Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

Dhiren Barot	Abu Eisa Al Hindi	al-Qaeda	Home Front: WoT	Indian-British	Jugged	Mastermind	20050610
		Alias of Dhiren Barot. Performed recon on financial centers in Newark and Washington in addition to Citigroup and the Stock Exchange in Chicago. A 50-page printout from his computer contained details. Jugged in Britain after information was received from Pakistani intelligence agencies.
	Dhiren Barot	al-Qaeda	Home Front: WoT	Indian-British	Arrested	Tough Guy	20050610
		Real name of Abu Eisa Al Hindi. Sentenced to life in prison for planning attacks on targets in the United States and Britain.A man serving 30 years in jail for planning "dirty bomb" attacks in Britain and plotting to blow up U.S. financial institutions has been scarred for life after an attack in prison, his lawyer said.

Britain

Dirty bomb fears as 'several kg of URANIUM' found in cargo at Heathrow: Package 'shipped from Pakistan to UK-based Iranians' at centre of Met Police anti-terror probe after being discovered when airport alarms triggered

2023-01-11

[Daily Mail]

Shipment of uranium has been seized at Heathrow airport, sparking terror fears

The undeclared material was discovered on December 29 on a passenger flight

It was destined for an Iranian business with a premises in the UK, sources say

The package originated from Pakistan and arrived on a flight via Oman

Sources said the uranium was ‘not weapons-grade’ - and so could not be used to manufacture a thermo-nuclear weapon.

But the security services are understood to be investigating whether the undeclared package could have been destined for an improvised nuclear device, known as a ‘dirty bomb’.

Such a device - which has long been a nightmare scenario for counter-terror experts - combines conventional explosives with nuclear material to disperse a lethal radioactive plume.

In 2004 British security services arrested Dhiren Barot, a Muslim convert who planned to assemble and use dirty bombs in the UK and the US to kill members of the public.

Mr. Barot aka Issa al-Hindi headed a Lashkar e-Taiba jihadi cell in the UK that planned a series of attacks against major targets in Britain and the Greater NYC area. His manual for jihad was published in a large enough run that copies could still be found in bookshops six years later.

He was jailed for 30 years.

Link

Home Front: WoT

Timeline of Islamicist attacks for New York, 2001 to date

2013-04-19

Barry Rubin, posting over at Yid with Lid, posts an interesting timeline of attacks, planned and foiled, for the New York area since 9/11. When people ask "why would Chechnyan youths come to America and plan terror attacks?", the answer is that of the scorpion to the frog: it's what they do.

Full credit to Barry for the list and a big thank you to the Yid. Barry, in case you're wondering, is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal.

Since September 11, 2001, there have been 18 known terrorist attacks planned in New York City and they all have something in common: the worldview of the perpetrators. In some cases, they were called off by al-Qaeda:

In 2002, Iyman Faris, a U.S.-based al-Qaeda operative, planned to cut the Brooklyn Bridge's support cables at the direction of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

In 2003, al-Qaeda had planned to release cyanide gas in New York City's subway system and attack other public places.

In 2006, Uzair Paracha, a Brooklyn resident, was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison after he was convicted of attempting to help al-Qaeda operative Majid Khan enter the United States to attack gas tanks. Paracha's father worked with al-Qaida to smuggle explosives - including possibly nuclear weapons - into the United States using the New York office of Paracha's import-export business.

Dhiren Barot (aka Issa al-Hindi) was sentenced to life in prison by a United Kingdom court in 2006 after pleading guilty to planning to attack several targets both in the UK and the U.S., including the New York Stock Exchange, Citigroup's headquarters in Midtown Manhattan, and the Prudential Building in Newark, NJ.

Shahawar Matin Siraj and James Elshafay plotted in 2004 to place explosive devices in the Herald Square subway station in Manhattan.

In July 2006, the FBI revealed it had uncovered a plot involving an attack on a PATH commuter train tunnel connecting New York and New Jersey by Islamists, the placement of suicide bombers on trains, and the destruction of the retaining wall separating the Hudson River from the World Trade Center site in the hopes of causing massive flooding in the city's Financial District.

