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Terror Networks
A Lesson the West Ignored From 7/7
2022-07-10


Long. The set-up:
Seventeen years ago today, four al-Qaeda jacket wallahs attacked the London transport system and in just under an hour that morning murdered fifty-two people from eighteen countries and maimed seven-hundred, one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in British history. An important thread in the story was the role of Pakistain in fostering the ideological and material environment that created the killers, which did not get the attention it deserved at the time, nor in the years since.

THE PAKISTAN DIMENSION OF 7/7
At 8:50 on 7 July 2005, Shehzad Tanweer (aged 22) detonated his boom jacket on a tube train, a minute later another suicide bomber, Mohammad Sidique Khan (30), detonated on a second train, and a minute after that another train was blown up by Germaine Lindsay (19). Thirty-nine people were massacred. At 9:47, a fourth suicide-killer, Hasib Hussain (18), went kaboom! on a bus at Tavistock Square in Bloomsbury, slaughtering thirteen people.

The Security Service (MI5) confirmed that the killers had not been on their radar before the attacks, but once they were identified it became clear that Khan had been on the periphery of a prior investigation, Operation CREVICE, which in March 2004 had rolled up an al-Qaeda network in and around London that was planning to carry out a terrorist atrocity using a fertiliser bomb. Khan was found to have been in telephone contact with one of the conspirators, Omar Khyam, and both Khan and Tanweer had been briefly surveilled by the security services because of their contacts. After running various checks on Khan and Tanweer, it was determined that neither merited further resources: they seemed to be involved in minor fraud as part of financing the network, rather than having any involvement—and potentially not having any knowledge—of the terrorist planning that CREVICE was interested in.

Jonathan Evans, the head of MI5’s G-Branch dealing with international terrorism during this period and later the MI5 chief, noted later that the plot thwarted by CREVICE, led by Mohammed Qayum Khan, had been directed by al-Qaeda based in Pakistain’s tribal areas and involved "British citizens or British residents of Pak heritage, something which became something of a theme for this period". The 7/7 attack was in-keeping with this: all of its operatives (except Lindsay) were of Pak extraction, it originated in "plans from Pakistain", and indeed the logistics of the plot itself "did not fundamentally differ from all the other plans that failed to come to fruition" during the mid-2000s.

What only became clear after 7/7 was that in February 2004, Khyam had spoken in person to Sidique Khan in a car bugged by MI5, and from snippets of that conversation—and the testimony of a jihadist prisoner—British intelligence was able to work out, in retrospect, once they knew what they were looking for, that Khan and Tanweer had been to al-Qaeda training camps in Pakistain. It was a month after 7/7 when Pakistain handed over the photographs of Khan as he arrived there on 25 July 2003.

Pakistain’s reluctance to proactively assist—and its efforts to appear helpful in the aftermath—are hardly surprising. After tiring of the Mujahideen groups in the early 1990s, Pakistain’s Inter-Services Intelligence
...the Pak military intelligence agency that controls the military -- heads of ISI typically get promoted into the Chief of Army Staff position. It serves as a general command center for favored turban groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, tries to influence the politix of neighboring countries, and carries out a (usually) low-level war against India in Kashmir...
 (ISI) agency had turned to the Taliban
...mindless ferocity in a turban...
 as its instrument to conquer Afghanistan, which was largely completed by 1996, and it was under the ISI’s close watch that the Taliban became entirely intermingled with al-Qaeda and its derivatives like "the Haqqani Network", as it did with the "Kashmiri" groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba
...the Army of the Pure, an Ahl-e-Hadith terror organization founded by Hafiz Saeed. LeT masquerades behind the Jamaat-ud-Dawa facade within Pakistain and periodically blows things up and kills people in India. Despite the fact that it is banned, always an interesting concept in Pakistain, the organization remains an blatant tool and perhaps an arm of the ISI...
 (LeT). It is analytically quite misleading to treat as autonomous "groups" what is in reality a fluid single network that shares personnel, geography, resources (everything from training camps to ammunition), and ultimately a unified command structure running through the ISI headquarters at Abpara.

