Free Republic

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....

Young mother among 11 charged in relation to 'airline plot' :: latest A young mother of an eight-month-old baby and a 17-year-old youth were among 11 people charged in Britain tonight in connection with the alleged airliner bomb plot. Scotland Yard’s terror chief also revealed dramatic details of the massive investigation, including confirmation that officers had uncovered bomb-making equipment. Charges against the 17-year-old male, who cannot be named for legal reasons, alleged he had a book on bombs, suicide notes and the wills of people prepared to commit acts of terror. The mother, a 23-year-old from east London, was charged...

LONDON - Police found martyrdom videos and bomb-making components during the investigation of the alleged plot to blow up U.S.-bound jetliners, prosecutors said Monday in announcing 11 people had been charged with terrorism offenses. Officials confirmed for the first time that the plot involved the manufacture of explosives, which were to be used to assemble and detonate bombs inside as many as 10 airliners. U.S. officials previously had said the plot appeared to involve mixing liquid-based chemicals to make explosives aboard the aircrafts. One person was released from custody Monday and police continued to interrogate 11 others who remain "under...

Bill Clinton today dismissed suggestions of a link between the alleged airline bomb plot and the invasion of Iraq. The former US president said that although the situation in Iraq had not improved national security, the threat to countries such as the UK and the US predated the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington. In an interview with BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Clinton also said he did not think military intervention in Afghanistan had put Britons at higher risk. "On the question of Iraq, I don't think it's improved our national security, but I don't think...

LONDON (Reuters) - Eleven people have been charged in connection with a suspected plot to blow up several airliners in mid-Atlantic, Crown Prosecution Service said on Monday. Eight were charged with conspiracy to murder and three with other offences, prosecutor Susan Hemming said. One woman was released and another 11 people are still being held pending a decision whether to charge them, she said.

After four British Muslims blew up themselves and 52 others in a series of attacks here on July 7 last year, the British government convened a task force of prominent Muslims and pleaded for help in combating homegrown extremism. Continues...=========================================================== Massive Air Terror Plot foiled; Bush blamed A group of homicidal Islamic maniacs tried to blow up a bunch of airplanes in midflight, so naturally liberals think there must be some "rational" explanation for how such wonderful people with their peaceful religion could possibly fall under Karl Rove's spell like this. Whether it's hacking someone's head off with a dull...

Zainab Bint Muhammed, 16, student in Tower Hamlets, who wants to be a human rights lawyer Muslims are beginning to get angry about the way we are being treated. Muslim boys have to prove their innocence on the streets now, instead of the police proving their guilt. This is supposed to be a multicultural society, yet there are increasing divisions between the people who live within it. British foreign policy is disastrous for harmony in this country. How can Muslims trust the government any more? It condemns Hizbollah, but funds Israel to kill innocent children. No wonder Muslims are angry....

London, Aug 20: Rashid Rauf, regarded as one of the prime suspects in the terror plot to blow up the US-bound planes from Britain, may be the pivotal figure linking senior al-Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan to the alleged plotters. Rauf, arrested in Pakistan, was the Pakistani equivalent to the Avon Lady. A successful cosmetics salesman who traveled frequently on business, Rauf was above suspicion in his middle-class neighbourhood, 'The Sunday Times' said in a report today. According to the report, the man now considered one of the prime suspects in the plot, moved into a smart area of Bahawalpur in...

UNARMED police were sent to search homes in the airline terror plot - despite a cache of weapons being uncovered in one house. It is thought police chiefs did not want to risk another bungle like the Forest Gate raid or the shooting of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes. But a senior intelligence source said: "The decision not to go in with armed officers was dicing with death. What would have happened if the came up against an armed suspect? All 23 arrests in High Wycombe, Walthamstow and Birmingham were carried out by Metropolitan Police's unarmed Territorial Support Group.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Officials investigating the alleged plot to blow up transatlantic airliners say at least seven of the suspects arrested in Britain had dual citizenship and made frequent trips here in the last three years, gaining information on how to make detonators and explosives. Most of the suspects detained in Britain also had met with Rashid Rauf, 25, whom Pakistani authorities arrested two days before the alleged cell was broken up on Aug. 10, a senior Pakistani government source said. Officials say Rauf, who is related by marriage to a prominent Islamic militant, was a key figure in the...

Charges expected within days over airline 'terror plot' By Sean Rayment, Security Correspondent (Filed: 20/08/2006) Terrorism charges against the suspects allegedly involved in a plot to blow up transatlantic airliners are "imminent", The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. The police are "hugely optimistic" that they will be able to bring charges against many of the suspects in the very near future, according to security sources. Police explore a section of woods where a cache of liquid explosive is believed to have been found It is also thought that anti-terrorist officers have found the liquid explosive which police believe was intended to...

UK: Welsh Objection To Islamist's Visit The famous preacher on Islam, Dr Zakir Naik (pictured left), will be due speak publicly in Cardiff this Saturday (19 August), at the St David's Hall. The Western Mail reports that a Welsh MP, David Davies of Monmouth, has voiced strong objections to the arrival of the Islamist showman. Davies states: "Cardiff County Council ought to step in immediately to prevent this hate-monger from having a platform for his obnoxious views. If a British Nazi party wanted to promulgate the annihilation of ethnic minorities, I can't imagine they would be given a public platform....

