Easter Bomb Plot: Terrorists Targeted England Hot Spots

April 10, 2009— -- With terror attacks planned for as early as this symbolic four-day Easter holiday weekend in England, Muslim fundamentalist bombers who used student visas to enter the country had identified crowded shopping malls and nightclubs as likely targets as they sought to maximize casualties, according to counter-terrorism sources.

Police sources confirmed for ABC News British media accounts that those possible targets included the Birdcage nightclub in downtown Manchester and the Trafford Center shopping complex, which can have as many as 140,000 shoppers on a weekend.

The use of student visas is the latest wrinkle in the continued campaign of Pakistani-linked terrorists to strike in England. That terror campaign in its most lethal attack killed 52 transit riders on July 7, 2005, and injured several hundred more.

The current Easter Bomb Plot case, dubbed Operation Pathway by authorities, was a long-term police operation, according to senior intelligence officials, and the alleged plotters had been under constant surveillance. The disclosure of top secret documents this week forced authorities to rush to arrest them.

The early take down of the operation was triggered when British media circulated photographs of Scotland Yard's top terrorism official, Bob Quick, on his way to a meeting with the Prime Minister Wednesday, exiting his car at 10 Downing St. holding a document marked "secret" with operational details visible to photographers. The document revealed how many terrorist suspects were to be arrested, and in which cities. It revealed that armed police officers would force entry into homes. The operation's secret code headed the document.

Within several hours of the mid-day release of those photographs -- which appeared on the internet before a government order to prevent publication could be issued -- most of the suspects were in police custody and the searches for evidence were underway.

Nonetheless, some informed experts were concerned that the early takedown could result in a spate of not-guilty verdicts on the most serious charges -- as happened in the 2006 Operation Overt case where, as a result of U.S. meddling, according to British officials, the case against plotters who planned to take down multiple airliners with liquid explosives mixed on board was aborted before British police and intelligence officers were satisfied they would have enough evidence to win guilty verdicts.