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Attacks on nuclear power stations, oil and gas terminals, Canary Wharf and Heathrow’s control tower were being considered by leaders of the plot to blow up seven transatlantic airliners in mid-flight, a court was told yesterday. Documents found on computer memory sticks at the home of an alleged terrorist ringleader contained a list of targets across Britain – including the gas pipeline between Britain and Belgium. The man, Assad Sarwar, was said to be in contact with terrorist leaders overseas and visited Pakistan a month before his arrest as preparations for the airline attacks were being finalised. Peter Wright, QC,...

Excerpt - Three men accused of plotting to use liquid bombs to blow up jets flying from Heathrow airport have been found guilty of conspiracy to murder. Of the eight people on trial over the alleged plot to attack transatlantic airliners, three were found guilty of one of the charges against them, four had no verdict given and one was acquitted. ~ snip ~

Predator missile strike? Delta Force hit-and-run deep behind enemy lines? Nope. Better: The senior al Qaida operative who helped direct the 2005 London subway bombings and a plot to blow up commercial airliners over the Atlantic Ocean has died in Pakistan’s tribal region, U.S. counter terrorism officials said Tuesday.The senior militant, an Egyptian who used the nom de guerre Abu Ubaida al-Masri, recently succumbed to hepatitis, they said. Never heard of him? Most people haven’t. The Times devoted a few paragraphs to him in a story last May about the next generation of Al Qaeda leadership, but I can’t even...

The al-Qaeda leader who is thought to have devised the plan for the July 7 suicide bombings in London and an array of terrorist plots against Britain has been captured by the Americans. Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, a former major in Saddam Hussein’s army, was apprehended as he tried to enter Iraq from Iran and was transferred this week to the “high-value detainee programme” at Guantanamo Bay. Abd al-Hadi was taken into CIA custody last year, it emerged from US intelligence sources yesterday, in a move which suggests that he was interrogated for months in a “ghost prison” before being transferred...

Nearly six months after feverish search by U.S. and European intelligence agencies for lethal "liquid explosives" Lebanese police confiscated the first batch of such deadly weapons, sources told Naharnet Tuesday. One source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said each of the 31 confiscated explosive devices is made up of two tubes filled with blue liquid, fitted on a board and connected to a timer-detonator. A police communiqué said a squad of its intelligence branch carried out a "swift operation during which it confiscated 31 explosive sets." The communiqué said the confiscated sets included "sophisticated electro-chemical timers-detonators that can be...

Islamabad, Feb 2 (DPA) Pakistan has told Britain that the alleged mastermind of thwarted bombings of transatlantic flights cannot be extradited until his trial in local courts concludes, news reports said on Friday. Pakistani authorities earlier clarified their position to a British delegation that was in Islamabad to finalize an agreement on a joint working group to enhance cooperation against terrorism and organized crimes, the Dawn newspaper reported. 'Rashid Rauf is also an accused in a case being tried in Pakistan, and according to the law of the country, he cannot be handed over to the UK unless the...

Excerpt - ISLAMABAD (AFP) - A Pakistani court has dropped terrorism charges against a British man suspected of being a key figure in an alleged plot to blow up transatlantic airliners. Rashid Rauf, 25, was arrested in central Pakistan in early August. Pakistani officials said that his detention led to the uncovering of the conspiracy and that he was linked to Al-Qaeda. ~ snip ~

London, Sep 10: Cautioning against "demonising" all Muslims as terrorists, a prominent British Muslim organisation has said that continued negative attitudes towards the community could provoke a backlash. "There are a few bad apples in the Muslim community who are doing terrible acts and we want to root them out," Muhammad Abdul Bari, the Secretary-General of the Muslim Council of Britain, said. "But some police officers and sections of the media are demonising Muslims, treating them as if they're all terrorists -- and that encourages other people to do the same," he told The Sunday Telegraph. Bari said the continued...

The bank accounts of more than 5,000 suspected terrorists are being monitored by Britain's biggest financiers following fresh intelligence from MI5. It has also emerged that financial details provided by banks played a key part in last month's arrests involving an alleged plot to blow up airliners and the more recent arrests linked to an alleged network of training terror camps. Banks have been told to monitor 'cross-border payments' amid evidence that British-based cells are affiliated to terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda. A senior banking source said: 'Every cross-border payment passes through an electronic system. The cross-border stuff we are...

The rash of airline-security incidents since the London terror arrests -- which has diverted or delayed more than 20 flights all over the world -- has more to do with flukes, red herrings or terrorist probes than with actual, imminent threats, intelligence observers and security officials say. "We are constantly being probed by terrorists," Mr. Hagmann said. "We are going to have a limited number of incidents that are just a ploy, a nonevent as a result of misunderstandings or innocuous activity. You can expect that and factor that in. But the extent we are seeing today -- the numbers...

