AN Australian IT worker suspected of being a Saddam Hussein loyalist has been detained by British forces after a dramatic raid in southern Iraq.

The seizure of Nuri Alwan coincided with fresh terrorist violence in Iraq, including a missile attack on a civilian aircraft, and British intelligence warnings of a new plot to carry out a “spectacular” attack in Britain in the wake of the suicide bombings in Turkey.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the 45-year-old Adelaide man was detained after a raid in the southern city of Umm Qasr on a house thought to contain people loyal to the former Iraqi dictator.

Mr Alwan, an Iraqi Australian employed by London-based Intertek, an IT company working for the oil industry in Iraq, left Australia in October to help rebuild his war-ravaged homeland.

“He is now in British custody,” Mr Downer said. “His case will be reviewed by the British on Tuesday, with a view to working out what they’re going to do with him and what association he had with the Saddam Hussein loyalists while he was in the house.”

Mr Downer said it was too early to say if charges would be laid. “It’s conceivable he could be released on Tuesday,” he said. “It’s conceivable they could decide to charge him under the Geneva Conventions as a combatant in a war, if he was seen to be participating with Saddam Hussein elements attacking coalition forces.

“There may be offences under existing Iraqi law as well he could be charged with.”

But Mr Alwan’s teenage son Bilal told The Australian last night that his father was not a Hussein loyalist and had been “in the wrong place at the wrong time”. Bilal, 17, said his family, who moved to Australia two years ago, thought of Hussein “like everyone else — he is a terrorist”.

“We have just heard about it. We are pretty shocked, we didn’t expect that.”

Sources in Umm Qasr also indicated to The Australian that Mr Alwan might have been in the “wrong place at the wrong time”. Mr Alwan had given British forces an explanation for being in the house, and the authorities were now investigating.

A day after two Baghdad hotels and the Oil Ministry were attacked, suicide bombers struck the towns of Khan Bani Saad and Baquba on Saturday. At least 18 people were killed and more than 30 injured, overwhelming hospitals.

Two US soldiers had their throats slit last night while sitting in traffic in the centre of the northern city of Mosul.

Civilian flights into Baghdad were suspended after a DHL cargo jet taking off from Baghdad airport was hit by a SAM-7 surface-to- air missile. The aircraft landed safely.

The developments follow terror alerts from the US, British and Australian governments in the wake of Thursday’s twin attacks onthe British consulate and a bank building in Istanbul that left 30 people dead and 450 injured.

Among the dead was a 58-year-old Australian woman, Nazime Erkmen, who worked at the British consulate.

Mr Downer said Erkmen’s death would only redouble Australia’s resolve to stamp out terrorism.

An Australian terrorism expert warned yesterday that overseas embassies were the most likely Australian targets, along with identifiably Australian organisations. Clive Williams said our citizens were the “target of choice” of terrorists in Southeast Asia.

His warning came as Labor called for security to be tightened at high-profile Australian commercial offices overseas.

The Sunday Times in London reported that up to 10 terrorists from north Africa and Saudi Arabia had mounted surveillance operations on commercial targets in Britain such as big banks and shopping centres. There was intelligence some of the suspects had made “dummy runs” in preparation for possible suicide car-bombings.

The British warning was given to Blair government ministers by MI5 director-general Eliza Manningham-Buller. Britain is on its highest state of terrorist alert since the September 11 attacks in 2001.

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