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Bangladesh

‘Teach captured terrorists to sing, dance and play’

2017-03-13

The headline makes Gunaratna sound a lot dumber than he is. He's referring to the snuffie's humorlessness. I'd suggest hanging them or chopping their heads off. A sect -- and I'm referring to a sect, not to the entire religion -- that is capable of forcing the idea that "My mother and my sister are impure" needs to be exterminated like the vermin they are. Many, if not most, of these beauzeaux were perfectly capable of singing, dancing, and playing before they threw in their lot with Evil. [Dhaka Tribune] International terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna is now in Dhaka to attend a conference of the chiefs of police from South Asia and neighbouring countries. On the sidelines of the event, Gunaratna spoke extensively to journalists on challenges of Bangladesh in countering terrorism and on the rehabilitation of terrorists, which he believes is essential in stopping the spread of these ideologies.

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Southeast Asia

Foreign jihadis with ties to Daesh helping Abu Sayyaf

2016-07-10

[Manila Times] Indonesian and Malaysian militants have joined the Abu Sayyaf in fighting Philippine security forces in Basilan province in the Muslim autonomous region. Abu Sayyaf chieftain Isnilon Hapilon is now the leader of Daesh's new battalion in the Philippines, the Katibah Al-Muhajir or the "Battalion of Migrants" comprised mostly of Indonesian and Malaysian jihadists. Malaysian media quoted Singapore-based terror expert Rohan Gunaratna as saying that the new battalion in Basilan was set up because of difficulties faced by Daesh recruits in going to Iraq and Syria. Gunaratna was quoted as saying, "Now we have seen that in the Philippines, IS has created Katibah Al-Muhajir, the Battalion of Migrants. They are (made up of) Malaysians and Indonesians. There are about ten Malaysians (there now)." Last month, Daesh released a video telling its Southeast Asian supporters to head to the Philippines if they found it difficult to come to Iraq and Syria. Gunaratna said, "The Philippines can be a very important launching pad to reach Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore because southern Philippines is very centrally located." The Philippine military hasn't confirmed the new Daesh battalion, but security forces had previously killed several foreign jihadis in Basilan. Basilan province has reportedly become the center of power of the Abu Sayyaf after it pledged allegiance to the caliph of Daesh and named Hapilon as its new chieftain. Hapilon, alias Abu Abdullah, took over from Abu Sayyaf founder Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani who was killed in a police shootout in December 1998. In a video released by the Abu Sayyaf late last year, more than two dozen gunmen, including children, led by Hapilon were shown hiking in the Basilan hinterlands of Basilan while chanting "Dawlah Islamiyah (Islamic State)" and reciting an Arabic vow of allegiance. In the video, Hapilon was shown with Abu Harith Al-Filibbieni, reportedly the deputy commander of al-Ansar Infantry Division of Daesh, and Mohd Najib Husen (Hussein), alias Abu Annas Al Muhajir, a division head of the Ansar al-Sharia of Daesh. Husen was with other Malaysian jihadis – Mahmud Ahmad, Muhammad Joraimee Awang Raimee, Amin Baco and Jeknal Adil. The militants explained in the video that they had previously done the bayah, but did it again in front of their new leaders. It is not known when the video was recorded, but it was released just after the military claimed in December that Husen was slain during operations in Basilan. In Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur provinces, the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters and the Ansarul Khilafah also pledged allegiance to Daesh. Militants in Indonesia and Malaysia, including the Jemaah Islamiyah, have also done the same. The jihadists also released a video of the Daesh's Alhayat Media Center which shows the Philippines as among countries in Southeast Asia they were planning to expand its 'caliphate'. The Abu Sayyaf is now using the Daesh flag and also the Khilafah Islamiyah Movement and other radical groups in Lanao del Sur where local militants of the Ghuraba (Strangers) – both the Ghuraba and Khilafah Islamiyah Movement are led by a militant named Humam Abdul Najid, who was implicated in the 2013 Cagayan de Oro City bombings. The Ghuraba is reportedly harboring foreign rebels, including an agent of the Jamaat al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, a group believed to be the original name of Daesh.

