Terror cell's UK poison plot

The Observer ^ | May 25 2003 | Jason Burke

[knighthawk]

Revealed: Islamic extremists' plan to hit civilian targets

Chilling details about the existence of a group of extremist Islamic militants, set on executing attacks on civilians in Britain, are revealed in intelligence documents obtained by The Observer.

The cell, comprising at least six individuals and based in London and Luton, is part of the 'al-Tauhid group'. The group is independent of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organisation, but follow a similar hardline agenda and has been blamed for a series of attacks and plots over the last three years.

According to German intelligence documents, it is believed that members of the group, comprised predominantly of Jordanian and Palestinian Islamic militants, have plotted to use poison in the UK and elsewhere.

Following a spate of strikes by Islamic militants in the Middle East, British police and security officials are concerned about a possible suicide attack in the UK. Last week a message apparently from Ayman al-Zawahiri, the deputy leader of al-Qaeda, named the UK as a country where militants should 'make the ground burn'.

British security officials are on the highest alert possible before ordering a full mobilisation to counter a specific attack if they receive details of the time and target of any strike.

Overt actions, such as the placing of concrete bollards outside the Houses of Parliament, roadblocks in the centre of London and increased armed patrols at high-profile sites, airports and ports over the bank holiday weekend, have been accompanied by increased intelligence operations such as surveillance of known militant sympathisers. 'We are very busy,' said a police source last week.

Al-Tauhid's presence in the UK is known to security authorities and members of the group have already been arrested. The Palestinian-Jordanian cleric, Abu Qutada, who is being held in Belmarsh prison under new anti-terrorist legislation, acted as its spiritual leader, issuing religious opinions on the legality of planned operations.

Most of the details in the German dossier, which has been compiled in the past three months, have come from the interrogation of key al-Tauhid members arrested in Germany in April 2002 and February this year. Several of those arrested have been linked by German investigators to the 'Hamburg cell' of 11 September hijackers.

Shadi Abdalla, a senior al-Tauhid militant, who claimed to have been close to bin Laden at one time, told questioners that the main European base of the group is in Luton. Abdalla listed five individuals active in the UK and one, known as 'Abdelhakim' or 'Adda', who was 'operative' in Ireland. The German investigators believe that there are other activists who are yet to be identified.

Those named as al-Tauhid activists in the UK include 'Abu Rasmi' who ran a series of businesses in Iran and Pakistan and specialised in false travel documents. He was assisted by a Jordanian known as 'Abu Jabal'. In 2001, the dossier says, the two men were told by their leader to obtain dozens of false passports to allow al-Tauhid militants to escape from their base near Herat in western Afghanistan. Another Palestinian-Jordanian militant, named as 'Abu Abed' in the dossier, is said to have lived in the UK as an asylum-seeker before travelling to Afghanistan on a false British passport.

The German dossier claims that he was identified by a Jordanian spy in the al-Tauhid camp Afghanistan. He fled the country but was arrested by Pakistani authorities and deported, via the United Arab Emirates, to Jordan where he was persuaded to work for the authorities there. He was sent back to Britain to penetrate the al-Tauhid network here but confessed to Qutada that he was a spy. He is, the dossier says, imprisoned in the UK.

The leader of the al-Tauhid group is named as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the veteran Jordanian activist identified by Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, as a link between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's regime in Baghdad. However the German dossier explicitly says that captured al-Tauhid militants maintain al-Zarqawi 'was in opposition to bin Laden' and that the group 'was especially for Jordanians who did not want to join al-Qaeda'. This, the report says, 'conflicts with ... information' from America.

German police say they intercepted conversations in code between al-Tauhid members referring to the use of 'fruit juice', which the interrogated militants said was poison.

Al-Tauhid has been linked to the killing of US diplomat, Laurence Foley in Amman in October 2002. Funding for a plot to blow up tourist sites in Jordan on Millennium Eve was also handled by individuals linked to al-Tauhid in Britain.

[knighthawk]

Europe-list

If people want on or off this list, please let me know.

[knighthawk]

Ping

[aristeides]

Is the poison ricin, I wonder?

I heard on the radio last night that ME men have been observed reconnoitering Boeing facilities in the U.S.

[DB]

And the common denominator:

Islam.

[river rat]

How much longer?
How many more deaths?
Before Wahhabi sect mosques and immans are expelled and excluded from the civilized world ---- or become targets?

Poisoned wells are buried.
Insane animals are put down.
Diseased herds are destroyed.
Persistent capital criminals are destroyed.

What is the "up side" to our continued refusal to acknowledge that militant Islam is a scourge and the enemy.
Do we continue to ignore the threat until they accomplish their goal of destroying their enemies --- US!

The seventh century thinking bastards, need to be returned to the physical reality of the seventh century.
Reduce them to living in caves and huddled around their campfires recalling the horrors that the Americans rained down on the asses..

Semper Fi

[Victoria Delsoul]

British security officials are on the highest alert possible before ordering a full mobilisation to counter a specific attack if they receive details of the time and target of any strike.

I hope they'll find them and destroy them. Don't give them another day to plan more attacks.