Khan’s story testifies to this. Khan had, as it turned out, previously travelled to Pakistain and trained in a jihadist camp in Kashmir
...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it Azad (Free) Kashmir. The remainder they refer to as "Indian Occupied Kashmir". They have fought four wars with India over it, the score currently 4-0 in New Delhi's favor. After 72 years of this nonsense, India cut the Gordian knot in 2019, removing the area's special status, breaking off Ladakh as a separate state, and allowing people from other areas to settle (or in the case of the Pandits, to resettle) there....
 in July 2001, before being taken over the border to a Taliban camp near the frontlines with the final pocket of Afghan resistance, the Northern Alliance. al-Qaeda was woven into the fabric of this ISI-run jihadist infrastructure, designed significantly for an unending ideological war with India, that ran through—and now runs through again—Kashmir and Afghanistan, which simply shifts personnel from front to front as Pakistain desires. As well as the second trip to Pakistain by Khan in 2003, it transpired there had been a third trip, between November 2004 and February 2005, on which Tanweer had accompanied him. Whether Khan and Tanweer went into Afghanistan during this trip is unclear; they certainly made contact with al-Qaeda.

The ISI’s fingerprints had also been visible in the earlier plot that Operation CREVICE has dismantled. In court, Khyam said the ISI was threatening his family in Pakistain because "they are worried I might reveal more about them" and therefore he was "not going to discuss anything related to the ISI any more". It was pointed out to Khyam by the judge that "inferences" would be drawn from this; he understood that, but inferences had less repercussions for him than giving evidence about the role the ISI had played in facilitating a terrorist plot on British soil.

Britannia has a special place in this long-standing, transnational ISI jihadist network:

Masood Azhar
...One of the major players in Pak terrorism. In early 1994, India incarcerated him for his activities. In 1995, foreign tourists were kidnapped in Jammu and Kashmir. The kidnappers included his release among their demands. One of the hostages managed to escape but the rest were eventually killed. In 1999, he was freed by the Indian government in exchange for passengers on hijacked Indian Airlines Flight 814 that had been diverted to Kandahar. The hijackers were led by Masood Azhar's brother, Ibrahim Athar. Once he was handed over to the hijackers, they fled to Pak territory despite the fact that Islamabad had earlier stated that any of the hijackers would be jugged at the border. The Pak government had also previously indicated that Azhar would be allowed to return home since he did not face any charges there. Shortly after his release, he made a public address to an estimated 10,000 people in Karachi, firing up the rubes against America and India...
, an ISI operative and United Nations
...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships...
-listed terrorist, toured Britannia in 1993, fundraising and recruiting for the Kashmir jihad, while laying down local networks to continue the job. Some of these networks later defected to the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
. Azhar had created a template for "Londonistan" in the 1990s, where jihadists set up shop in London to provide resources to insurgencies in the Moslem world. There was a de facto agreement with the British state that so long as this activity was directed abroad, the jihadists would not be interfered with.

What happened on 7/7 was a demonstration that this jihadist network ran two ways: what had been exported could come home. The realisation was slow in coming. In September 2005, al-Qaeda released a video to al-Jazeera of Khan’s last testament declaring his "war" on the West and praising "today’s heroes": the late Osama bin Laden
...... who used to be alive but now he's not......
, al-Qaeda’s then-deputy (now emir) 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 orthodox al-Qaeda spring, al-Nusra...
, and the founder of the Islamic State movement, which was at that time part of al-Qaeda, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian whose real name was Ahmad al-Khalayleh.
And the dismount:
There was certainly some ignorance among Western officials about Pakistan’s game, but a lack of knowledge was never the real problem. The issue was fear, more precisely blackmail, that any challenge to Pakistan’s lawless conduct—its fundamental strategic commitment to the use of terrorism as a state policy under the protective canopy of pirated nuclear weapons—would make things even worse. As one scholar put it: “Pakistan has essentially developed its bargaining power by threatening its own demise.” If the West cut off the vast aid subsidies, let alone adopted a coercive approach to try to change Pakistan’s policies, Islamabad held out the prospect of instability that would lead to terrorists acquiring its nuclear weapons, so the West kept paying Pakistan to help solve a problem it created and sustained—and had every incentive to sustain, since without the problem there would be no more cheques.

