Libbi, a third-tier al-Qaida operative, was believed involved in an attempt to assassinate President Gen Pervez Musharraf and was arrested from Mardan in May 2005.

The intelligence source said the plot to blow up US-bound planes was similar in pattern to the one hatched to kill President Musharraf.

"There was a mastermind, there was a planner and there were the executioners," he said.

The source said that al-Qaida's link to the London airline bombing plot was established.

Stressing the importance of key person Rashid Rauf's arrest, the source said that without his capture the plot would not have been foiled.

He acknowledged that there had been some hype about the bombing plots but said the plotters were in the planning stage and were procuring chemicals and equipment. They were not in the execution stage, he said.

The source said that Rauf had gone to the United Kingdom in 1981 when he was less than one year old. He returned to Pakistan in 2002 and had since been living here.

He had been living in Pakistan, the source clarified but declined to say when and where he had been arrested.

The source said that Pakistan was withholding the information due to British legal sensitivities and that a team of their legal experts was in Pakistan to discuss the case.

He said that Pakistani security agencies had arrested six to seven suspects, including Rashid Rauf.

This is an ongoing operation and there could be more arrests, he said. "Certainly, there will be more arrests as the investigation proceeds," he said.

The source agreed that some of the London plotters might have come to Pakistan but said that Islamabad was awaiting information, including antecedents and passport details of the plotters to ascertain facts.

Meanwhile, British ?is seeking the extradition of? Rauf, The Times reported on Wednesday.

Officials at the British High Commission in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad had started the process of bringing Rashid Rauf, 25, back to Britain, the newspaper said.

Pakistan on Tuesday said it could extradite Rauf, who allegedly gave details of the conspiracy after his arrest in early August that helped to foil the plot. However, "The British government has asked for mutual legal assistance but not for his extradition," Pakistani spokesperson Tasnim Aslam told local media.

A spokeswoman for the Home Office said although Britain does not have an extradition treaty with Pakistan, extradition is still possible through a number of international treaties to which both Britain and Pakistan are signatories, or through a one-off request.

But the spokeswoman did not confirm or deny any extradition requests, citing her department's policy.

Britain arrested 24 people in connection with the alleged plot to bomb US-bound passenger jets. One of the 24 was released on Friday, and police arrested one more suspect on Tuesday.

(Xinhua News Agency August 16, 2006 )