Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

India-Pakistan

Plot to kill Hindus in Bengaluru, Nanded, Hyderabad: NIA charges two Lashkar operatives

2021-02-23

The NIA are still working this case dating back to 2012.

[OneIndia] The National Investigation Agency has filed a chargesheet in connection with a Lashkar-e-Tayiba conspiracy case.

The NIA filed the chargesheet against, Dr. Sabeel Ahmed alias Motu Doctor of Bengaluru and Assadullah Khan of Hyderabad.

The case pertains to the conspiracy hatched by the members of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and Harkat-ul-Jihadi Islami to commit subversive activities and wage war against Government of India.

They had procured illegal arms and ammunition for assassinations of important personalities of Hindu community in Bangalore and Hubli in Karnataka, Nanded in Maharashtra and in Hyderabad, Telangana to disturb the communal harmony and strike terror in society.

Investigation established that accused persons Dr.Sabeel Ahmed and Asadulla Khan are members of proscribed terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Tayiba. They were involved in criminal conspiracy along with other accused persons in supporting and furthering the cause of outfit in Damam and Riyadh, Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
. They had actively participated in conspiracy meetings in which terrorist activities like assassinations of important personalities of Hindu community in Bangalore and Hubli in Karnataka and Nanded in Maharashtra were planned.

The background:

Dr Motu was a mysterious character when the National Investigation Agency (NIA) started its probe into an liquidation plot at Bengaluru.

According to the details of this plot, a group of boys had decided on targeting several Hindu leaders and journalists.

Further probing found that the plot extended to Telangana and Maharashtra as well.

During the course of the investigation, it came to light that a doctor based in Saudi Arabia was also part of the plot.

The various transcripts that the Sherlocks collected found that this person was being referred to as Dr Motu.

The NIA had claimed that this person was Dr Sabeel Ahmed, the brother of Kafeel Ahmed an accused in the Glasgow (UK) terror plot.

...the 2007 Glasgow International Airport attack with what would have been a nasty car bomb, had it actually exploded, with a connected set of car bombs that also did not go off in London. It might easily have been called a doctors’ plot, given how many of those arrested were MDs. The whole thing was a project of Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, with handlers in Saudi Arabia...

Dr Sabeel Ahmed who was also questioned in connection with the Glasgow attack was deported to India after that incident.

When the NIA had identified Dr Motu for the first time and it was reported in the media, there was a denial issued by him. He had said that he was given to understand that he had taken part in some meetings in Riyadh in connection with this plot.

This is a ridiculous allegation against me and I deny all the charges he had said at that time.

The NIA in its chargesheet states that Dr Sabeel Ahmed was a key player in the plot.

The NIA accuses him of being part of meetings and also making financial and logistic support in connection with this plot.

In all the NIA has named 25 persons in the chargesheet on the ground that they were planning on killing Hindu leaders in Karnataka, Telangana and Maharashtra.

Hindustan Times adds:

According to NIA, the case was initially registered by the police in Bengaluru on August 29, 2012,

...the mills of justice grinding very slowly indeed, on this one...

and pertains to conspiracy hatched by members of LeT and Harkat-ul-Jehad-e-Islami (HuJI) to commit subversive activities and wage war against India.

It was taken over by the NIA on November 25, 2012. The agency chargesheeted 17 people in the case after investigation.

The NIA said that the two people named today were involved in criminal conspiracy along with other accused in supporting and furthering the cause of the terror groups in Damam and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. They had also actively participated in meetings in which activities like targeted killings of important personalities of Hindu community were planned, it further added.

The NIA special court had convicted 13 accused people in 2016; they were sentenced to five-year imprisonment.

While trial is continuing against three accused, further investigation against six absconding accused persons continues.

Link

India-Pakistan

Suspected Al-Qaeda man chargesheeted

2018-01-23

[The Hindu] The Delhi police on Monday chargesheeted suspected al-Qaeda terrorist Zishan Ali in a case of allegedly making provocative speeches to recruit youths here and establish a base for the terror outfit. Ali was deported to India from Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
last August.

Taking the investigation report on record, Additional Sessions Judge Sidharth Sharma posted the case to February 2 for consideration on taking cognisance.