Beginning in 2006, four Islamists plotted to detonate the jet-fuel storage tanks and supply lines for John F. Kennedy Airport in order to cause wide-scale destruction and economic disruption in an attack they intended to dwarf 9/11.

In a series of three trials spanning 2008 to 2010, eight Muslims were convicted in Britain of attempting to simultaneously detonate explosives in seven airliners traveling from London to several North American metropolises, including New York.

Bryant Neal Vinas, of Long Island, New York, traveled to Pakistan with an intent to die fighting against American forces in Afghanistan. In summer of 2008, Vinas spoke to al-Qaeda about targeting the Long Island Railroad using a suitcase bomb that would be left in a car and set to detonate.

In May 2009, four Islamists placed what they believed were functioning bombs outside of Jewish targets in the Bronx neighborhood of Riverdale and additionally constructed plans to fire missiles at military transport planes at Stewart International Airport near Newburgh, NY.

In September 2009, the New York City subway system was targeted for attack by three individuals supporting al-Qaeda who planned to set off bombs in the subway during rush hour shortly after the eighth anniversary of 9/11.

Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-American residing in Connecticut, attempted to detonate a car bomb in Times Square on May 1, 2010.

Ahmed Ferhani, an Queens resident born in Algeria, along with Mohammad Mamdouh, a Moroccan immigrant, were arrested in May 2011 in an NYPD operation in which Ferhani purchased a hand grenade, three semi-automatic pistols and ammunition from an undercover detective. NYPD's investigation into the pair revealed their desire to attack a synagogue in New York City.

Jose Pimentel, a native of the Dominican Republic and convert to Islam, was charged with plotting to detonate bombs in and around New York City in November 2011.

Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, a 21-year-old native of Bangladesh residing in the U.S. on a student visa, was arrested in October 2012 as he attempted to remotely detonate what he believed was a bomb in front of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in lower Manhattan.

Raees Alam Qazi and Sheheryar Alam Qazi, Pakistan-born brothers, were arrested by federal authorities in Florida in November 2012 for charges relating to a plan to bomb popular New York City landmarks including Times Square, Wall Street and city theaters.

Jesse Morton, a New York City-based Muslim convert, was apprehended in Morocco and pleaded guilty in February 2012 to conspiring to solicit murder, making threatening communications, and using the Internet to place others in fear, most notably through his website Revolution Muslim.

Alessa and Carlos Almonte, both of New Jersey, pleaded guilty in March 2011 to conspiring to murder persons outside of the United States on behalf of al-Shabaab, the Somalia-based, al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group.

And even this list doesn't include the 2007 plot to attack nearby Fort Dix by a half-dozen Islamists since that was handled by the New Jersey authorities.

Link

Britain

A View From London: Preventing the Next Mumbai

2010-10-06

It is almost two years since terrorists from Lashkar-e-Taiba traveled to Mumbai, India, and carried out a string of attacks on hotels, cafes, a Jewish center and other civilian targets. The horrific footage of those attacks spread around the world and raised obvious questions: Would it happen again -- and if so, where?

In the past week that question appears to have been answered. Increasingly credible reports have emerged claiming that Predator drone attacks in Pakistan have killed a number of people planning Mumbai-style attacks in Western European cities. This fits with the increased number of alerts and heightened threat levels across Europe in recent weeks. Last weekend the British Foreign Office changed its threat level to "high" from "general."

And there is another element of the story that suggests its authenticity: Two British citizens are among those reportedly killed in the Pakistan drone strikes, along with several German nationals.

Lashkar-e-Taiba certainly has links to the United Kingdom, the Western center of jihad. A comprehensive report published in July by the Centre for Social Cohesion, "Islamist Terrorism: the British Connections," revealed that 5% of the Islamists convicted of terrorism-related offenses in Britain over the past 10 years have links to the group. What is striking is the ambition of the plots they have been involved with.

Shehzad Tanweer, one of the suicide bombers who attacked the London transport system in July 2005, was associated with Lashkar-e-Taiba. So were British-born Omar Sheikh, convicted in a Pakistani court for his role in the killing Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, and Rashid Rauf, the suspected ringleader of the 2006 trans-Atlantic airline plot (himself reportedly killed in a missile strike in Pakistan two years ago).

