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June 17, 2006

UK: Islamists Wanted To Copy 9/11

We have reported earlier on a terror trial which opened on March 22, involving seven UK nationals, mostly of Pakistani origin and with one white convert, who planned to attack power stations. At the start of the trial, news was coming out from the Old Bailey courthouse on a regular basis.

Now, news only seems to appear when there are sensational recordings released of the conversations made between the suspected conspirators. On May 25 there was a recording played on the media concerning Jawad Akbar and Omar Khyam, discussing the ways in which they could bomb a famous London nightclub, the Ministry of Sound.

Today, the BBC, the Times and the Guardian report on the latest soundbites to come from the courtroom. The surveillance tape was played to the court, and then made available to the news media, who played it on BBC and ITV news last night.

Once again, the two individuals discussing acts of terror are 22-year old Jawad Akbar (top left in the picture) and Omar Khyam (top row, centre), a 24-year old from Crawley, who is said by prosecutors to be at the centre of operations. Khayam's flat, and also his car, were bugged in surveillance monitoring.

One of their conversation runs thus:

Omar Khyam: "Imagine you've got a plane, 300 people in it, you buy tickets for 30 brothers in there. They're massive brothers, you just crash the plane. You could do it easy, it's just an idea."
Jawad Akbar: "Thirty brothers, to find 30 brothers willing to commit suicide is a big thing"
Omar Khyam: "If you spoke to some serious brothers, to the right people, you'd probably get it bro. whether they were from abroad, you'd get it....as soon as an air marshal gets up and shoots one the others just jump him." Khyam refers to 9/11." Thirty brothers on a British Airways flight got up -19 were split up in four planes. Thirty brothers on a plane, the beauty of it is they don't have to fly into a building, just crash the flipping thing".
The pair went on to discuss Guantanamo Bay and what they would do if there was a terrorist attack in Britain.
Omar Khyam: "If you do something in this country you are getting caught, trust me 100 per cent, don't even think about it that you will get away with it...If anything happens here all you lot are going down . . . It's a matter of time, something will get through."
The total conversation lasts an hour. At the end, Akbar asks:
Jawad Akbar: "Do you think your room is monitored?"
Omar Khyam: "Nah, do you think that? Do you know, I think we give them too much credit bruv."

The intentions of the pair are obviously malicious. In another earlier conversation, the pair discuss the possibility of a strike cutting off the power supplies, while other attacks simultaneously take place. Khyam refers to Waheed Moahmood (bottom row in picture, left), who was an employee of the company National Grid Transco, which controls electric power supplies across Britain.

Omar Khyam: "I've got a rough idea what he wants to do."
Jawad Akbar: "It's a lot more complicated and it's a beautiful plan."
Omar Khyam: talks of simultaneous strikes, tells Akbar any operation will have to be "big...destructive...and combined with something to make proper, proper effect and terror."

The pair went on to discuss poisoning water supplies, which Javed Akbar calls a "weak idea".

The picture below shows six of the seven defendants, apart from Nabeel Hussain.

The trial has heard evidence that the group planned to use ammonium nitrate to cause explosions. A large cache of this chemical, 600 kilograms (1,320 pounds), was discovered in a storage depot in West London in early 2004, and on 30 March 2004, the defendants were arrested. Ammonium nitrate was used in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in 1995, killing 168 people.

All the defendants except Nabeel Hussain had trained in jihadist camps in Pakistan. Jawad Akbar, Omar Khyam, Shujah Mahmood, Waheed Mahmood, Salahuddin Amin, Anthony Garcia and Nabeel Hussain all deny conspiring to cause explosions likely to endanger life between 1 January, 2003 and 31 March, 2004.

Khyam, Garcia and Hussain further deny a charge under the Terrorism Act of possessing ammonium nitrate fertiliser for terrorism. Khyam and Shujah Mahmood deny possessing aluminium powder for terrorism.

The trial has heard some alarming claims. On March 21, the court was told of plots to blow up pubs and trains.
On March 22, the court heard how the gang had planned to blow up the Bluewater shopping mall in Kent, the Ministry of Sound nightclub, and gas and electricity facilities.