Which returns us to the issue of Pakistani blackmail. Now that NATO is out of Afghanistan, with Western intelligence effectively blind, if and when a British citizen goes rogue, in or from Pakistan, the ISI will be there to offer a helping hand in finding them—for a price. And if Britain accepted the apparent necessity of cooperation with the ISI at a time when the ISI was killing British troops, it is unlikely this will change now. The mind-bending logic of relying on the organisation that nurtures the terrorist groups that threaten Britain will win out by bureaucratic exigency and inertia; what that ensnares Britain into giving away—whether in money or political concessions—will only become clear over time.
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


Britain
Hate cleric's web of terror
2010-01-15
Jalal Hussain: Shared platform with preacher after 2yrs and 3 months for fundraising for Iraqi insurgents.

Ibrahim Hassan: Also joined Choudary at rally - after 2yrs and nine months for inciting terror overseas.

Death plotters
Mizanur Rahman: Jailed for 2yrs in 2006 for race hate - and 4yrs in 2007 for incitement to murder.

Simon Keeler: Got 3½yrs in 2008 for terror fundraising and incitement to kill Our Boys abroad.

Abu Izzadeen: Caged for 3½yrs in 2008 for terrorist fundraising and incitement to kill UK troops.

Rahman Saleem: 2½yrs jail in 2007 for race hate and 2yrs in 2008 for inciting terrorism abroad.

Abdul Muhid: Got 4yrs in 2007 for soliciting murder and 9 months in 2008 for terror fundraising.

Umran Javed: The 27-year-old was caged for four years in January 2007 for soliciting murder.

Bomb gang
Omar Khyam: Jailed for life in April 2007 for leading "fertiliser bomb" plot targeting Bluewater shopping centre.

Waheed Mahmood: Fellow Bluewater plotter - alias Abdul Waheed - was also given life in April 2007.

Jawad Akbar: Third member of the fertiliser bomb plot mob - he too was handed a life jail sentence in April 2007.

Anthony Garcia: Bluewater plotter No4 - the 24-year-old was jailed for life along with his evil accomplices.

Firebomb
Amer Mirza: Sentenced to 6 months in March 1999 for petrol-bombing a West London Territorial Army base.

Ali Beheshti: Maniac aged 41 was locked up for 4½ years in April last year for conspiracy to firebomb.

Race hate
Iftikhar Ali: Hit with ÂŁ3,000 fine in October 2000 for distributing leaflets with intention to stir up race hate.

Zaheen Mohamed: Aged 27, slapped with a two-year community order in July 2005 for inciting racial hatred.

Dead terrorists
Aftab Manzoor: Member of Choudary's Al-Muhajiroun organisation - Manzoor was killed fighting in Afghanistan at the age of 25 in October 2001.

Asif Hanif: Suicide bomber blew himself up in Israel - and was another fanatical supporter of Choudary's sinister Al-Muhajiroun organisation.

Afzal Munir: The devotee of now-banned Al-Muhajiroun organisation was also killed in Afghanistan at age of 25 in October 2001.

Siddique Khan: The 7/7 suicide bomber is feared to have undergone explosives training at a Pakistan camp organised by Al-Muhajiroun recruits.

Al-Qaeda
Habib Ahmed: Terror group member was found with documents detailing "operatives" and was sentenced to ten years in December 2008
Link


Britain
MI5 to escape criticism over 7/7 bombings
2009-05-17
The long-awaited Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) report into the suicide bombings which left 52 people dead and hundreds injured in July 2005 will effectively clear MI5 and the police of failing to prevent the attacks. Sources have revealed that the report, to be published on Tuesday, will state that no new intelligence has emerged since the publication of the first report in May 2006.