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Southeast Asia

Terror attacks in Jakarta -- 7 die so far

2016-01-14

Battles continue. Militants launched a gun and bomb assault killing at least six people in the centre of the Indonesian capital on Thursday, police said, in an attack that followed a threat by Islamic State fighters to put the country in their "spotlight". Media said six bombs went off and a Reuters witness saw three dead people and a gunfight going on. One blast was in a Starbucks cafe and security forces were later seen entering the building. Police said they suspected a suicide bomber was responsible for at least one of the blasts and up to 14 militant gunmen were involved in the attack, Metro TV reported. Update from An Nahar at 8:30 a.m. ET: Islamic State-linked suicide attackers struck the capital of Muslim-majority Indonesia Thursday, executing a Westerner and blowing up a Starbucks, police said. Five extremists launched what police said were Paris-style attacks as they detonated explosives and shot at people in a district packed with malls, embassies and United Nations offices. The assault also left an Indonesian man dead and 20 other people injured, and a police post destroyed, in what the country's president called "acts of terror". "Their network has links to ISIS in Raqqa," said Jakarta police chief Tito Karnavian, referring to the IS group's stronghold in Syria. The claim of IS involvement will send a chill through Indonesia and other parts of Southeast Asia with Muslim populations, where there are fears extremists bloodied on Middle Eastern battlefields could have brought their jihad home. Police said the five-strong cell who struck Thursday included three suicide bombers who initially targeted a Starbucks near a major shopping mall. After the first explosion, men armed with pistols took two men hostage. Police identified them as an Algerian and a Westerner, although there were conflicting reports about whether he was Canadian or Dutch. National police spokesman Anton Charliyan said the Algerian managed to escape with bullet wounds, but the second man was shot dead on the spot, while an Indonesian man who had tried to help the hostages was also shot and killed. "Soon afterwards, two men riding.... motorbikes, ran into a police post and blew themselves up," he said, adding four officers had been left in a critical condition. "From what we see today, this group is following the pattern of the Paris attacks." IS gunmen killed 130 people in a series of coordinated attacks on the French capital in November. Yes, but this lot didn't. Witnesses said the gunman who emerged from Starbucks began firing at bystanders, reloading his weapon as security forces moved in behind the cover of moving vehicles. Jakarta police chief Karnavian said bombs containing screws and nails were hurled at police during the shootout, and they found six bombs planted in the area after the assault had ended. Starbucks said it was shuttering all branches in the Indonesian capital in response to the attack. "This store and all other Starbucks stores in Jakarta will remain closed, out of an abundance of caution, until further notice," a statement said. The area is home to several embassies, including those of the United States, France and Spain. A number of United Nations agencies are also housed nearby. The U.N. Environment Program said a married Dutch employee had been seriously hurt in the attacks and remained in a critical condition. The New York-based Soufan Group says that of the 500-700 Indonesians who traveled abroad to join the self-proclaimed caliphate of the IS, scores have since returned. Scores is a nicely uniformative number... As it is plural, we know they mean at least forty, and possibly as much as 99 (more than that and it would have been hundreds), but nothing more definite than that. "We know that ISIS has the desire to declare a province in this region," said Kumar Ramakrishna, a counter-terrorism analyst at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. "The threat of returning Southeast Asian fighters radicalized in the Iraq/Syria region (is) another factor of concern." An-IS linked news agency, citing an unidentified source, said that the attack was carried out by IS fighters but there was no immediate claim of responsibility from the group itself. Regional terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna said the assault bore the hallmarks of the Islamic State group. "The only group that has the capability and the intention to mount coordinated, simultaneous attacks in Jakarta is the ISIS network," he told AFP in Singapore. I don't see why. It was only a handful of jihadis, with a competent bombmaker in the background, and the aquisition -- legal or otherwise -- of two motorcycles and some handguns. The idea originated with ISIS, but anyone can copy an idea once it's been publicized.