Salahuddin Amin had made contact with a man over the internet and was told that contact had been made with the Russian mafia in Belgium, who were prepared to sell them a "radioisotope bomb". Amin and Omar Khyam are also alleged to have received training in Pakistan in how to make the toxin ricin (a powerful toxin, derived from the castor oil plant, where one drop in the bloodstream can kill).

They had planned to use ammonium nitrate, mixed with aluminium powder to cause bombs. These would be detonated with remote-controlled detonators supplied by a Canadian fellow Muslim "jihadi", to bomb Britain. These detonators (which apparently had not been delivered) could apparently explode a device at a range of up to one and a quarter miles, said David Waters QC, the prosecuting lawyer.

On March 24, a man brought over from America gave evidence at the trial. Mohammed Junaid Babar is currently in jail in the United States. He admitted in August 2004 that he had set up a terrorist training camp in Pakistan, and also admitted to having helped a terrorist bomb plot (the one featured in this trial) in London. Originally from Pakistan, Junaid Babar was brought to the Old Bailey to testify, in an operation mounted with tight security.

Babar had travelled to England in November 2002 to raise money to assist jihad, or holy war, in Afghanistan, and met Mr Khyam. Babar had been living in Pakistan when he met some of the accused in February 2003. He told the court that members of the group had been formerly from the group AL-Muhajiroun, but found out later they were working for Al Qaeda.

Babar said that Waheed Mahmood had discussed possible targets at a meeting in February 2003 with Salahuddin Amin and Anthony Garcia in a house in Gujar Khan, Pakistan. Waheed Mohammed, Babar testified, had said: "He said you could get a job in a soccer stadium as a beer vendor. You just put poison in a syringe, injecting it in a can and put a sticker on it which would stop it leaking and give it out. Or. . . you could stand on street corners selling poison burgers and then just leave the area."

Another idea had involved setting up a fake takeaway food service. Babar said: "You didn't have to start a restaurant. You could make up flyers. It would just have a phone number and they could call up and order food and you just poison their food. There is no business so they cannot track you down. You leave the area."

Babar said that Waheed Mohammed had suggested telecommunications as a target which, if hit, could cause economic damage. Babar said that Omar Khyam and Salahuddin Amin had claimed to work for Abdul Hadi, a man known as an AL Qaeda operative.

Babar had first met Omar Khyam in 2002, and had gone with his to a sermon led by Abu Hamza, the hook-handed preacher now serving seven years for conspiracy to murder. Babar said: "They showed videos of those that carried out the 9/11 attacks. Everyone at the meeting agreed with it, everyone was in praise of those that carried it out."

The following day Babar had testified that he had met Omar Bakri Mohammed, the leader of Al-Muhajiroun, who had given him money to go to Afghanistan to fight against Americans. He also spoke of his contact with Abu Hamza.

He said that he had arrived in Pakistan with about 15 to 20 "brothers". He explained that the term "brothers" meant "Muslim brothers". He continued: "Those brothers who came from England and were in Pakistan after 9/11, a group of maybe 15 or 20 of us came to Pakistan for the jihad. The majority, although they had Pakistani ancestry, were mostly from the UK, basically from Crawley and London."

Babar said that while in Pakistan, members of the group kept explosives in a wardrobe in their bedroom. They were staying at an apartment owned by Babar in Lahore. Throughout the summer, several men slept in the room, with a fan kept on at all times to keep the explosives cool.

Babar and Khyam had been given a bag of five to seven detonators by Salahuddin Amin. As the bag was brought back in a bus, he had been worried about potholes in the road, causing the bus to shake. The detonators were placed in the wardrobe, along with ammonium nitrate, urea and aluminium powder, and also a stash of ricin.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at June 17, 2006 10:46 AM

Comments

Posted by: the_holy_crap at June 25, 2006 7:15 AM

Posted by: Gabriel Christou at November 5, 2007 6:47 AM

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