The police enjugged
Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages!
Ali over a year after three alleged al-Qaeda operatives were arrested in 2015.

The police said that Ali, a resident of Jamshedpur in Jharkhand, operated from Saudi Arabia. He is believed to be married to the sister of Sabeel Ahmed, a cousin of the 2007 Glasgow International Airport attack criminal mastermind Kafeel Ahmed, who had moved from Bengaluru to Saudi Arabia in 2010-11.

The police secured an arrest warrant against Ali in June 2016. His name was also mentioned in a chargesheet filed against alleged al-Qaeda in Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) accused persons. Ali’s brother Syed Mohammed Arshiyan, who was last spotted in Saudi Arabia, allegedly has links with international terror outfits. He is also wanted by Indian probe agencies.

The police first came to know about the two brothers from AQIS accused and Cuttack-based holy man Abdul Rehman, who was arrested in December 2015.

Rehman allegedly disclosed that he knew Arshiyan since 2003. He later came in contact with his brother Ali. The accused said that through Arshiyan, Dr. Ahmed and other Saudi Arabia-based contacts, he had sent some young men to Pakistain for training in terror camps there.

Intelligence agencies had started working on the AQIS module soon after a video by al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-

Zawahiri
... Formerly second in command of al-Qaeda, now the head cheese, occasionally described as the real brains of the outfit. Formerly the Mister Big of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Bumped off Abdullah Azzam with a car boom in the course of one of their little disputes. Is thought to have composed bin Laden's fatwa entitled World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders. Currently residing in the North Wazoo area assuming he's not dead like Mullah Omar. He lost major face when he ordered the nascent Islamic State to cease and desist and merge with the orthodx al-Qaeda spring, al-Nusra...
surfaced in September 2014. It announced the outfit’s formation. About a year later, the police busted a module involving some residents of Uttar Pradesh’s Sambhal and this led to further arrests. They found that AQIS chief Maulana Asim Umar
...chief of al-Qaeda's Sharia Committee for Pakistain, named head of al-Qaeda in India. His video appearances are frequently accompanied by clips of al Qaeda's senior propagandist in Pakistan, Ahmad Farooq. Umar the author of The Army of Anti-Christ: Blackwater, Documentation of the Dreadful Terrorist Activities of America's Blackwater in Islamic Countries...
was also a resident of Deepa Sarai in Sambhal. It is suspected that he went to Pakistain in 1998.

Link

Britain

Doctor guilty of car bomb attacks

2008-12-16

An NHS doctor has been convicted of plotting to bring chaos and murder to London and Glasgow Airport by setting off massive car bombs.

A jury at Woolwich Crown Court found Bilal Abdulla guilty of plotting the home-made bomb attacks in 2007. Another NHS doctor, Mohammed Asha, was cleared of helping Abdulla and a second attacker, Kafeel Ahmed.

Ahmed died following the Glasgow attack on 30 June 2007, a day after he and Abdulla had attacked London's West End.

Prosecutor Jonathan Laidlaw told the jury the men had been intent on "committing murder on an indiscriminate and wholesale scale" in attacks that would occur without warning, spreading panic among the public.

Link

Britain

Doctor admits he is 'a terrorist'

2008-11-17

An NHS doctor accused of attempted car bombings in London and at Glasgow Airport has admitted that according to English law he is a terrorist. Bilal Abdulla, 29, is alleged to have crashed into the airport in a Jeep laden with petrol and gas canisters.

With nails wrapped all around the canisters ...

But he told a jury he never wanted to kill or injure anyone.

Sad thing is, Britain today just might believe him ...

Dr Abdulla, from Paisley, and Dr Mohammed Asha, 27, from Newcastle-under-Lyme, deny conspiracies to murder and to cause explosions. The defence has said that Dr Abdulla and friend Kafeel Ahmed, 28, wanted to highlight the plight of people in Iraq and Afghanistan with a series of incendiary device attacks in June 2007.

How is an 'incendiary device attack' not an explosion? Or am I being too logical here ...

Dr Asha is accused of supplying them with cash and advice.