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Home Front: WoT

Al-Qaeda mystery man still sought, ten years later

2011-09-11

Adnan El Shukrijumah left his family's home in 2001 and went to Trinidad on business supposedly to buy sunglasses and children's clothes for resale in South Florida flea markets. Ten years later, Shukrijumah is a fugitive -- sought by the FBI as a leading operative for al-Qaida amid lingering questions about his possible association with key 9/11 hijackers before the terrorist attacks. He's also under indictment charged with directing a suicide-bomb plot in 2009 against the New York City subway system. The reward for his capture: $5 million. Shukrijumah is especially dangerous because of the time he spent in America. His whereabouts -- and whether he played a direct role in 9/11 -- remains among the key unanswered questions a decade after the attacks. Shukrijumah is now a top member and perhaps the head of al-Qaida's foreign operations subcommittee, according to terror expert Rohan Gunaratna. Gunaratna said, "He has moved up in the ranks because he's very clever and because he knows the main target, the United States."

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Great White North

Tamil Tigers look to regroup in Canada

2009-11-06

The Tamil Tigers organization hopes to use Canada as a strategic base to continue the fight against the government of Sri Lanka, according to an authority on the alleged terrorist group. "I cannot think of any other country that is more important for the Tamil Tigers as Canada, to regroup and continue their campaign against Sri Lanka," said Prof. Rohan Gunaratna, head of the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research, a Singapore-based think-tank. Gunaratna is advising the Canadian government as it investigates the 75 Tamil migrants currently in immigration custody in Vancouver. The men were found aboard a ship seized off the coast of British Columbia on Oct. 17. Lawyers for the men have said they are not Tamil Tigers, but Gunaratna disagreed.

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Great White North

Migrant ship seized off B.C. coast belongs to Tamil Tigers

2009-10-26

The migrant smuggling ship intercepted off the West Coast carrying 76 Sri Lankan men is owned by the outlawed Tamil Tigers and previously smuggled weapons from North Korea to Sri Lanka, says an international expert on South Asia terrorism. It’s feared the ship may be the first wave of defeated Tamil Tiger fighters fleeing for safe haven after the end of Sri Lanka’s 25-year civil war, says another security expert. Canada hosts the largest population of Sri Lankan Tamils outside of Sri Lanka, and has long been a key support base for the Tigers, which is on Canada’s official list of terrorist organizations. In a radio interview with ABC News in Australia on Saturday, Singapore-based Rohan Gunaratna said the Ocean Lady is a rebel freighter belonging to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the separatist guerrillas known as the Tamil Tigers. “It is now clear that it is a Tamil Tiger-owned and -operated ship,” said Gunaratna, who heads Singapore’s International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research. The Sri Lankan native has authored several books on the country’s civil war that ended in May, with government troops finally defeating the LTTE. “Certainly, not all ships that are transporting people are managed by terrorists, but in the case of the Ocean Lady, it is a Tamil Tiger ship that had been used in the past to smuggle weapons from North Korea to Sri Lanka,” said Gunaratna. The ship was intercepted off Vancouver Island on Oct. 16 by RCMP officers supported by the Canadian Forces and Canada Border Service Agency. The Canadian Tamil Congress says the men are all ethnic Tamils fleeing persecution. But Gunaratna said “a number of individuals” have been identified as suspected Tigers, though he didn’t elaborate. His comments follow reports that one passenger has been identified as a 26-year-old man wanted by Sri Lanka for terrorism. It’s not clear if he is the same man apparently found with the logo of the Tigers tattooed on his body. A spokesman for Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said the government would take steps to deport any passengers with criminal or terrorist backgrounds, including members of the LTTE, which is an outlawed entity in Canada. The men are being held in Maple Ridge, B.C., and began appearing before the Immigration and Refugee Board last week. One passenger with relatives in Canada was reportedly ordered released from custody. The others remain in custody pending interviews with border officials. Those freed are expected to make refugee claims. With the collapse of the LTTE in Sri Lanka, Canada can expect to face fresh waves of refugees from Sri Lanka, said Tom Quiggin, an Ottawa terrorism expert who writes for Canada’s new international affairs magazine Global Brief. “The LTTE has not given up on its program of an independent homeland, and they will continue their campaign of violence from wherever they can re-establish themselves,” he said Saturday. “The LTTE, which deserves its description as a terrorist group, will no doubt be looking to move many of its senior leaders and fighters into well-known safe havens such as Canada. “Intelligence and immigration authorities will have the shadow of the 1985 Air India disaster, a previous intelligence failure, looking over their shoulders as they try to identify this group and the many others that will follow them.” Human-rights groups and Canadian Tamils urge compassion for the men, and are calling for a broader public understanding of the complex political situation in Sri Lanka. As members of Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority, the men face torture or death if returned to their homeland, they say. “These men have fled murder and abduction, which is very rampant in Sri Lanka . . . and they are seeking a refuge where they will be safe and that, to them, is Canada,” said Sue Nathan of the Canadian Tamil Congress in a news conference outside the Citizenship and Immigration Canada offices in Vancouver.