ISC report is said to be the most detailed ever compiled by the committee and will contain accounts of the tactics used by MI5 and the police during the monitoring of suspected terrorists.

The document will also reveal that MI5 monitored meetings in early 2004 between Mohammed Siddique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, who planned the 7/7 attacks, and Omar Khyam, the ring leader of a plot to blow up shopping centres and nightclubs. Details of their conversations will appear in the report but sources have said that there was no intelligence to suggest that the London bombings were being planned at that time.

The ISC document will show that MI5 knew that Siddique Khan and Tanweer were planing to travel to Pakistan to take part in Jihad, or holy war, in either Kashmir or Afghanistan, and that the two men were also involved in fraud to fund their activities. But, crucially, the report will show that at no time did MI5 obtain any intelligence that the 7/7 ring leaders were planning the attacks.

An intelligence source said: "MI5 had to put its resources into those suspects who represented a threat to life. It was known that Khyam was planning to carry out bomb attacks. That was not the case with Tanweer and Siddique Khan. Difficult decisions had to be made and those two men, although of interest, were not a prime threat. They were just two of many associates of Khan, and neither MI5 or the police had the capability to monitor them all."

The report's findings are unlikely to satisfy the survivors and family of those who died, especially if key questions remain unanswered. The investigation into the bombings cost ÂŁ100 million, the biggest inquiry in modern times, yet it failed to yield a single conviction.

The police and MI5 have conceded that it is now unlikely that anyone will be brought to justice for the attacks even though intelligence officials believe that 20 people were involved in the attacks. Last month the only three men to be charged in connection with the suicide bombings were acquitted.
Link


Great White North
Unrepentant Canadian gets 10 years for UK bomb plot
2009-03-13
First conviction under Canada's anti-terrorism law

Momin Khawaja, the first person to be sentenced under Canada's anti-terrorism law, was a determined Islamic jihadist who has shown no remorse, Justice Douglas Rutherford said yesterday as he handed the convicted terrorist 10 1/2 years in prison.

Acknowledging the historic moment, Rutherford said he wanted to send a message that terrorism in Canada won't be tolerated, but at least one expert said the judge failed by not handing out at least one life sentence to the Ottawa software developer. The Ottawa-born Khawaja, 29, has already spent five years behind bars, and must serve five years before he is eligible for parole.

"Momin Khawaja was clearly aware and knowledgeable of some of the terrorist activities," the judge said, pointing to Khawaja's association with internationally known Islamic terrorists, his work on remote-control detonating devices, his eager involvement in a terrorist training camp in Pakistan and his role in directly and indirectly financing terrorism from 2002 to 2004. Khawaja was the first person to be charged under the 2001 Anti-Terrorism Act, pushed through Parliament following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.

Khawaja, a former contract federal government employee, was convicted in the fall of five counts of financing and facilitating terrorism for providing cash to a group of British extremists, offering them lodging and other assistance, and undergoing training at the remote camp in Pakistan. He was also found guilty of two criminal offences related to building a remote-control device, known as the Hi-Fi Digimonster, meant to detonate bombs. Five associates of Khawaja, including bomb-plot ringleader Omar Khyam, were sentenced to prison in 2007 after being convicted in London of a foiled plot to target a nightclub, a construction firm, and gas, water and power utilities.

Rutherford told the court that Khawaja's activities were "directed at assisting his terrorist associates in a way that could only result in serious injury, death and destruction." Not once during his 27-day trial did Khawaja indicate he was "repentant for his misdeeds or willing to make amends," Rutherford said.

Even so, the judge ruled out a sentence of life in prison, saying he didn't consider Khawaja in the same league as the London bomb plotters, who were sentenced to life in jail. Rutherford added the sentence would have been longer if not for the glimmer of hope that Khawaja could be rehabilitated. The judge also took into account the fact Khawaja has been held in custody since his arrest by RCMP on March 29, 2004, at his home in Orleans.

The defence and Crown each said they are considering appealing the sentence. "That is a very severe and potentially appealable sentence," said Khawaja's lawyer, Lawrence Greenspon, who had asked that the sentence be limited to time already served.