A jury at Woolwich Crown Court heard Dr Abdulla had told police in Scotland "something along those lines" that he was a terrorist shortly after being arrested. Dr Abdulla told the court: "Everyone was saying you are a terrorist, you are arrested under the Terrorism Act and so forth. That is my case in a nutshell. I am told I am a terrorist, but is your government not a terrorist, is your army not a terrorist?

Once again it's all our fault ...

"By the definition of the Act, according to English law, yes. That is my aim to change opinion using violence, using fire devices."

But not to murder or cause explosions, because Islam is a 'religion of peace', doncha know ...

Dr Abdulla told the jury that after attacks on London's West End had failed, he planned to flee to Iraq, via Turkey, because it would be "much easier to disappear" in a lawless country.

But as he approached the airport, Ahmed suddenly swerved the Jeep into the terminal building without warning. "He drove through the barrier and I got alarmed and I shouted 'What are you doing, what is happening?'," said Dr Abdulla. "I had never seen Kafeel's face like that in my life. He was determined, his foot was on the accelerator and he did not respond to me at all."

Dr Abdulla admitted throwing petrol bombs as he got out of the burning vehicle. But he claimed he had tossed them away to protect himself after Ahmed had passed one to him, accidentally lighting the others in the process. He said he could not recall exactly what happened afterwards, adding: "I know that I had struggled with people, I received punches and I punched back."

Ahmed, an Indian engineering student, died one month after the attack from critical burns after dousing himself in petrol.

Dr Abdulla told the court: "From day one, we said we will not kill or injure any innocent person. This incident, if it was to kill people or cause an explosion, we would not have done it that way. It looks very clumsy."

That's really his biggest complaint, isn't it: it was clumsy. And he failed.

Link

Britain

Airport blast man 'left a will'

2008-11-07

A man who died of burns following an attack at Glasgow airport left a will in which he warned of "hitting at the devil's place", a court has heard. Woolwich Crown Court was told Kafeel Ahmed, 28, e-mailed a document to his brother Sameel to be read by his family in the event of his death.

Dr Mohammed Asha, 28, and Dr Bilal Abdulla, 29, deny conspiracy to murder. The pair also deny charges of causing explosions relating to the alleged attempted car bombing in 2007.

In his letter Mr Ahmed wrote that the "call of Jihad" had been "loud and open" and he apologised to his mother for lying to her about his "project". Mr Ahmed died of extensive burns after the airport attack.

The jury heard that Mr Ahmed had sent a text message to his brother Sameel before the airport attack. This directed Sameel to an e-mail account in which there were two messages.

One contained instructions to his brother, asking him to lie to the police about his whereabouts, suggesting that his brother use a story that he was in Iceland studying global warming.

There was a will to family members, details of which were read out in court. In the document Kafeel wrote "me and some brothers are getting an opportunity to hit the devil's place to the core, and this is what we tried with the help of Allah".

He thanked his father for his strict upbringing, and said: "The call of Jihad was loud and open." He wrote to his mother: "Someone has to do something, why someone else, why not your son. So be generous and sacrifice your son."

Mr Ahmed said he sought forgiveness from "all of you for not telling you and lying" but added that it had been "necessary".

Link

Britain

Glasgow bomber's will shows thirst to "lick the blood" of the West

2008-11-07

An alleged terrorist drafted a will in which he expressed a willingness to kill women and children in the fight against the "Kingdom of Evil", a court heard yesterday. Bilal Abdulla, 29, wrote of his ability to "lick the blood" of westerners, adding that a population "busy with alcoholic drinking and with their intimate friends" could only be awakened "by the sound of booby traps". Earlier in the day, a jury at Woolwich Crown Court heard that his alleged accomplice, who died in an attempted strike at Glasgow Airport on 30 June last year, had sent a separate will to his brother, in which he warned of "hitting the devils' place".

Abdulla is accused of being a member of an Islamic terrorist cell that plotted mass murder with a series of car bombs. He is alleged to have driven one of two Mercedes cars laden with gas canisters to a club in London's West End, the court has been told. When they failed to detonate, he is said to have joined a suicide attack on Glasgow Airport the following day in which Kafeel Ahmed later died. Abdulla is on trial with a second man, Mohammed Asha, 28, accused of conspiracy to murder and cause explosions. Both men deny the offences.