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Sri Lanka

'LTTE had links with jihadi groups'

2009-09-15

COLOMBO: Sri Lankan experts on terrorism have said that the LTTE maintained a front company in Karachi to arrange arms smuggling and a safe house in Peshawar for contacts with Taliban. Like runs with like... According to Shanaka Jayasekara, who carried out research on terrorism at the Macquarie University of Australia, LTTE's arms procurer Selvarasa Pathmanathan alias KP travelled from Bangkok to Kabul via Karachi on May 19, 2001, and met Taliban leaders to discuss matters relating to the so-called 'Sharjah network', an arms supply line run by the Russian dealer Victor Bout who operated three to four flights a day to Kabul to transport weapons. Lakbima News online quotes Mr Jayasekara as saying that the LTTE operated a cargo company in Dubai, 17kms from the offices of the Sharjah network. The company named 'Otharad Cargo' was headed by Daya, younger brother of Nithi, a Canada-based member of LTTE's arms procurement unit under KP. Otharad Cargo is believed to have acquired several consignments of military hardware as part of consolidated purchase arrangements with Taliban's Sharjah network. Mr Jayasekara claims that information recovered from a laptop computer of an LTTE procurement agent, now in the custody of a western country, has provided detailed information on LTTE's activities in Pakistan. The LTTE had registered the front company in Karachi which procured several consignments of weapons for the LTTE as well as Pakistani militant groups. A shipment of weapons procured by the company was intercepted and destroyed by Sri Lankan navy in September 2007, he says. Lakbima News cites a Jane's Intelligence report of November 2002 on terrorist financing in South Asian states which says that LTTE's shipping fleet provided logistic support to Harakatul Mujahideen for transporting a consignment of weapons to the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) in the Philippines. The LTTE used a merchant vessel registered by a front company in Lattakia, Syria, until 2002 to service most of its 'grey/black charters'. According to Rohan Gunaratna, a Sri Lankan expert on terrorism with the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism in Malaysia, the LTTE had links with jihadis in the NWFP and had a safe house in Peshawar. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said recently that Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa had told him in Tripoli that elements in Sri Lanka were linked with terrorist incidents in Pakistan, including an attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore on March 3.

