Exclusive: The Plot to Attack US-Bound Planes from Britain


Author: Adrian Morgan

Date Published: 2008-04-07


The Plot to Attack US-Bound Planes from Britain

Adrian Morgan

 

 

 

On Thursday, April 3, a trial began at Woolwich Crown Court in southeast London. Eight men stood accused under Section 1 (1) of Britain's Criminal Law Act 1977 of conspiring to murder others. They are also accused under Section 5 (1) of the Terrorism Act 2006 of preparing acts of terrorism.

 

The men on trial are: Abdullah Ahmed Ali, (27), Assad Sarwar, (27), Tanvir Hussain, (27), Mohammed Gulzar, (26), Ibrahim Savant (27), Arafat Khan, (26), Waheed Zaman, (25) and Umar Islam aka Brian Young (29).

 

The men were among 21 who had been arrested on the morning of Thursday, August 10, 2006. The arrests had taken place after an operation that had involved intelligence shared between Britain, Pakistan and the United States. The chief of U.S. Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, announced to a press conference in Washington D.C. that: "This operation is in some respects suggestive of an al-Qaeda plot... They had accumulated and assembled the capabilities that they needed and they were in the final stages of planning for execution."

 

He said that the plan had been to smuggle explosives on board planes which were bound for North America. These explosives would be disguised as harmless drinks and also electronic apparatus. On board the planes these would be assembled into bombs. Secretary Chertoff said the plan was "really quite close to the execution phase."

 

Transatlantic flight plans were thrown into chaos as Britain and America raised their security threat levels to their highest. President George W. Bush was on vacation at Crawford, Texas. He made a press announcement, in which he said: "The recent arrests that our fellow citizens are now learning about are a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation.... Travelers are going to be inconvenienced as a result of the steps we've taken. I urge their patience and ask them to be vigilant. The inconvenience is – occurs because we will take the steps necessary to protect the American people."

 

At British airports, the inconvenience was widespread. Flights were delayed, and several outgoing flights were cancelled. Passengers had their shoes examined before boarding planes, and limits were placed on hand luggage. Only items that could be placed in a small clear plastic bag were allowed onto planes. No cans or bottles of drinks were allowed onto flights. Mothers who had babies were asked to take a sample sip from bottles of milk they wished to take on board.

 

British officials made announcements to inform the public. The arrests took place at three main locations, London, High Wycombe in Buckingamshire and Birmingham. The Bank of England froze the accounts of nineteen of the arrested suspects.

 

Operation Bojinka

 

On August 10, 2006, Michael Chertoff mentioned the apparent similarity of the alleged plot with "Operation Bojinka." This had been a plot to attack eleven U.S.-bound planes which were traveling over the Pacific. The plan had been for suicide bombers to carry components for small bombs onto these planes. Their explosive of choice had been nitrocglycerin mixed with contact lens solution. On board the aircraft, these would be assembled, using a battery powered detonator which would be hidden inside a shoe.

 

The Bojinka plot was developed by Ramzi Yousef, who had carried out the first World Trade Center bombing on February 26, 1993. While in Manila in the Philippines in late 1994, Yousef worked on the logistical side of the operation, which was initiated by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The plot had also apparently involved Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist Hambali, who is now in Guantanamo. The name "Bojinka" was found in a notebook in a Manila apartment during a raid by police on January 1995. It is a Croatian onomatopoeic word, mimicking the sound made by an explosion.

 

The trial for Bojinka began in New York in May 1996. Ramzi Yousef and two others were found guillty of plotting the Bokinka attacks in September 1996. Yousef would be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. On December 11, 1994, Ramzi Yousef had made an experiment to test the viability of the plan.

 

Yousef boarded a Philippine Air Lines 747 flight in Manila. His plane was bound for Tokyo. Yousef constructed a small explosive device and left it under a seat, timed to detonate four hours later. The plane stopped at Cebu in the Philippines and Yousssef got off. A Japanese businessman sat in the seat which had been sabotaged by Ramzi Yousef. When the bomb went off, the body of Haruki Ikegami was blown into two pieces, killing him instantly.

 

Vince Cannistraro, former director of the CIA's Counter terrorism Division, said of Yousef's plans: "His particular, peculiar evil genius was to devise a method of putting together a liquid explosive that could not be detected by the security apparatuses in effect at most airports at that time." He described Bojinka as "Extraordinarily ambitious, very complicated to bring off, and probably unparalleled by other terrorist operations that we know of."

 

 

 

The plans which were developed for Bojinka would become popular amongst Islamists, who would post "recipes" for similar devices o the Internet. In November 2005, an Algerian named Abbas Boutrab was found guilty in a Belfast Crown Court of possessing such information. He had downloaded recipes for a bomb which could have been disguised in a bottle of baby powder, and detonated using the battery from a CD player. Boutrab copied this information onto 25 computer disks.