Saturday, 19 August, 2006, 11:07 AM Pedestrians walk past the house of Rashid Rauf in Bhawalpur some 400kms south of Islamabad (picture) ISLAMABAD: The authorities have detained the father of British airline bomb plot suspect Rashid Rauf, making him the third member of the family in custody worldwide, security officials said in Islamabad yesterday. Senior officials said Abdul Rauf, 52, met his son shortly before the arrest in early August of 25-year-old Rashid, who is described by Pakistan as a "key man" in the conspiracy with links to Al Qaeda. It was not clear whether Pakistan-born Abdul, who has lived...

Thousands of young Muslim men are attending meetings in east London every week run by a fundamentalist Islamic movement believed by western intelligence agencies to be used as a fertile recruiting ground by extremists. Tablighi Jamaat, whose activities are being monitored by the security services, holds the tightly guarded meetings on an industrial estate close to the area where some of the suspects in last week's terror raids were arrested. This week it emerged that at least seven of the 23 suspects under arrest on suspicion of involvement in the plot to blow up transatlantic airliners may have participated in...

PESHAWAR, Aug 18: A son-in-law of Al Qaeda No 2 Dr Ayman Al-Zawahiri is believed to be the mastermind of the plot to blow up transatlantic flights and he met one or some of the plotters at a place close to the Pakistan-Afghan border, credible sources told Dawn. “The mastermind in the planes bombing plot is Zawahiri’s son-in-law,” said the sources who did not want to be named. “He is the guy being looked for,” they added. Osama bin Laden’s top lieutenant is known to have several sons-in-law. One of them was reported to have been killed in a...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - ABC News reported on Friday that Pakistani officials have arrested a top al Qaeda commander and that he could provide clues on the whereabouts of Islamic militant cells worldwide and Osama bin Laden. The television network said Pakistani police arrested Matiur Rehman based on leads in the investigation of a foiled plot to bomb U.S.-bound airplanes from London. U.S. law enforcement officials have been notified by the Pakistanis that Rehman is in custody, according to ABC. No independent confirmation of the report was immediately available. U.S. intelligence officials say they cannot confirm his arrest and remain skeptical...

Silence for security forces at the crossroads of terror By Isambard Wilkinson in Bahawalpur (Filed: 19/08/2006) If there is a crossroads of terror in Pakistan, it must be the town of Bahawalpur in southern Punjab. Home of at least one known terrorist organisation and several radical madrassas, or religious schools, Bahawalpur has became a focus for investigations in Pakistan following the foiling of an alleged plot to blow up aircraft flying across the Atlantic. Normally the local people might take pride in the actions of the jihadists. Only last month the relatives of one of the London bombers, Shehzad Tanweer,...

Terror plot A suitcase filled with bomb-making material has been found by police teams investigating the alleged plot to blow up aircraft over the Atlantic. The suitcase, containing chemicals and other equipment for a home-made bomb, was found in woods in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, close to addresses at which suspects were arrested last week. A police source said that the suitcase contained everything that would be needed to make an explosive device. This could include materials for creating an explosive, methods of concealment and a simple way of detonating the bomb. After police made arrests last week, Whitehall sources said...

In an open letter to the British Prime Minister responding to last week’s successful anti-terror operations, the leaders of 38 Muslim groups and six Muslim politicians called for immediate changes to British foreign policy, which is “ammunition to extremists who threaten us all.”[1] The letter attacked the “debacle of Iraq” and, in reference to Israeli military action in Lebanon, faulted “the failure to do more to secure an immediate end to the attacks on civilians in the Middle East.” It stated that “current British government policy risks putting civilians at increased risk both in the U.K. and abroad.” This letter...

Islamabad - Pakistan has informed US-led coalition forces that an al-Qaeda kingpin linked to an alleged plot to blow up airliners is based in eastern Afghanistan, security officials said on Friday. The senior Pakistani officials said the unnamed al-Qaeda member was based in Afghanistan's volatile eastern province of Kunar, which borders Pakistan's militant-infested north-western tribal areas. The information came from the interrogation of Rashid Rauf, a Briton whose arrest by Pakistani agents in early August allegedly led to the uncovering of the conspiracy to bomb US-bound planes, they said. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, did not identify the...

Interrogations of suspects in Pakistan lead its investigators to believe that the alleged plot to blow up US-bound jetliners was sanctioned by the Al-Qaeda leadership, a senior intelligence official said on Thursday. The terror group's No 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri probably cleared the plot, the official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the ongoing investigation. The latest investigations by Pakistan also indicate that a British national arrested in Pakistan, Rashid Rauf, planned the plot and recruited people in Pakistan. He had also made contacts with people in Britain to take part, the official said. He said...