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Southeast Asia

Forensic tests on Indonesia militant no match for Top

2009-08-10

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Forensic tests including on DNA, finger prints and hair of a man shot dead by Indonesian police during a raid targeting Noordin Mohammad Top do not match the militant, a source close to the investigation said on Monday. Bummer. Malaysian-born Top is a prime suspect in last month's near simultaneous suicide attacks on Jakarta's JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels that killed nine people and wounded 53. Police shot dead a man thought to be Top after an 18-hour siege on a farmhouse in rice fields in Central Java on Saturday, but initial confidence it was Top appears to be fading. "Sure, today at 10 o'clock the tests were already completed," said the source from police headquarters, who spoke on condition he was not named. "Twelve criteria for supporting evidence have been checked including DNA, finger prints, hair and so on," "According to my friends, they don't match," said the source, adding that blood samples were taken from Top's son in Riau province. The source said police could officially announce the results in two to three days. Police will also check on a scar on Top's left eye brow and particular tooth pattern based on information from him Malaysian family, the source said. A police spokesman could not immediately be reached, but a number of analysts and other sources quoted in the media have also denied that the dead man is Top. "From the photos of the head of the body that was circulating in the Internet as well as some other information I can't quote the sources, we have no idea who it was," Sidney Jones, an expert on Islamic militants at the International Crisis Group, said on Sunday. Fingerprints, facial features and the body posture of the man also did not match, the Jakarta Globe newspaper quoted an unnamed source from the anti-terrorism unit Detachment 88 as saying. Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism expert based in Singapore, also said he did not believe Top is dead and said it was "was a mistaken identity". "There are people in detention who can surely identify Noordin Mohammad Top," he said. Top, who formed a violent wing of the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) militant network, is blamed for a series of attacks including on the Australian Embassy in Jakarta in 2004 and in Bali in 2005. Andi Widjajanto, a security expert at the University of Indonesia, said he believed the man killed in Central Java had been part of Noordin's group. "I don't know who it was, but I'm sure the man was someone close to (Top's) group, and he had the loyalty to deviate attention by shouting from inside that he identified himself as Noordin Top," he said, referring to a media report that the man in the house had shouted out during the siege claiming to be Top. The weekend raids in Central Java and Bekasi near Jakarta resulted in three suspects being killed, five arrested and half-a-tonne of explosives seized, which police said was supposed to be used in a suicide car bomb attack on the home of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Not a total failure, there's always next time.

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Home Front: WoT

Where's Osama? Chitral, Pakland?

2009-03-15

Where's Osama? Try Chitral, once a trekkers' paradise in Pakistan that has been sealed off to outsiders and is now regularly buzzed by American spy drones. The U.S. won't say it officially, but an exhaustive Daily News investigation finds the world's biggest manhunt for the monster who murdered nearly 3,000 people on 9/11 has zeroed in on Chitral's stunning peaks and deep valleys. Six U.S. and foreign officials confirmed to The News that northwestern Pakistan's impenetrable Hindu Kush mountains - which boast some of the world's tallest climbs - in the Chitral region have been eyed as Bin Laden's hideout since 2006 by Osama hunters aiming for the big kill. A lengthy review of evidence, including recent Predator fly-bys, Bin Laden's tapes since 9/11 and interviews with three dozen experts on Al Qaeda, Pakistan and special operations, point to these vast mountains as the terror chief's most likely haven. Captured Al Qaeda leaders have given up as his hideout. "Debriefings of Al Qaeda leaders arrested confirmed this," said Rohan Gunaratna, author of "Inside Al Qaeda." Two senior foreign officials said the nearby town of Kalam also is suspect. Drones were first spotted spying on Chitral last summer and were seen again as recently as Feb. 2. Chitral is so far from U.S.-run airfields that drone sorties are limited to just a few hours because of fueling issues. Moreover, Islamic militancy is taking root in several Chitrali valleys leading to the Afghan border, prompting Pakistan's tourism ministry to decree them off-limits to foreigners, local sources said - reinforcing the suspicion Osama is nearby. CIA Director Leon Panetta has told Congress he asks "every day" where Bin Laden is hiding.

