Top British Cop Resigns ‘Quick’ after Terror Gaffe

Bob Quick, the top anti terror official on Britain’s Scoltland Yard, has resigned after he erroneously exposed to the media a classified counter-terror document, ironically called ‘Pathway,’ say reports citing the office of the Mayor of London on Thursday.

The police were forced to rush into a raid on suspected al-Qaeda associates in Britain after Quick unwittingly made public the names of those to be arrested.

News photographers pictured Quick on his arrival at the 10, Downing Street residence of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and later realized that the names and pictures of those to be arrested were clearly visible on enlarging the images.

London Mayor Boris Johnson said he had accepted the resignation with “great reluctance and sadness,” the Press Association reported.

Describing the gaffe as an “an extraordinary and very alarming lapse” the Opposition had immediately called for Quick’s resignation which London Mayor Boris Johnson later said he had accepted with “great reluctance and sadness.”

Speaking of the episode, shadow home secretary Chris Grayling said: “It’s the kind of error that Britain’s most senior anti-terrorist officer simply can’t afford to make.”

Meanwhile searches are reported to be continuing at various addresses in northwest England Thursday after hundreds of counter-terror officials raided 10 properties and arrested 12 men – including 10 Pakistani nationals on student visas and one Briton.

Those captured in the raids are reported to have been involved in a “very serious” plot closely associated with the Qaeda.

Media agencies citing sources say that at least some of those arrested were Pakistanis in the United Kingdom on student visas.