Terror police find 'martyr tapes' Some 23 people are currently being held by police Police investigating an alleged plot to bring down airliners have found several martyrdom videos in the course of their searches, the BBC has learned.Unofficial police sources said the recordings - discovered on laptop computers - appear to have been made by some of the suspects being questioned. Scotland Yard has refused to comment on what officers are finding. Police are continuing to search woodland at High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire and 14 addresses. The Metropolitan Police, which is leading the inquiry, has said it has already...

U.S. authorities are advising women not to wear gel bras on airplanes as information developed in the foiled London plot points to an expanding role for women in smuggling explosives on to an aircraft. Authorities at Scotland Yard are questioning a husband and wife, suspects in the London terror plot, about allegations that they were planning to use their baby's bottle to hide a liquid bomb. Police in the U.K. have recovered baby bottles containing peroxide, including some with false bottoms, from a recycling center close to the homes of some of the arrested suspects. The use of female suicide...

President George W. Bush's popularity was not given a boost by the foiling of an alleged plot to bomb planes flying from Britain to the United States, according to a poll. The Pew Research Center poll found that 37 percent of Americans approved of Bush's overall performance, virtually unchanged from a July survey. Fifty percent approved of Bush's handling of terrorist threats, compared to 47 percent in June. The poll was largely conducted after the alleged airline bombing plot was revealed on August 10. "The severity of the president's image problem is reflected in the fact that while many Americans...

Described as a “crazy lady” by her own attorney, a Vermont peace activist whose bizarre behavior forced the dramatic landing of a trans-Atlantic plane in Boston Wednesday has serious mental problems and had been vacationing in Pakistan since March. Wearing a Rolling Stones T-shirt, baggy pants and white socks, a long-haired Catherine C. Mayo, 59, appeared in federal court yesterday on a charge of interfering with a flight crew on United 932 as it flew from London’s Heathrow Airport to Washington, D.C. If convicted, Mayo faces up to 20 years behind bars. Her lawyer, Page Kelley, said Mayo has a...

LONDON - Police searching woods for clues in an alleged plot to bomb trans-Atlantic passenger jets have found a suitcase containing components for an improvised explosive device, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported Thursday. The BBC quoted an anonymous police source as saying a suitcase holding "everything you would need to make an improvised device" had been uncovered in a stretch of woodland in High Wycombe, 30 miles northwest of London. The wood is near the home of one of two dozen suspects arrested Aug. 10 in connection with the foiled bomb plot. The Metropolitan Police refused to comment on the...

Authorities in Pakistan are searching for three more suspects they believe may be linked to the alleged plot to blow up transatlantic jets, an intelligence official said Thursday. The three suspects had been in contact with other alleged plotters who planned to blow up U.S.-bound planes leaving from London, the official told the Associated Press. He said the suspects were a British Muslim of Afghan origin, an Eritrean national and a Pakistani. Meanwhile, British authorities received warrants from a judge Wednesday to extend the detention of 23 people arrested in the alleged plot. The suspects, arrested last week in the...

Detained terror suspects told interrogators that al-Qaida's top leaders approved a plot to blow up planes from Britain to the United States, a senior Pakistani intelligence agent said Thursday. Some of the suspects said No. 2-ranked Ayman al-Zawahri probably authorized the plan, said the official, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the investigation. Osama bin Laden's Egyptian-born right-hand man, believed to be hiding on the Pakistan-Afghan border, is the highest-ranked al-Qaida leader named to date in relation to what authorities called a plot to destroy trans-Atlantic jetliners with liquid explosives. Pakistani...

A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day Free Republic made its debut in September, 1996, and the forum was added in early 1997.   Over 100,000 people have registered for posting privileges on Free Republic, and the forum is read daily by tens of thousands of concerned citizens and patriots from all around the country and the world. A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day was introduced on June 24, 2002. It's only a small room in JimRob's house where we can get to know one another a little better; salute and support our military and our leaders; pray for those in...

Police probing an alleged plot to bring down an airline have found a suitcase containing items which could be used to construct a bomb, the BBC has learned. Officers have been searching a piece of land called King's Wood in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. A police source told the BBC the case contained "everything you would need to make an improvised device". Other officers have only confirmed that a suitcase was found. Scotland Yard has not officially commented on any finds. A police spokeswoman said some 49 residential and business premises and one area of woodland had been searched in connection...

When it came to fighting terrorists, Count Alexandre de Marenches, the legendary former head of France’s intelligence services, knew what he was talking about. In a prescient book published just after the end of the Cold War, he was the first to warn that a fourth world war had already begun — a war waged by ‘small, highly deadly units of terrorists’ with ‘the very real prospect of ending civilisation, at least Western civilisation, as we know it’. A lone voice, Marenches was ignored in Britain and America; it was far easier to believe in reassuring theories about the ‘end...

How The Road To Terror Leads Back To London By Jeffrey Imm It has been reported that it was planned for today --August 16 -- that terrorists planned to kill many thousands of Americans in coordinated attacks using 9-10 jetliners on the United States homeland. But whether investigations show that it ultimately turns out to have been planned for today or another date, one thing is certain, that this coordinated "mass murder" terrorist attack was planned to be much worse than the 9/11 attacks. Today, the United States is still threatened by the fellow citizens of the country of these...