Prosecutor David McKercher said the sentence was "less than the Crown was asking for" and that his team would consider the decision carefully" before deciding whether to appeal. McKercher had been seeking two life sentences, with an additional 44 to 58 years in prison. Greenspon accused the Crown of "creating an unrealistic expectation" among the public by asking for such a harsh sentence.

Wesley Wark, a University of Toronto professor who specializes in anti-terrorism issues, said Rutherford seemed to contradict himself when he repeatedly reinforced the seriousness of what Khawaja did, and then handed him a relatively light sentence, including three-month sentences for two of the terror-related charges. "The terrorism act, I think, has passed its test as an act," Wark said. "It works (because) Mr. Khawaja was convicted, but I think the real question at issue today was how to reach appropriate sentences for those people convicted.

"From my perspective the surprising thing is that Mr. Khawaja comes away with a relatively light sentence ... and certainly my expectation was that he would face at least one life sentence," Wark said.
Link


Britain
Canadian al-Qaeda bomb-maker guilty in British fertiliser bomb plot
2008-10-29
A Canadian man has been found guilty of designing the detonators for a thwarted al-Qaeda attack on the Bluewater shopping centre and Ministry of Sound nightclub in Britain.

Mohammed Momin Khawaja flew to Britain to show his device, the "hi-fi digimonster," to the cell based in Crawley, West Sussex.

But the terrorists were already under surveillance and bugged recordings heard the men discussing targeting the shopping centre in Kent or the central London nightclub.

Police later discovered they had stored half a ton of ammonium nitrate for the bomb in a lock-up in north-west London.

The rest of the gang, led by Omar Khyam, were convicted last year and yesterday a judge in Ontario, Canada, also found Khawaja guilty. He will be sentenced in late November.
Rest at link. Khawaja's father is a real PoS too.
Link


Great White North
Canadian prosecutors decry 'quartermaster of terror'
2008-08-28
Momin Khawaja was ready to provide and "pull the trigger" of a deadly weapon for an Islamic extremist terror cell when he built a remote-control detonator device in 2004, said the Crown attorney in the terrorism trial of the Orleans man. Describing the software designer as "a zealot with deadly intentions," federal prosecutor David McKercher said yesterday the 29-year-old man acted as a "quartermaster of terror," eagerly supplying money and militia-like gear for a London-based jihad group that planned a fertilizer bomb plot targeting a U.K. nightclub, shopping complex and gas and electric facilities.

In a blistering rebuttal to a defence motion asking the trial judge to quash all seven terrorism charges against Khawaja, McKercher said Justice Douglas Rutherford should take Khawaja's self-description as "the West's mortal enemy" in literal terms. "Momin Khawaja was prepared to provide and metaphorically pull the trigger of a very powerful weapon," McKercher said of the so-called "Hi-Fi Digimonster" the software developer allegedly built for a U.K.-based bomb plot. "Others in the group had provided the power of the blast, the ammunition," said McKercher, referring to 600 kg of ammonium nitrate fertilizer seized by British police at a depot in March 2004.

Omar Khyam, the leader of the conspiracy who was convicted with four other plotters in 2007 by a British jury, "was pointing the weapon and the barrel of the weapon was still swinging when the plot was interrupted by authorities," said McKercher. If the plot had been carried out, "Momin Khawaja would be perfectly content with the brutally deadly results of his handiwork of which he, along with the rest of the world, would learn about in press reports the following day," said McKercher.

The defence has argued Khawaja wanted to be a "front-line jihadi soldier" in Afghanistan and should be considered a combatant in an armed conflict, not a terrorist as defined by Canadian law. But McKercher compared the defence argument to a "three-card Monte" game or a shell game, where defence lawyer Lawrence Greenspon keeps shifting the walnut shells to conceal "the hard kernel of truth."

"Terrorist activity is terrorist activity whether it's under the shell marked 'Canada', the one marked 'United Kingdom' or the one marked 'Afghanistan' or 'Pakistan,' " said McKercher. "They all have publics who can be intimidated," said the McKercher of the potential of terror attacks on airplanes, schools, subway stations or aide workers.

