Free Republic

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...