A further five men with links to Lashkar-e-Taiba have been convicted of terrorism-related crimes in the U.K. They include Dhiren Barot, the head of a U.K.-based terror cell that planned a series of attacks against major targets including financial buildings, and Omar Khyam,

whose parents clearly were poetry lovers...

convicted in 2007 for heading a cell that aimed to use fertilizer bombs to attack targets including a shopping center in Kent and a nightclub in London.

It is also significant that once again the source of this latest plan appears to have been Pakistan. In 2008, then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown said three-quarters of the serious terror plots being aimed at Britain originated in Pakistan. The head of MI5 said last month that this figure now stands at 50%, but this reflects the troubling rise in activity in Somalia and Yemen, not a decreased threat from Pakistan.

Pakistan's ability to export security problems around the world -- as the Times Square car bomb reminded us -- continues to grow. The man who placed that bomb set the timing device at "7:00," but it was a 24-hour timer that should have been set at 19:00 hours (which was when he wanted it to blow). Only that mistake stopped the killing and wounding of countless people.

This is why MBAs are management, and not labour. One really doesn't want someone with that lack of attention to detail putting together one's car, or one's toothpaste.

The United States has, like the U.K. and Europe, been exceptionally lucky in avoiding recent attacks. But the paucity of recent attacks on Western cities has also been the product of exceptional work by our intelligence and security agencies.

Hear, hear!

As events in Pakistan remind us, our forces have repeatedly proved highly capable at infiltrating and eavesdropping, often allowing them to kill the terrorists before they can kill us. This is good and important work. But it must not make us think that we can always be entirely free from risk.

Announcements from American and British authorities are of questionable usefulness.

I disagree. When Mr. Wife travels abroad, I feel better knowing that he knows what situations to be aware of.

Telling tourists in Europe to be wary of public places may actually play into the terrorist game plan better than anything else. What are such tourists meant to do? Stay in their hotels? Not travel in the first place?

Being wary means being ready to recognize the problem and act to fix it, or at least to get out of the way while others do. A pack, not a herd, and all that.

Islamist groups aspire to carry out attacks like those in Mumbai precisely in order to trigger such fear. Civilian targets are attractive to terrorists because they are weak targets, with generally poor security unable to fight off attackers armed (like those in Mumbai) with rifles and grenades.

The policemen in Mumbai didn't have bullets for their guns, and their range time could be measured in single-digit days over their entire career. It's a bit different in Europe and America. Yes, the jihadis will kill some people, should they pull off an attack; but they won't be able to run free for four days like they did in Mumbai. Civilians on cell phones will take care of locating the problems, I should think.

But there is another reason that weak civilian targets constitute such an attraction: They produce terror in its purest form. Even leaving aside any devastation caused by the attacks themselves, any Mumbai-style assault in a city such as Paris or London could have an effect on the way in which the public approaches day-to-day life.

Or not. London seems to have recovered from the subway attack pretty well.

In 1996, the Provisional IRA exploded a bomb in the heart of Canary Wharf, London's financial district. The explosion killed two people and wounded dozens, but the financial cost came to an estimated $135 million. It requires very little money to pack a truck full of fertilizer and place it in a civilian area. And as the IRA famously said after attempting to wipe out the British cabinet in 1984, the terrorists only have to be lucky once, while we have to be lucky all the time.

And vice versa, when it's our guys who're doing the hunting, which they've been doing quite successfully lately. That's why the smart jihadis have moved to the soft jihad of the law -- it's less risky.

One of the most common taunts of Islamists is, "We love death more than you love life." At some point they will find another opportunity to demonstrate this. In the meantime, if death is so attractive, then we should do what we can to bring it to them.

DOUGLAS MURRAY is director of the London-based Centre for Social Cohesion.

President Obama was correct, if tactless, when he said we can absorb a hit if we have to. After all, we have before, mourned our dead, and taken the battle to the enemy's strongholds. That's not what will defeat us. Only submission to the desires of Caliphatists for special treatment will defeat us.

Link

International-UN-NGOs

Senior official quits Amnesty International

2010-04-22

A senior official at Amnesty International quit the human rights group this month after raising an alarm over its ties to a former Guantanamo Bay detainee and what she describes as his pro-jihad group. Gita Sahgal, who headed the gender unit at Amnesty's office in London, said she was especially worried about Moazzam Begg and Cageprisoners' support for "jihad in self-defense" and radicals such as Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born Yemeni cleric who is suspected of having ties to al Qaeda.