Greenspon has said Khawaja was building the "Hi-Fi Digimonster" to use in Afghanistan but McKercher said Khawaja's own e-mails to Khyam discussed the logistics of getting the devices into the U.K., not Afghanistan. A British security service surveillance bug in February 2004 also picked up Khawaja telling his associates in a London flat the device's signal couldn't be blocked out in an urban area -- evidence, McKercher said, of Khawaja's thoughts of using it in a city, not a remote area such as the hills of Afghanistan.

McKercher also noted an RCMP explosives expert told the court that unlike a traceable cellphone detonator signal, a remote-control detonator like the Hi-Fi Digimonster would leave "no identifiable markers" after an explosion. The Crown also said Khawaja's weapons training could have been used to launch rocket-propelled grenades at office buildings in the U.K.
Link


Britain
British bomb plotters lose appeal
2008-07-24
"I used to like them a lot, but now I've gone back to Boy George."
Five British citizens, who had been imprisoned for life for plotting Al Qaeda-inspired bomb attacks across Britain, lost appeals against their convictions on Wednesday. Omar Khyam, Anthony Garcia, Jawad Akbar, Waheed Mahmood and Salahuddin Amin had been given life sentences in April 2007 after being found guilty of plotting attacks on targets ranging from nightclubs to trains, and a shopping centre. Prosecutors said the convicts had planned to use 600 kg (1300 lb) of ammonium nitrate fertiliser to make bombs in revenge for Britain's support for the United States after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. Three judges at London's Court of Appeal ruled that their convictions should stand.
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.
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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.
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Britain
Muslim-only jail could be built to protect the terrorists
2007-07-27
[DailyMail] Ministers are secretly considering plans for an all-Muslim prison after a series of attacks on jailed Islamic terrorists, it is claimed.

The prison could house the growing number of Muslim extremist inmates, it is said, after increasing signs of tension at the jails in which they are housed.

But critics said terrorists must not given the appearance of special status within the justice system.

On Sunday, a fire was started in the cell housing Hussein Osman, in Frankland high security prison in County Durham.

Osman was jailed this year for his role in the July 21 bomb plot. He tried to repeat the July 7 carnage by attempting to blow up a train at Shepherd's Bush, West London, in 2005.

Nobody was hurt in the cell fire, which is under investigation, but officials believe it may have been an attempt on his life.

It was the third incident in three weeks involving convicted Islamic terrorists at the prison.

Earlier this month Dhiren Barot, 34, an Al Qaeda plotter jailed for life last year, was seriously burned when he was scalded with boiling water.

There are also said to have been death threats against 25-year-old Omar Khyam, who was convicted for masterminding the fertiliser bomb plot and is also serving life for conspiracy to murder.

About 10 per cent of Frankland's inmates are thought to be Muslims.

Rows are said to have broken out among prisoners about where Muslim prayers should be held on the wing.

Prison insiders claim that the tensions were being made worse by the presence of far right extremists in the same cell block, Channel Four news reported last night. Officials at the newly-formed Ministry of Justice have held private discussions about how to cope if the trend of Muslim inmates continues, Channel Four said.

One option would be to designate a Muslim- only prison where inmates, including convicted terrorists, would be less at risk of attack because of racial or religious tensions.

It would also be easier to cater for their religious needs in terms of diet and prayer.

Lawyers acting for suspected and convicted Islamic terrorists have already called for fanatics to be granted special status in jails as "prisoners of war".

Last week the controversial solicitor Mudassar Arani, whose firm has been paid more than ÂŁ1million in legal aid to represent extremists, said her clients feel it is unfair that they must undergo frequent searches and curbs on meeting other imprisoned radicals.

Miss Arani, who claimed she was speaking on behalf of Barot, said: "Why should he suffer? Isn't it bad enough to have to serve your sentence? Why does he have to be placed in segregation? He asked me to mention prisoner of war status."