In court yesterday, evidence taken from a laptop found in the burnt-out Jeep was given. Detective Constable Graeme Burridge, a forensic computer examiner, said he was able to recover files from the recycle bin and hard drive of the computer. The documents were written and edited by Abdulla, the court heard. One such document, described as Abdulla's draft will, had been created over a period of 455 minutes and been revised 39 times. It is addressed to a number of recipients, including "Osama" and "our soldiers of Islam in the country of the two rivers" a reference to fighters in Iraq, the jury was told. In it, Abdulla is alleged to have written that he wanted to announce "the news of victory and glorious conquests at the heart of the state of unbelievers and tyranny". The draft will continues: "God has blessed us the ability to lick the blood of the Romans (a reference to westerners] as you have done before us in the past."

The court heard Abdulla went on to rail against "the Kingdom of Evil". He is alleged to have written: "It destroyed our caliphate, tore apart our unity, defamed and distorted our religion and stabbed us in the heart the day it established that infernal state in our Palestine." The court was told that, in a reference to conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, he wrote: "Their soldiers kill the young and old. They do not discriminate between men and women, so why should we? If the policy of their army is to kill women and children, then only a similar policy would deter them." The draft will holds the entire population responsible for the action of its government. "These people do not care about what is happening in our land as they are all busy with alcoholic drinking and with their intimate friendsthese people can only be awakened by the sound of booby traps and the Mujahideen hailing 'God is great'."

In separate letters, he praised Islamist fighters in Iraq and called on the Muslim community in Britain to "leave this land of unbelievers and atheism before losing your religion". Another document recovered from the laptop contained a transcript of an interview with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former head of al-Qaeda in Iraq, the court heard.

Abdulla is also alleged to have been the author of a letter purporting to be from his sister to the doctor's supervisor at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley. In the missive recovered from the computer, the hospital line manager is told Abdulla will not be able to come to work due to an overseas accident in which he had been left paralysed. The letter was last edited on 30 June, the expert witness said, the day of the Glasgow attack.

The jury heard that Kafeel Ahmed, who died as a result of burns received when the Jeep caught fire, had left a will to his family before the attacks. In it, he wrote that the "call of Jihad" had been "loud and open" and also apologised for lying to his family. It continued: "Me and some brothers were given the opportunity to hit the devil's place. The core. And this is what we have tried by the help of Allah." In a message to his mother, he added: "You know the pain and cries of our brothers and sisters, and someone has to do something. Why someone else, why not your own son? So be generous and sacrifice your son for the sake of Allah.

Tidbit from another article:

The jurors were told on Thursday that Ahmed had sent a text message to his brother Sabeel prior to the attacks, directing him to an email account in which two messages had been sent. One contained instructions to his brother to lie to the police about his whereabouts, using a story that he was in Iceland studying global warming.

Link

Britain

Bomb accused escaped in rickshaw

2008-10-10

TWO men who tried to carry out car bombings in central London last year escaped the scene in rickshaws, Woolwich Crown Court has been told. Bilal Abdulla, 29, and Kafeel Ahmed, 28, took the pedal-powered cabs after they had left two Mercedes cars packed with gas canisters, fuel containers and nails outside a club and at a bus stop nearby.

CCTV caught Ahmed dumping an umbrella he was carrying in an apparent attempt to shield his face from cameras, prosecutor Jonathan Laidlaw said. He then took a rickshaw from Piccadilly Circus while Abdulla was also seen using the same method to get away, the court heard. The two men then met up in Edgware Road shortly after 2 am, 30 minutes after the attempted bombings.

Mr Laidlaw said the first car bomb was discovered by staff at the Tiger Tiger nightclub, where there were 556 revellers inside, after paramedics were called to treat a customer. A doorman and the club's general manager then noticed gas vapour and smelt liquid petroleum gas. A fire officer called to the scene pulled one of the large gas canisters from the car and realised there was another inside with wires and mobile phones attached.

"At that point the potential seriousness of the situation emerged and the Bomb Squad were called to the scene," Laidlaw said.

Meanwhile the second car was given a parking ticket and then towed away to a nearby pound. Police made it safe after realising it too had been rigged with bombs.