The Obama administration has taken the unusual step of approving the targeted killing of Mr. al-Awlaki.

Ms. Sahgal said the views of Mr. Begg and Cageprisoners do not trouble Amnesty's senior leadership. "They have stated that the idea of jihad in self-defense is not antithetical to human rights; and have explained that they meant only the specific form of violent jihad that Moazzam Begg and others in Cageprisoners assert is the individual obligation of every Muslim," she said in a statement on leaving Amnesty.

In a phone interview from London with The Washington Times, Ms. Sahgal said Mr. Begg had gained "enormous legitimacy" from his association with Amnesty.

Susanna Flood, a spokeswoman for Amnesty International, said none of the information provided by Ms. Sahgal persuaded the group to cut its ties with Mr. Begg. "Nothing that we have heard to date from Gita Sahgal makes us believe that we should have disowned the relationship we have had with Moazzam Begg," Ms. Flood said.

Mr. Begg, a British citizen, was running a school for girls in Afghanistan during the Taliban regime. He was arrested in Pakistan in 2002 and held as an "enemy combatant" at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, between 2003 and 2005.

"Just as his detention without trial in Guantanamo was not justified, his politics and the dangers of legitimizing him by giving him greater visibility and respectability should not be justified either," Ms. Sahgal said.

Before traveling to Afghanistan, Mr. Begg owned a bookshop, Maktabah al-Ansar in Birmingham, United Kingdom, where a best-selling author was Abdullah Azzam, a mentor of Osama bin Laden. The bookstore also published a jihad manual by Dhiren Barot, a convicted terrorist serving a life sentence in Britain.

Ms. Sahgal first raised a red flag about Amnesty's ties to Mr. Begg and Cageprisoners in 2008. "If, in spite of internal opposition, the senior leadership heard nothing to persuade them to cut the link, they seem to have no one who has any analysis of those linked to al Qaeda formations and the violence and discrimination that they are promoting. This is extremely disturbing," she said.

Ms. Flood said there was no formal relationship among Amnesty International, Mr. Begg and Cageprisoners. She described Mr. Begg as an "effective spokesperson" for the rights of detainees.

Cageprisoners declined to comment.

The group describes itself as a "human rights organization that exists solely to raise awareness of the plight of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and other detainees held as part of the War on Terror."

Mr. Begg has posted a statement on Cageprisoners' website addressing questions about his ties to Mr. al-Awlaki. He said Cageprisoners had campaigned for Mr. al-Awlaki when the cleric was detained without trial in Yemen in 2006. "Cageprisoners never has and never will support the ideology of killing innocent civilians, whether by suicide bombers or B-52s, whether that's authorized by Awlaki or by [President] Obama. Neither will we be forced into determining a person's guilt outside a recognized court of law," Mr. Begg said.

Link

Britain

Islamist books still available in British public libraries

2010-03-29

Works by the jailed preacher Abdullah al-Faisal and the controversial Islamic leader Bilal Philips are available to borrow from the controversial Tower Hamlets council in East London. The council leader Lutfur Rahman, has been accused of gaining power through his links with an organisation called the Islamic Forum of Europe, based at East London mosque, that secretly campaigns for an Islamic social and political order.

The Prime Minister announced in 2007 that the Government would consult with the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) after extremist literature was found on lending lists across the country, but particularly in Tower Hamlets. However a recent visit by the Daily Telegraph revealed that many of the books are still on the shelves.

The council said in a statement that it was committed to tackling extremism but added: "As far as we are aware these materials have not yet been banned or judged to be illegal in the UK. If this were the case they would not have been on our shelves."

In one of the books, Natural Instincts, Faisal, writes: "The societies of Europe and America are the new Sodom and Gomorra of today. The kafirs [non-believers] are the henchmen of the devil...The only language the kafirs respect is jihad [holy war]."