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China-Japan-Koreas

Analysts: China crackdown fueling attacks

2008-08-15

A police crackdown meant to quell militants in China's rugged frontier of Xinjiang has failed to prevent a surge of attacks, and analysts say Beijing's tactics may actually be encouraging more violence among the region's usually moderate Muslims. Sounds like another iteration of the "anything you do just makes them stronger" argument. How China deals with Xinjiang is a concern for the rest of the world. The vast area of deserts and mountains borders Pakistan, Afghanistan and several Central Asian republics and is home to a sizable Muslim population that could be a valuable ally in the global struggle against Islamic extremism. The latest wave of attacks on security forces -- the worst in a decade -- began last week, just days before the Olympics' opening ceremony on the opposite end of the country, some 1,740 miles to the east. It's kinda obvious that they're designed to embarrass the Chinese govt when it's standing on the world stage. No group has claimed responsibility for the deadly bombings and stabbings, but police have blamed terrorists among the Uighurs -- a Muslim ethnic minority of about 8 million people who have long chafed under Chinese rule. Uighurs and Kazaks established an independent state called the East Turkestan Republic in western Xinjiang in 1944-49, but the territory was retaken by China after the Communist Revolution. Chinese officials insist relations between the Uighurs (pronounced WEE-goors) and Chinese are harmonious and that the violence is being carried out by radical fringe elements. "The majority of people living in Xinjiang support national unification and are opposed to terrorism, extremists and separatists," Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters in Beijing earlier this week. But Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism expert at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, believes the violence is a sign the latest "Strike Hard" campaign is driving more Uighurs toward militant Islam. Human rights groups say what began as a campaign against organized crime, drugs and pornography has become a cover to crack down on Uighurs. "There is extremist propaganda that is radicalizing a segment of the population, but government action itself has hastened the pace of radicalization," said Gunaratna, head of the university's International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research. Gunaratna said China should take a softer approach with the Uighurs and worry more about Pakistan-based militant groups, whose members slip across the border to train and recruit Uighurs. The Uighurs have practiced Sunni Islam or the mystical Sufi tradition, but many live a moderate lifestyle, which includes drinking alcohol and allowing women to work. Men often wear skull caps, while colorful head scarves are popular with women, though it's common to see young Uighur women strutting around in designer jeans and high heels.

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Southeast Asia

Al-Qaida-linked militants in Philippines get foreign funds despite crackdown

2008-07-08

Al-Qaida-linked militants in the Philippines continue to get significant funding from foreign donors despite a crackdown aimed at stopping the flow of cash that finances bombings and other attacks, two terrorism experts said Monday. 'There is no evidence that terrorist financial flows to the Philippines have dried up,' Rohan Gunaratna, a Singapore-based terrorism expert, told reporters on the sidelines of a Manila conference on terror financing. But he said the militants also use extortion and kidnappings for ransom as a means of supplementing the foreign funding, which isn't always enough to carry out all of their planned terrorist attacks in the country. Philippine military and police officials have said that the Abu Sayyaf, a small but brutal group accused of involvement in bombings, beheadings and kidnappings, suffered a major financial setback when its chief, Khaddafy Janjalani, and his presumed successor, Abu Sulaiman, were killed in 2006 and 2007, respectively. The two leaders had established connections with Middle Eastern and Asian financiers, something most other Abu Sayyaf commanders have failed to do, the officials said. The fundraising task, however, has been taken over by a little-known Abu Sayyaf commander, Yassir Igasan, who developed links with Middle Eastern financiers when he went there for terrorist training in the past, said Gunaratna, author of 'Inside al-Qaida: The Global Network of Terror.' 'As long as he is alive and as long he is active, the Abu Sayyaf will continue to get money from Saudi Arabia,' Gunaratna said of Igasan. Top Indonesian terrorism suspect Umar Patek, who has been hiding in the southern Philippines, also gets funds from Indonesia-based groups such as Jemaah Islamiyah that are used by the Abu Sayyaf and other Muslim rebel groups for terrorist training and attacks in the Philippines, Gunaratna said. National police chief Avelino Razon declined to comment on Gunaratna's claim, saying a lack of information on terror financing has made it hard for authorities to assess the flow of money to local militants. But he said that in the past some of those funds have been monitored and frozen with the help of foreign intelligence agencies.

