Terror probe police study images

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1. Brett
   

   Police scouring homes for evidence of a planned terror attack in the Manchester area are studying photographs found at one location, the BBC has learned.
   
   Senior officers described claims that shopping centres and a nightclub were among potential targets as speculation.
   
   Twelve men - 11 of them Pakistani and most of them students - are still being questioned over the alleged plot.
   
   Gordon Brown has said Pakistan must do more to stop terrorism. Pakistan says student visa checks are up to the UK.
   
   Police arrested the 12 suspects during a series of raids in Manchester, Liverpool and Clitheroe in Lancashire.
   
   The planned operation had to be brought forward to Wednesday following a security blunder by Britain's anti-terror chief.
   
   Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick had been photographed carrying documents with details of the alleged plot clearly visible. He resigned on Thursday
   
   Since the raids, forensic officers have been gathering evidence at 14 properties in north-west England and taking away vehicles for examination.
   
   Senior officers insisted on Thursday that there was no intelligence pointing to any specific targets.
   
   However, the BBC's Nick Ravenscroft said sources had confirmed that photographs of four popular Manchester locations were recovered during searches.
   
   These were the Arndale and Trafford Centre shopping complexes, Birdcage nightclub and St Ann's Square.
   
   "These may not have been at risk of any terrorist attack, though sources close to the investigation say that a very big attack was going to happen very soon, possibly within days of weeks," our correspondent added.
   
   The fact that many of those arrested had entered the country as students has led to Conservative calls for the government to "step up" checks on visa applications.
   
   Almost 10,000 Pakistani nationals were granted student visas in the year to April 2008 and the Home Office says it has recently introduced measures such as fingerprinting to tighten the system.
   
   Educational institutions also have to demonstrate they are keeping track of foreign students.
   
   John Tincey, of the Immigration Service Union, said a big problem was assessing the colleges and schools in Pakistan, and that many of the institutions were fronts for illegal immigration.
   
   "Very often [they are] a normal house in a normal road where a couple of rooms are designated as the school, and basically there's very little evidence of any education taking [place]," he said.

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