Faisal says Christian clergymen who practice celibacy are prone to paedophilia: "Priests, monks, popes and nuns who abstain from sex...will inevitably be led to child abuse." He adds that non-Muslim charity workers will go to hell: "The Red Cross or any other infidelic organisation should not expect to receive any reward from Allah in the hereafter for their so-called humanitarian works. The infidels who die in their disbelief will be in the hellfire forever."

In another chapter, the book says: "Of all the people in the world, the Jews are the greediest...Everyone of them wishes that he could be given a life of 1,000 years. But the grant of such life will not save him even a little from due punishment."

A copy of The Fundamentals of Tawheed by Philips, another Jamaican-born convert to Islam, was obtained on a library card. The book says "un-Islamic government must be sincerely hated and despised".

Faisal, who was admired by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the failed Detroit bomber, was deported from Kenya earlier this year, after a spell spent in South Africa. He taught Jermaine Lindsay, one of the July 7 bombers, the July 21 bombers had collections of his sermons and he is said to have taught Dhiren Barot, an al-Qaeda terrorist who planned to blow up targets in the US and Britain with gas-filled limousines.

Faisal, whose real name is William Forrest, 45, was born to a Christian family in Jamaica but moved to Saudi Arabia to study Islam before arriving in Tower Hamlets, east London in 1992, where he married a British woman and set up a study centre, later moving on to Brixton mosque in South London. He was jailed in Britain for seven years in 2003, for incitement to murder and stirring up racial hatred but released in 2007 and deported to his native Jamaica.

Police found tapes in specialist Islamic book shops in the East End in which he called for the murder of Hindus, Jews and Americans, telling young Muslims it was their duty to kill non-believers and promising schoolboys they would be rewarded with 72 virgins in paradise if they died in a holy war.

Link

Britain

Al-Qaeda terrorist taught stand-up comedy at top-security prison

2008-11-21

Zia Ul Haq, who was involved in the 'Gas Limos Project' to bomb London, was reportedly enrolled on an eight-day comedy workshop at HMP Whitemoor. He was among 18 prisoners, including murderers, who were given lessons in stand-up, comic drama, improvisation and scriptwriting.

Having completed the £8,000 course they were to have received a certificate and staged a performance for fellow inmates and guards at the Category A prison in Cambridgeshire.

However, justice secretary Jack Straw stepped in and closed the course after three days, The Sun reported. "As soon as I heard about it, I instructed it must be immediately cancelled," he said. "It is totally unacceptable. Senior managers in the Prison Service, who were also unaware of it, take the same view.

"Prisons should be places of punishment and reform. Providing educational and constructive pursuits is essential but the types of courses and the manner in which they are delivered must be appropriate."

Ul Haq, 29, of Paddington, in west London, was jailed for 18 years last year for his part in a plot led by Dhiren Barot, who planned to set off a dirty bomb using limousines packed with explosives. Ul Haq's role was use his background in architecture to advise on where bombs should be placed to cause buildings to collapse.

An inquiry has now been launched by the director of high security prisons to consider whether further action was needed, the Ministry of Justice said. A spokeswoman added: "The director general of the National Offender Management Service is personally briefing governors from all prisons on the need to take account of the public acceptability test [in relation to prison classes]."

Link

Britain

Abu's whinge over ice cream

2008-09-22

HATE preacher Abu Hamza claimed his human rights were breached because he was served RUM ice cream in prison. The hook-handed cleric, 50, said the sweet broke halal rules because it contained alcohol.

A source at top-security Belmarsh jail in Woolwich, South East London, said: "It's utterly barmy and a massive over-reaction -- most prisoners would see it as a treat.

Other notorious terrorists in the jail -- including dirty bomber Dhiren Barot, 35 -- have joined the protest. It is backed by a website linked to controversial lawyer Mudassar Arani. The site said: "Muslims were provided with rum ice cream. This obviously contains alcohol and therefore could not possibly be deemed compatible with the Islamic faith." It also claimed that Muslims were given yoghurt containing traces of unsuitable products.

The site urged inmates to write to their MPs to complain their rights are being breached.

Egyptian-born Hamza is serving seven years for inciting murder and race hate.

A prison source said last night: "Hamza spent his life urging fanatics to kill Jews and Christians yet has the gall to claim his rights are being abused over ice cream."

