LONDON, June 4 -- British police on Sunday were searching for evidence of what security sources fear was a plot to release sarin nerve gas or another deadly agent, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

Police officers help each other to dress in protective clothing before starting to patrol Lansdown Road in east London, June 3, 2006. British anti-terrorist police are hunting for a "dirty" chemical bomb that could be used in an attack in Britain after a major raid failed to uncover a device they believe exists, newspapers reported on Saturday. [Reuters]

Police and the security services were hunting for a device capable of unleashing sarin in an attack similar to the one that killed 12 people and affected more than 5,000 on the Tokyo subway in 1995, said the report.

Britain's MI5 domestic intelligence agents suspected that al-Qaida sympathizers intended to produce a nerve agent and release it in a closed space such as in a subway train, according to the newspaper.

It said the plot would be timed to be on or close to the anniversary of a series of suicide bombings on the London transport system last July, in which 52 commuters were killed.

Meanwhile, police said there was no direct link between last year's suicide attacks and a related dawn raid on Friday, when two British men were arrested at their east London home under the Terrorism Act.

Police said they extended their search from the home of the brothers, identified as Mohammed Abdul Kahar and Abul Koyair, to their workplaces, which press reports said were the Royal Mail postal service and a Tesco supermarket.

However, the two men flatly denied any involvement in terrorist activities. Their neighbors also described them as devout Muslims from an ethnic Bangladeshi family, and accused the Metropolitan Police of heavy-handed tactics against the Muslim community.

So far, the Metropolitan Police have released few details about the suspects and declined to comment on news reports that experts were searching for evidence of chemical or biological weapons. Enditem