Three months after the RCMP began arresting 18 suspects accused of plotting terror attacks in Canada, an investigation by the National Post has uncovered a web of links to Pakistan. Today, in the first of four parts, the role of a Pakistani training camp is revealed.- - - BALAKOT, Pakistan - A worn footpath climbs from the Kaghan Valley highway into the lush mountains above the River Kunar, on Kashmir's western frontier. The locals all know where it leads. An hour's walk up the steep trail there is a training camp built by Islamic militants called Madrassa Syed Ahmed Shaheed...

Nationwide Terror Raids Updated: 10:17, Saturday September 02, 2006 Police have carried out a series of terror raids across the country. Officers arrested 14 men on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism in an operation in London. One of the raids took place at a restaurant in Borough Road, south London, close to South Bank University, according to reports. Up to 40 officers in riot gear are believed to have entered the premises when it was packed with diners. A number of arrests were made at the restaurant, which was part of the Bridge Hotel....

LONDON, U.K. -- Police have arrested 14 people in anti-terrorism raids around London, saying Saturday they suspected the men had been involved in training and recruiting for terror. The arrests late Friday and early Saturday were not linked to the alleged plot to bomb trans-Atlantic airliners or to the July 2005 bomb attacks on London's transport network, the capital's Metropolitan Police said. They declined to give details of what the suspects were believed to have done, other than saying they were arrested as part of an investigation into terror training and recruitment. The raids followed months of surveillance and investigation,...

TWO DAYS after Aug. 10 -- when British authorities broke up an alleged plot to blow up multiple aircraft over the Atlantic Ocean -- the "moderate" Muslim establishment in Britain published an aggressive open letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair. It suggested that Blair could better fight terrorism if he recognized that current British government policy, especially with regard to "the debacle of Iraq," provides "ammunition to extremists." The letter writers demanded he change his foreign policy to "make us all safer." One prominent signatory, Labour MP Sadiq Khan, added that Blair's reluctance to criticize Israel increased the pool of...

LONDON - British anti-terrorist police charged three more people late Tuesday with conspiring to commit murder in the alleged plot to blow up U.S.-bound airliners. The three — Mohammed Yasar Gulzar, Mohammed Shamin Uddin and Nabeel Hussain — were also charged with preparing to commit terrorism by helping in an alleged plan to smuggle explosives aboard the planes, police said. Eleven people have now been charged on those two counts. Four others were charged with lesser offenses, including having knowledge of a terrorist activity but not disclosing information about it. A Scotland Yard statement said Gulzar, Uddin and Hussain conspired...

MAYBE IT'S because I know I have to catch a transatlantic flight on Sept. 11. Maybe I'm just too fond of "What if?" historical questions. Whatever the reason, I can't get over how quickly the world has moved on since the exposure of the Heathrow bomb plot. Ever since the revelation that a terrorist ring intended "mass murder on an unimaginable scale," I've been finding it all too easy to imagine what it would have been like if the plotters had succeeded. We cannot assume, for obvious legal reasons, that the suspects who were charged in London are anything other...

LONDON (AFP) - A 13th person was charged in connection with the foiled alleged terror plot to blow up US-bound passenger jets from Britain, a police spokesman told AFP. Nabeel Hussain was one of 25 people arrested since police staged pre-dawn raids on August 10 in connection with the plot. Five have since been released without charge. Police also have warrants to quiz the remaining seven until Wednesday. Under British anti-terror laws, suspects can be detained for up to 28 days without being charged, subject to regular court approval. Hussain is the ninth of the terror suspects to be hit...

Why Britain Stopped the Terror PlotBy Insight MagazineInsight Magazine | August 25, 2006 The Homeland Security Department has neither the legal nor technical tools to match the British capture of terrorist operatives before they were about to blow up passenger airliners.Officials said U.S. law would not have allowed the FBI to conduct the type of surveillance that led Britain to uncover the al Qaeda cell and capture what could be the network’s chief. They said the department also does not have the funding to detect new types of bombs used by al Qaeda.''What helped the British in this case is...

Young mother denies failing to inform on her husband By Duncan Gardham (Filed: 23/08/2006) A woman with an eight-month-old child and her husband appeared in court yesterday among 11 people charged in connection with a plot to blow up transatlantic airliners. Top, from left: Ibrahim Savant, Waheed Zaman, Arafat Waheed Khan, Umar Islam Bottom, l to r: Tanvir Hussain, Cossar Ali, Mehran Hussain and Ahmed Abdullah Ali Cossar Ali, 24, of Walthamstow, east London, appeared accused of failing to disclose information about her husband which could have helped prevent an act of terrorism. Ahmed Abdullah Ali, also known as Abdullah...

Item: British authorities shatter a conspiracy by Islamists in London to kill thousands of innocent people by blowing up nine passenger airliners over the Atlantic Ocean. Officials cite human intelligence and electronic surveillance by British, U.S. and Pakistani services. Item: Less than a week later, a federal judge in Michigan rules some of the methods that brought the London terrorists to justice before they could hurt anyone are illegal. Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, a Carter appointee, finds warrantless wiretaps by the National Security Agency of calls originating overseas are illegal and sides with the plaintiff, the American Civil Liberties Union....