The court heard there had been repeated attempts to set off the bombs remotely using the mobile phone detonators, and although one of the initiators had undergone a slight explosion, neither main device had exploded. This was because the fuel to air ratio in the cars had probably exceeded ignitable limits, Mr Laidlaw said.

On Thursday, the court was told Abdulla and co-defendant Mohammed Asha, 28, were part of a small Islamist cell that had planned a series of car bomb attacks in revenge for Britain's treatment of Muslims in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

The day after the London bombings failed on June 28, Abdulla and Ahmed drove to Scotland and tried to drive a Jeep Cherokee, packed with fuel containers and gas canisters, into the international terminal at Glasgow Airport. The Jeep became trapped in the terminal doors and Ahmed later died from burns he suffered as he tried to set the car alight.

Abdulla, an Iraqi, and Jordanian national Asha, who are both doctors, deny conspiring to murder and to cause explosions likely to endanger life.

Link

Britain

Doctors plotted "wholesale murder" in UK: prosecutor

2008-10-09

Two doctors went on trial on Thursday accused of being part of an Islamist cell trying to murder people "wholesale" by carrying out car bomb attacks in central London and at a packed Scottish airport last year.

Iraqi Bilal Abdulla, 29, and Jordanian Mohammed Asha, 28, were part of a small group that tried to set off bombs outside a busy London nightclub and, when that failed, rammed a car into Glasgow Airport terminal in a dramatic suicide attack, the prosecution said. The men wanted to punish the British people for their country's perceived persecution of Palestinian Muslims and those in Afghanistan and Iraq, the court in east London heard.

"These men were intent on committing murder on an indiscriminate and wholesale scale," prosecutor Jonathan Laidlaw told the top security Woolwich Crown Court. "Apart from the shocking nature of the activity these two defendants were engaged in, the extraordinary thing about this case is that both these defendants are doctors," he said. "They turned their attention away from the treatment of illness to the planning of murder."

Their plans failed only because, by a mixture of good luck and technical mistakes, the devices did not explode, he said.

The first in a series of "spectaculars" was planned for central London, Laidlaw said. Two cars packed with gas canisters, fuel containers and nails were driven down from Scotland and, early on June 29, 2007, left in the busy West End area of the capital.

One was parked outside Tiger Tiger, a nightclub near Piccadilly Circus packed with more than 500 revelers, and the second nearby. This was a "secondary device" to catch those fleeing from the first explosion at the club, Laidlaw suggested. Despite repeated attempts to set off the mobile phone detonators in the cars, neither vehicle exploded.

The bombers then dramatically changed their plans, aware that the police and security services would quickly trace them through clues left in the cars, the prosecution said. "... the next attack was to be a suicide attack. There was to be no repeat of the failure of the devices in London," said Laidlaw. "... the ultimate purpose...remained to kill and maim."

The next day, the bombers drove to Scotland. A vehicle packed with fuel containers and gas canisters was driven at speed into the international terminal at Glasgow Airport on its busiest day of the year. The vehicle became stuck in the terminal doors and despite attempts to detonate it with petrol bombs, it failed to explode.

Driver Kafeel Ahmed, 28, died from his burns, while Abdulla who was in the passenger seat survived. Laidlaw said Abdulla was a central figure in the plot while Asha, who was in neither London nor Glasgow, was an important member of the cell. Both men deny conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to cause explosions. The trial is due to last three months.

Link

India-Pakistan

India to probe Glasgow bomber's brother

2008-05-09

An Indian doctor who was jailed in Britain for withholding information about planned car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow has returned to India but will now face questioning by local police, an officer said.

Sabeel Ahmed, 26, arrived in the southern city of Bangalore on Thursday escorted by two British policemen, after serving 270 days in jail in Britain. He is the younger brother of Kafeel Ahmed, an engineer, who drove a jeep into the Glasgow airport terminal building on June 30 last year and set it alight. Kafeel died later in hospital from 90 percent burns. Police later arrested Sabeel Ahmed after learning that he was sent an e-mail with details of the attacks from his brother before he drove the jeep to Glasgow airport.

Sabeel was sentenced to 18 months in jail in April, but was allowed to go free because he had already spent around half that time in custody, and after he had confessed and signed a document stating that he would retun to India voluntarily. On Thursday, Sabeels mother said her son was tired and resting in their hometown of Bangalore. He did not cry, I cried. We are all happy to have him back, Zakia Ahmed, his mother said.