But Tory MP Patrick Mercer, a former Army commander, said: "They are not soldiers, they are not warriors. They have simply broken the law."

The Prison Service insisted it had no plans for a special Muslim jail.

A spokesman said: "We will continue to treat these prisoners like all other criminals. We will do what is necessary to protect them but we have no intention of creating special conditions for them."

Prisoners who believe they are in danger can be moved to a Vulnerable Prisoners' Unit.

The number of Muslim inmates has more than trebled in the last decade.

By the middle of 2005 there were around 7,500 Muslims behind bars - around 12 per cent of all UK prisoners.
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Britain
Police check Bluewater gangÂ’s links to bomb attempts
2007-07-01
Detectives hunting the West End car bombers believe the suspects are most likely to be home-grown extremists linked to an overlapping network of terrorist cells implicated in previous plots against British targets.

Some may be known to police and be on the run after escaping Home Office control orders.

Those in the frame may be associates of the so-called Crevice gang, which planned to attack the Ministry of Sound nightclub in central London and the Bluewater shopping mall in Kent.

Members of the five-man cell, who were jailed for life in April, were directed by “core” Al-Qaeda figures after training in terror camps in Pakistan.

Five men who hoped to kill thousands with a fertiliser bomb were described as ruthless misfits who betrayed their country

The brother of one jailed gang member, who has been on the run since breaching a government-imposed control order six weeks ago, is said to have been keen to bomb a nightclub.

“There is a real possibility the suspects may have a connection through a family of cells with the Crevice gang,” said a senior government security official. “It is very possible these people met each other at training camps.”

The suspects may also have drawn inspiration from another cell led by Dhiren Barot, an Al-Qaeda “general”, who drew up sophisticated plans to target London hotels and office buildings by parking limousines packed with gas canisters in underground car parks.

Barot, now serving 30 years in prison, outlined his plot in a document called Gas Limos Project, which he prepared for Al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan.

Security officials insist there was no intelligence pointing to a car bomb attack in the West End. But there are concerns that extremists who were on the surveillance back-burner could have escaped their attentions.

“They are saying this is leftfield, that it came out of the blue,” said a senior Whitehall official. “What that means is they think it’s possible that these were people they have been aware of who suddenly did this.

“It may be that these are people that they know about – but just hadn’t realised what they were up to.”

Patrick Mercer, the Tory MP and security expert, said: “The real nervousness for the agencies is that these may be people they know but haven’t picked up. It’s happened before. It calls into question the strategy about leaving these people in play and not arresting them.”

Such concerns reflect the fall-out from the investigation into the July 7 attacks two years ago, which killed 52 people.

The authorities initially claimed the suicide bombers were unknown “clean skins”, but it soon emerged that Mohammad Sidique Khan, the 7/7 leader, and Shehzad Tanweer had been under surveillance a year earlier.

The two bombers were photographed at meetings with Omar Khyam, the leader of the Crevice gang that was plotting to detonate a fertiliser bomb.

Bugged conversations of the Crevice cell revealed the plotters’ disdain for nightclubs. Discussing the Ministry of Sound, one gang member said: “No one can put their hands up and say they are innocent...those slags dancing around.”

A key member of the Crevice gang was Anthony Garcia. During his trial, an Al-Qaeda supergrass revealed that GarciaÂ’s brother, Lamine Adam, had allegedly wanted to bomb a nightclub and was seeking a formula for explosives.

The supergrassÂ’s testimony was not considered strong enough for prosecution. However, Adam, 26, and his younger brother, Ibrahim, 20, were placed on control orders in February 2006 on the grounds that they planned to kill British soldiers serving abroad.

The two brothers and a friend, Cerie Bullivant, 24, who was put on a control order last July, went on the run six weeks ago. Police think they may have slipped abroad, but they cannot rule out that the trio could still pose a threat within the UK.

Lord Carlile, the government’s terrorism watchdog, said: “I would certainly not view this as a failure by the authorities in any sense,” he said. “Looking for home-grown cells is like looking for a needle in a haystack.”
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