LONDON – British police charged eight terrorist suspects yesterday with conspiring to commit murder and use radioactive materials, toxic gases, chemicals, or explosives to cause “fear or injury” in a case involving an alleged top Al Qaeda operative at the center of an American terror alert this month.

Attorney General Ashcroft said federal authorities were determining whether to press charges in America against the men, including the top Al Qaeda suspect accused of having surveillance plans of financial institutions in New York, Washington, and New Jersey.

The charges for the first time officially linked the August 3 arrests across Britain and a series of arrests last month in Pakistan to the August 1 terrorism alerts surrounding the New York Stock Exchange and Citigroup Inc. headquarters, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank buildings in Washington, and the Prudential Financial Inc. building in Newark, N.J.

Mr. Ashcroft said the Department of Justice had been working closely with British authorities and that FBI agents and analysts would continue sharing information. “In addition, prosecutors from the Justice Department’s Counterterrorism Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan will explore every aspect of this case and evaluate whether additional charges, including potential charges in the United States, are appropriate,” Mr. Ashcroft said in a statement issued from Washington.

An American government official said 32-year-old Dhiren Barot was the key Al Qaeda suspect charged with possessing the surveillance plans. Mr. Barot has previously been identified as Abu Eisa al-Hindi or Abu Musa al-Hindi.

Counterterrorism officials have said that they believe Mr. Barot, known by dozens of aliases including Issa al-Britani, was the author of documents, written in fluent English, describing surveillance at American financial buildings during 2000 and 2001. The information was found on computers and in e-mails during the July raids in Pakistan.

Mr. Barot was described as a Al Qaeda operative who was sent in early 2001 to do surveillance on possible economic and “Jewish” targets in New York on the orders of Osama bin Laden, according to U.S. interrogations of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the attacks on September 11, 2001.

Pakistani officials said this week that Mr. Barot, known as a veteran of the Islamic battle against Indian forces in Kashmir, also traveled this past March to a hideout near the Pakistan-Afghan border and met with other terrorist suspects. According to the British police charges, Mr. Barot; Mohammed Naveed Bhatti, 24; Abdul Aziz Jalil, 31; Omar Abdul Rehman, 20; Junade Feroze, 28; Zia ul Haq, 25; Qaisar Shaffi, 25; and Nadeem Tarmohammed, 26, were accused of conspiring “with other persons unknown” to commit murder between January 2000 and August 4, 2004.

The eight also were charged with conspiring between the same dates to cause a public nuisance by using radioactive materials, toxic gases, chemicals, and/or explosives to cause “disruption, fear or injury.”