But Indian police said they were interested in questioning him, as part of an investigation into the banned Muslim group, the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). It could be a routine investigation, said a senior officer of the Corps of Detectives in the state of Karnataka state. We want to examine his role before he left India, the officer, who did not want to be named, said.
SIMI has been blamed for helping to carry out several bomb attacks in India. Police have arrested a medical student and a software engineer in Bangalore recently, following the arrest of the groups leader Safdori Nagori and 12 other senior members in March this year.

Link

Britain

Doctor guilty in UK airport terror case

2008-04-12

An explosive-laden Jeep was halted only meters away from airline passengers at Glasgow airport last year when two men attempted a suicide attack as part of a plot to bomb London and Scotland, a prosecutor told a court on Friday.

Two men inside the sport utility vehicle, which they had set on fire, hurled petrol bombs and repeatedly attempted to ram their way into an airport terminal during an attempted terrorist strike in June, prosecutor Jonathan Laidlaw said. Laidlaw said driver Kafeel Ahmed was engulfed in flames as he emerged from the Jeep and attempted to hurl petrol bombs at the terminal. Ahmed later died in hospital from severe burns.

So he roasted before he got to Hell. Good.

Many details of the case were outlined publicly for the first time by Laidlaw after Kafeel's brother, Sabeel Ahmed, pleaded guilty to an offense of withholding information about the attacks from British authorities. The Indian-born doctor will be sentenced later Friday.

Two other men are due to go on trial over the attacks in October.

A day before the attempted attack in Glasgow, two Mercedes packed with gas canisters were discovered in London's entertainment district. Around 500 people were evacuated from a nightclub after one of the cars was discovered outside.

Laidlaw said the men attempted the suicide attack at Glasgow's airport after their plot to bomb London failed. He told the Old Bailey criminal court in central London that cell phone detonators in the cars failed, likely because dense fuel vapors caused them to malfunction.

The attacks came in the week British Prime Minister Gordon Brown took office, replacing Tony Blair as leader. "The attack to be conducted at Glasgow was to be a suicide attack likely to result in the loss of both their lives," Laidlaw said. Their attack caused panic within the terminal, Laidlaw said, and some vacationers suffered minor injuries as passengers fled and ran through the building.

Laidlaw said Kafeel Ahmed made repeated attempts to drive the blazing Jeep Cherokee through entrance doors to the airport. "Despite his efforts, the vehicle became trapped," he told the court. "Those who witnessed him described a set and determined face as he stared forward."

Laidlaw said the vehicle came to rest six meters (20 feet) away from passengers lining up at check-in desks. Ahmed's passenger threw a petrol bomb toward a taxi rank as the driver "began to pour and splash fuel from a can on to the area outside the car window," Laidlaw said. The driver "got out of the vehicle and was engulfed in flames that swept around the Jeep and terminal building," he said.

Kafeel sent his brother a text message between the London and Glasgow attacks, which included suggestions on how to mislead investigators in the aftermath of the planned strike, Laidlaw said. "This is a project I was working on for some time now," part of the message read, Laidlaw said. "Everything since last week was executed by me and my team."

Link

India-Pakistan

Bangalore engineer with terror designs held

2008-02-23

BANGALORE: An electrical engineer who was once employed with a leading US multinational and is an active member of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) has been arrested from Bangalore by police who claim the 32-year-old could hold the key to cracking a dangerous terror web that spanned swathes of India, from UP to Kerala.

A native of a village near Kozhikode, Kerala, Yahya Iyash Kamkutty came to Bangalore eight years ago after completing a bachelor's degree in engineering from one of Kerala's best institutes. While working with GE, he kept in touch with terror suspects Mohammed Asif, Asadullah Abubaker and their associates. The gang held several meetings in north Karnataka and were preparing to strike at key installations in the state, police said.

Yahya's arrest late on Thursday once again points to the increasing use of highly-trained professionals being lured into terror groups which have used sophisticated methods and planning in their attacks.

It was from Bangalore that Glasgow bomber Kafeel Ahmed, a PhD scholar in aeronautical engineering and his brother, Sabeel Ahmed, went to UK.