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-Obits-

Abu Ubaida al-Masri: The Obituary

2008-04-10

Abu Ubaida al-Masri, one of Al Qaeda's top operatives and the mastermind behind a plot to use liquid explosives to blow British passenger jets out of the sky, is dead, a U.S. official confirmed to FOX News Wednesday. "He's dead, Jim!" The unidentified official said it is believed that al-Masri died of natural causes, possibly hepatitis, in Pakistan, and are staying away from a report that he was killed in a January CIA predator strike. At the time of his death, the Egyptian-born al-Masri was responsible for the terror organization’s external operations, focusing on plotting attacks outside the tribal areas of Pakistan. Al-Masri is tied to two major terrorist plots. The first being the July 7, 2005, London subway bombing, in which al-Masri recruited, trained and directed four homicide bombers in a coordinated attack on London's transportation system. In the attack, known as the 7/7 Bombings, three bombs exploded during morning rush-hour within 50 seconds of each other on three London Underground trains. A fourth bomb exploded on a bus nearly an hour later. The attack left 52 commuters dead, and more than 700 injured. It was the largest and deadliest terror attack on London in its history. The second plot, in August, 2006, involved the use of liquid explosives smuggled aboard several airliners traveling from London's Heathrow and Gatwick airports to major cities in the U.S. and Canada with the intention of detonating the bombs in midair, destroying at least 10 aircraft. British intelligence foiled that plot, arresting 24 suspects in and around London. Eight of the original suspects currently are on trial in London, charged with conspiring to murder and destroy aircraft. U.S. officials say al-Masri probably has been dead for several months, with no explanation as to why news of his death was not released sooner. Few have heard of al-Masri outside a select circle of anti-terrorism officials and Islamic militants, the Los Angeles Times reported last week. "Abu Ubaida al Masri" is an alias, and officials have yet to learn the mysterious operative's real name, the Times reported. "He is considered capable and dangerous," an unidentified British official told the newspaper. "He is not at the very top of Al Qaeda, but has been part of the core circle for a long time. He is someone who has emerged and grabbed our attention as others were caught or eliminated in the last couple of years. Perhaps he rose faster than he would have otherwise." Al-Masri was in his mid-40s according to a German investigative file obtained by the Times. His alias means "The Egyptian Father of Ubaida." Little is known about his youth other than that he belonged to a generation of Egyptians who have dominated Al Qaeda since the terror group fought the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1970s and '80s, the Times reported. Al-Masri fought in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the early 1990s, went on to Chechnya and lost two fingers in combat — leading to the nickname "Three-Fingered Egyptian" — the investigative file cites. He surfaced in Germany in 1995 requesting asylum, which was rejected in 1999. He was jailed pending deportation, but was then released for unknown reasons, the newspaper reported. An associate of al-Masri in Germany included a Moroccan computer science student who married the daughter of Ayman Zawahiri, Usama bin Laden's deputy, the newspaper reported. By 2000 al-Masri was back in Afghanistan serving as an explosives instructor at a training camp near Kabul. During the U.S.-led military operation in Afghanistan in late 2001, Masri fought in a paramilitary unit that took heavy casualties covering bin Laden's escape into Pakistan, Rohan Gunaratna, author of "Inside Al Qaeda," told the newspaper. When the self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was captured in 2003, al-Masri joined a group of chiefs responsible for external operations, the Times reported. "He's considered a player," a U.S. anti-terrorism official told the newspaper.

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