LONDON – At least four major terror plots have been foiled since last year’s July 7 attack on the London transport system, according to British Home Secretary John Reid.

Reid also confirmed Sunday that about two dozen terror investigations are in progress.

“I’m not going to confirm the exact number, but I wouldn’t deny that (two dozen) would indicate the number of major conspiracies that we are trying to look at,” Reid told the British Broadcasting Corp.

While anti-terrorist police continue to question 23 suspects arrested last week in the alleged plot to detonate bombs on flights from Britain to the United States, the Sunday Times newspaper reported that one of those detained is thought to be the leader of al-Qaeda in Britain.

The London newspaper said the alleged al-Qaeda leader serves as the hub in a network of North African and Pakistani extremist groups based in Britain.

The suspect is reported to have set up “pipelines” that sent recruits from the British Muslim community to training camps in Pakistan or Iraq, where they joined the anti-U.S. insurgency.

All of the suspects arrested last week are thought to be British-born Muslims. Most are of Pakistani origin, but three are non-Asian converts to Islam.

At least five of the suspects learned bomb-making techniques in al-Qaeda camps on the Afghan-Pakistani border, the Sunday Telegraph newspaper reported. Several of the suspects also videotaped “martyrdom messages” that were supposed to have been played after the successful execution of their plot, according to Pakistani security sources quoted in the British media.

Few details of the inner workings of last week’s thwarted plot have been disclosed by Britain’s anti-terror authorities, but Pakistani security sources say that MI5, the British intelligence agency, used an informant to penetrate the terror network. As the plot took shape, Rashid Rauf, 29, a Birmingham resident who was spending a lot of time in Pakistan, emerged as a key figure.

Rauf’s phone calls and Internet messages were monitored by Pakistani security forces. His arrest early this month by Pakistani police apparently triggered a chain of events, including a message from an associate to activate the plot, which prompted British authorities to move quickly to arrest the conspirators.

According to news reports in Pakistan, a British-based Islamic charity helped fund the planned attack by transferring money to three people in three accounts in the Mirpur area of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir in December. The money was supposed to be for earthquake relief. The Rauf family is prominent in Mirpur.

Among those arrested last week was Tayib Rauf, 22, the brother of Rashid Rauf and a resident of Birmingham.

As the British public grasps the enormity of the terror threat that has apparently taken root in its midst, there were concerns about a backlash against the country’s large Muslim community, and also about an adverse reaction from a community that feels itself increasingly under siege.

In Birmingham, a gritty Midland’s industrial city, many in the Muslim community remained skeptical about the plot. Before evening prayers at the Birmingham Central Mosque on Sunday, worshiper Ali Ditta said he didn’t think the accused were capable of pulling off such a complex scheme. Ditta, like many in the community, said he feared the government was conspiring against the nation’s Islamic community to bolster its Middle East policy.

“This is nothing more than a diversion,” Ditta said. “Blair and Bush are trying to move the attention away from how they have allowed the Israelis to kill hundreds of innocent Muslims and the terrible policies in Palestine and Iraq.”

Over the weekend, Muslim leaders took out advertisements in several national newspapers in which they placed blamed on the British government’s policies in the Muslim world, arguing that it is pushing young Muslim believers toward extremism. But Sheikh Mahmood Rashid, the chairman of the International Islamic Cultural Study Circle, said that both the government and the immigrant Islamic community share the blame for so many young Muslim men edging towards extremism.

“Many communities’ imams have promoted emotional issues that could push (young Muslims) toward extremism,” Rashid said. “The British government and institutions also have done a very poor job in learning to understand the views of its Muslim people.”

The east London district of Walthamstow, an ethnic stew of Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Turks, Eastern Europeans and Caribbean Islanders, is home to 10 of the alleged plotters.

Carol Vincent, a local activist, doesn’t expect trouble in the community because of the arrests. But she said she and her friends here simply don’t believe that the 10 young men from Walthamstow are guilty of terrorism. She noted that no charges have been filed, and that at least one of those arrested last week has been released.

“Innocent until proven guilty,” she declared.

According to Vincent, the local police commander, Mark Benbow, tells anyone who will listen that the police are not targeting any ethnic group or any religion.

But she doesn’t believe it. “Of course they’re targeting a religion,” she said firmly. “All of those arrested were Muslims.”

Meanwhile, heightened security measures continued to frustrate air travelers. About a third of the flights scheduled to leave London’s Heathrow Airport were canceled Sunday and many others were delayed.

British Airways and other carriers are blaming the British Airports Authority, which is responsible for security at the airport, for failing to cope with the stepped-up precautions that were mandated after last week’s terror threat.

Reid, the Home Secretary, said the stringent searches and restrictions on carry-on baggage are being reviewed, but he gave no indication they would be lifted soon. The opposition Conservative Party has called for troops to be sent to the airports to help with security checks.

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Chicago Tribune senior correspondent John Crewdson in London and Tribune foreign correspondent Kim Barker in Islamabad contributed to this report.

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(c) 2006, Chicago Tribune.

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AP-NY-08-13-06 1910EDT