Police said Yahya became more active in SIMI after he lost his job at GE while trying to steal data to set up his own firm.

It was another arrested terror suspect, Mohammed Asif, who revealed the name of Yahya and his association with SIMI. Thereafter, the cops, who were investigating recent terror cases in north Karnataka, started questioning Yahya. Finally, on Thursday night, he was arrested.

Police have seized a laptop, hard disc, jihadi material and hundreds of books from Yahya's house. They would be sending the hard disc for decoding information. They are hoping to get his contacts, communication and plans from the email communication.

Karnataka sleuths took Yahya to Hubli to produce him before a magistrate because the case is registered there. They plan to take him in their custody and put him through polygraph tests, brain mapping and narcoanalysis

Link

India-Pakistan

Ajmer probe throws up Hyderabad links

2007-10-14

Forensic experts have determined that the explosive devices used in Thursdays blast at the shrine of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti closely resemble those placed in Hyderabads Mecca Masjid five months ago a fact which raises the prospect that the same terror group may have executed both strikes.

Tests conducted on an unexploded device recovered from the shrine late on Thursday night, as well as shrapnel recovered from the bomb that detonated killing three, have shown that both devices were packed with dynamite. India proscribed the production of nitroglycerine-based explosives like dynamite in 2004, but large stocks are believed to be still available on the black market. As at the Mecca Masjid, the bombs used in Ajmer were designed to be triggered by a mobile phones built-in alarm clock, which was set to 6:10 p.m.

Rajasthan police sources said the second bomb, stuffed inside a bag which also contained a crude map of the shrine, probably failed to explode because the phones speaker did not generate a voltage adequate to charge the detonator. Similar mobile phone malfunctions led to the failure of a second bomb planted in the Mecca Masjid and the car bombs fabricated by Bangalore engineering student Kafeel Ahmed for use in Glasgow and London earlier this year. Forensic experts said the fault was most likely caused by the use of mobile phones with low-grade components.

Rajasthan police investigators have arrived in Hyderabad to question suspects held for the Mecca Masjid bombings. Karachi-based Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami terrorist Abdul Mohammad Shahid, who also uses the code-name Bilal, is wanted by Interpol for his alleged role in the Mecca Masjid bombings, as well as the subsequent serial bombings in Hyderabad this August. Rajasthan police sources noted that the Islamist terror networks, of which Shahid was a part, were known to have used Ajmer as a transit point in the past.

In December 2005, police in Ajmer interdicted a consignment of three Kalashnikov assault rifles, 229 cartridges and 15 detonators hidden in a truck carrying marble to Hyderabad. Investigators claimed that the trucks driver, Baramulla resident Shabbir Ahmed, had been tasked by the Hizb-ul-Mujahideens Pakistan-based chief, Mohammad Yusuf Shah, with delivering the weapons to terror cell in Hyderabad. Ahmed, a one-time operative for the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, had joined the Islamist Hizb-ul-Mujahideen after training in Pakistan in 1990.

Shabbir Ahmed told the Rajasthan police that the weapons were intended for Mujib Ahmed, a key figure in the terror networks now run by Shahid. Ahmed had spent several years in jail for his role in the 1990 assassination of Additional Superintendent of Police Krishna Prasad. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, but was released by the Andhra Pradesh government in 2004 as part of a controversial Independence Day goodwill gesture.

Soon after Mujib Ahmeds release from prison, investigators found that he reactivated his links with the Lashkar-e-Taiba, Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen. When Mujib was re-arrested in the wake of the Ajmer weapons haul, police discovered that he had produced several films in which he appealed for funds for his new terror operations from Islamist sympathisers in West Asia.

Amjad Ali, who was among Mujibs most trusted lieutenants, was responsible for recruiting Shahid. Ali, who the Central Bureau of Investigation held responsible for the assassination of former Gujarat Home Minister Haren Pandya, is thought to have despatched Shahid and at least 20 other Hyderabad men to train at the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami facilities in Pakistan after the 2002 communal pogrom in Gujarat. Several members of Mujib Ahmeds network, including Nalgonda resident Abdul Rehman, were arrested for their alleged role in the 2005 attack on the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore.

Link

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