A Prison Service spokesman said yesterday: "Regrettably, non-halal food was offered in error. It was quickly substituted with appropriate halal alternatives."
"Made with silt."

Link

Britain

UK: 3 men charged with terror offenses

2008-08-29

Three British men questioned about an online threat to assassinate Prime Minister Gordon Brown have been charged with a range of terror offenses, police said Thursday.

One of the men, 22-year-old Ishaq Kanmi, is accused of soliciting murder, being a member or "professing to belong" to al-Qaida, and distributing terrorist publications, Lancashire Constabulary said in a statement.

Abbas Iqbal, 23, has been charged with distributing terrorist publications, police said, adding that his 21-year-old brother, Ilya, is accused of possessing an item suspected of being useful for the preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism.

Police refused to elaborate on the charges. The men were due at Westminster Magistrates Court in central London on Friday. Kanmi and Abbas Iqbal were arrested Aug. 14 at Manchester Airport in northern England -- reportedly as they were about to board a flight to Finland, although police have refused to comment on their destination. Ilya Iqbal was arrested in Accrington, about 35 miles north of the airport. All three were described by police as being Asian, which in a British context suggests they are of Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi descent.

Media reports said the men were being held in connection with a Web site posting signed "al-Qaida in Britain" that threatened the life of Brown and his predecessor, Tony Blair. The statement, posted on a radical Web site earlier this year, demanded the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, and the release of some Muslim prison inmates from Britain's high security Belmarsh prison. Neither police nor officials at Brown's Downing Street office have provided any comment on the allegations.

The men's homes were in the northern English city of Blackburn, about 225 miles northwest of London. One of the addresses searched by police in connection to the investigation was close to the home of Junade Feroze, who was jailed in Britain for 22 years last year for conspiring to set off explosions at unspecified targets. Prosecutors said Feroze was a member of a terrorism cell led by al-Qaida-linked operative Dhiren Barot that plotted bomb attacks on U.S. financial targets, London hotels and train stations.

Police have made other arrests in the investigation. A fourth man, arrested Tuesday in Blackburn, remains in custody. So, too, does a fifth man, arrested in the northern English town of Derby the same day.

Link

Britain

Two of Britain's most dangerous Islamic terrs moved - complained fellow inmates too white

2008-03-21

Two of Britain's most dangerous terrorists have been moved to different prisons after complaining their fellow inmates were "too white".

Dhiren Barot and Omar Khyam asked to be transferred from high-security Frankland prison near Durham.

Barot masterminded a radioactive bomb plot involving limousines packed with nails and explosives and Khyam plotted to blow up Bluewater shopping centre in Kent.

They said they were at risk from other inmates - who are predominantly white - and claimed the environment was "dangerous" to ethnic minority prisoners. It is thought they had received death threats and attacks.

Although their requests were initially turned down, Barot, who is serving a minium of 30 years, has since been moved to Belmarsh in south-east London.

Khyam has also been moved to Full Sutton near York.

But news of the transfers has sparked outrage, with the Prison Service being accused of caving into prisoners' demands.

Barot's solicitor Miss Mudassar Arani, asked if his client could be removed from Frankland prison after a fellow inmate threw boiling water and oil over him last July.

The 35-year-old suffered serious burns and spent a week in hospital.

Prisoner Gary Moody was charged with wounding and assault but the case was dropped when Barot refused to press charges.

Miss Arani said that Frankland was "an extremely dangerous environment for ethnic minority prisoners who now fear for their safety."

She added that Barot was one of 20 Muslims in the prison which held 734 inmates.

And she alleged there was a "white supremacist" culture at Frankland and called for the creation of Muslim-only prisons.

It is understood that Barot was originally housed in Belmarsh prison before being moved to Frankland for radicalising other inmates.

Hate preacher Abu Hamza, 49, and July 21 ringleader Muktar Said Ibrahim, 29, are also housed at Belmarsh.

After he was injured in the attack, she said he was treated like a normal prisoner and locked in his cell from 4pm until morning, despite needing support to do basic tasks, such as make a phone call.

Yesterday, a spokesman for her office said both Barot and Khyam had been transferred.

Khyam, who was sent to Frankland from Belmarsh last June, had also complained of death threats.

His solicitor Imran Khan said the move was a "victory for common sense". But Patrick Mercer, a Conservative MP, criticised the decision.

He said: "Prisons are not meant to be run for the convenience of the prisoner.

"It is not up to them to dictate how to serve their sentence.

"I think we have to remember who's in charge.

"These people have been convicted of hideous crimes."

A spokesman for the Prison Service refused to comment.

Link

Britain

Al-Qaeda threat to British prisons

2008-02-11

Prison officers are struggling to control a group of al-Qaeda terrorists who are clashing with other serious offenders in one of Britain's high-security jails.

Frankland Prison, County Durham, holds an estimated 20 al-Qaeda members and sympathisers, serving long sentences for planning atrocities in the United Kingdom and abroad. They include Dhiren Barot, who was jailed for 30 years, and Omar Khyam, jailed for at least 20 years, for plotting to blow up the Bluewater shopping centre and the Ministry of Sound nightclub.

In recent weeks three disturbances have taken place at the prison. The Prison Officers Association (POA) said many of those involved had been moved to Frankland from Belmarsh Prison in London. 'They don't want to be in Frankland; they want to be in Belmarsh with their friends. They are getting more organised and want to be together in one place, which is scary,' said Steve Gough, vice-chairman of the POA.

Link

Britain

Prisoner 'Attacked Al Qaeda Terrorist'

2007-10-13

A prisoner has been charged with an attack on a jailed al Qaeda terrorist. The 22-year-old inmate is accused of assaulting Dhiren Barot, the leader of a British-based terrorist cell that plotted to murder thousands of people with dirty bombs.

Barot's lawyer has claimed the convicted terrorist had boiling oil thrown over him during the attack in the high security Frankland Prison in County Durham. The unnamed prisoner faces charges of wounding and assault occasioning actual bodily harm following the incident on July 6. He will appear in court on October 23.

After the alleged attack, which left Barot, 35, scarred for life, a news blackout was imposed to protect medical staff from possible attack while he was treated at Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary. Barot was sentenced to life, with a minimum term of 30 years, for planning to plant radioactive, chemical or toxic gas bombs and pack limousines with nails and explosives in the UK and America. He was arrested in August 2004 and accused of conspiracy to murder. He admitted planning to bomb several targets including the New York Stock Exchange, the International Monetary Fund HQ, and the World Bank.

Barot, who recruited other bomb plotters, was sentenced to life in prison last November. It was recommended he serve 40 years but that was cut to 30 years on appeal in May.

Link

India-Pakistan

Pakistan frees Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan

2007-08-21

A Pakistani accused of using his computer skills to help al-Qaeda has been released after three years in custody, a government official and the man's lawyer said Monday.

Pakistani officials have said that information from Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan quickly led them to a Tanzanian wanted for his alleged role in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa, which killed more than 200 people. Khan, who was captured in the eastern Pakistan city of Lahore in July 2004, has also been linked with terror plots in the U.S. and Britain, and to the arrests of suspects in Britain.

Deputy Attorney General Naheeda Mehboob Ilahi said in the Supreme Court on Monday that Khan, believed to be in his late 20s, was released and returned to his home in the southern city of Karachi. Ilahi provided no details.

The court has been pressing the government for information on dozens of people whose relatives say they were picked up and held incognito by Pakistani intelligence agents for alleged links to militants. Khan's lawyer, Babar Awan, confirmed that his client had returned to his family but said he had not been able to speak to his client to ask where he had been held, and by whom. Awan said Khan was never charged or brought before any court.

Khan, an engineering graduate, was suspected of being a point man who sent coded e-mails to al-Qaeda operatives possibly planning attacks in the United States, Britain and South Africa. Twelve days after his arrest, Pakistani authorities pounced in the city of Gujrat on Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, who had a $25 million bounty on him for his alleged role in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Information from those captured, including maps and photos found on their computers, helped prompt the U.S. government to issue a warning about a possible al-Qaeda attack on financial institutions in New York and Washington.

Clues gained after Khan's arrest helped British investigators nab Dhiren Barot, a confessed al-Qaeda terrorist sentenced last year to life imprisonment for plots to bomb U.S. financial targets such as the New York Stock Exchange and London hotels and train stations.

Link

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