 

Donald Sachtleben, an FBI explosives expert, made three devices from Boutrab's recipes. He said that "a person of average intelligence and average mechanical skills" could create the bomb, which "would be likely to cause significant damage to the aircraft and cause injury or death." In a pressurized cabin at high altitude, it would "more than likely...cause catastrophic failure." In December 2005, Boutrab was sentenced to six years' jail.

 

Woolwich Crown Court Trial

 

When the trial began of the eight men on April 3rd this year, it became clear that several people who had earlier been charged were not present. By September 7, 2006 a total of 17 people were charged for connection with the alleged plot to blow up trans-Atlantic airlines.

 

One young man, Abdul Muneem Patel, was aged 17 in 2006, and thus too young to be named by the press. In August 2006 he was charged with "possessing a book on bombs, suicide notes and the wills of people prepared to commit terrorist acts." He was sentenced at the Old Bailey in October 2007 to a six months' jail sentence, though his had not been reported in the British press. Patel's imprisonment only came to public attention recently when it was disclosed that he had been released early on January 7th of this year.

 

Whether some of the others who were charged will face trial is unknown. One of those charged is a woman, Cossor Ali. She is the wife of one of the men currently on trial, Abdulla Ahmed Ali. According to the prosecution in the current trial, her husband is one of the key leaders of the plot. Cossor Ali, who has a young son, was indicted in 2006 under Section 38B (1) (a) and (2) of the Terrorism Act 2000. She allegedly had "information which she knew or believed might be of material assistance in preventing the commission of another person namely, Ahmed Abdullah Ali aka Abdulla Ali Ahmed Khan (her husband), of an act of terrorism and failed to disclose it as soon as reasonably practicable."

 

The trial began on Thursday with the prosecutor, Peter Wright QC, describing to the jury the background of the plot. He said: "These men and others were actively involved in a deadly plan designed to bring about what would have been, had they been successful, a civilian death toll from an act of terrorism on an almost unprecedented scale. Fortunately they were arrested before they could put those plans into effect."

 

Mr. Wright discussed the manner in which explosives, disguised as soft drinks, would be carried onto planes. He said: "When the mid-flight explosions began the authorities would be unable to prevent the other flights from meeting a similar fate as they would already be in mid-flight and carrying their deadly cargo."

 

According to the prosecutor, the targeted flights were the following:

1415 UA931 LHR-SAN FRANCISCO (United Airlines)

1500 AC849 LHR-TORONTO (Air Canada)

1515 AC865 LHR-MONTREAL (Air Canada)

1540 UA959 LHR-CHICAGO (United)

1620 UA925 LHR-WASHINGTON

1635 AA131 LHR-NEW YORK (American Airlines)

1650 AA91 LHR-CHICAGO (American)

These flights all left Terminal 3 of Heathrow Airport on a regular basis, with two and a half hours between the first and last departure. This meant that the planes would be "entirely at the mercy of the suicide bombers who happened to be on board with their explosive devices".

 

Mr. Wright said: "These flights involved either 777 class, 767 class or 763 jets or their equivalent. Commercial airliners with a passenger capacity of between 285 and 241 people respectively. Collectively the flights were each of them non-stop transatlantic journeys to north American destinations. These flights were particularly vulnerable to a coordinated attack upon them while in flight."

 

According to the prosecutor, the leaders of the plot were Abdulla Ahmed Ali, Assad Sarwar and Mohammed Gulzar.

 

The plotters had been under surveillance for months by counter-terror police. The men often met at an apartment in Forest Road in Walthamstow, north-east London. Later, police found at this location materials which were thought to be used in bomb-making.

 

On August 9, 2006, Abdulla Ahmed Ali met Assad Sarwar at a parking lot in Walthamstow. Police arrested them, and in Ali's pocket was found a memory stick. This had information on flight departure times, baggage information and details of Heathrow's security procedures relating to restricted items.

 

Abdulla Ahmed Ali also had an address book/diary, in which he wrote: "Prepare dirty mag to distract, condom." Peter Wright QC presented evidence from the diary to the jury. He suggested that the mention of a semi-pornographic magazine and a condom placed in hand luggage had been a ploy to suggest to airline officials that the individuals boarding lanes were not Muslim.

 

Explosives

 

Ali's diary also made mention of the method by which the alleged terrorists were to carry out explosions on board the planes. Ali had written: "Lucozade red 1.5 drops" and "Check time taken to dilute in HP."

 

HP apparently stood for hydrogen peroxide, an ingredient of the explosive. The reference to Lucozade, an orange-colored glucose drink, suggested that food dye be added to the hydrogen peroxide to disguise it as Lucozade.

 

Ali apparently used the letter "D" to refer to the detonator. He had written in his diary: "Decide on which battery to use for D, small is best. Keys and chewing gum on the D in the electronic device."

 

He had also written: "Select date, five days B4. All link up." This apparently referred to choosing when to commit the atrocity, and to gather five days prior to the event.

 

Peter Wright QC outlined the plans by which the gang members had apparently chosen to cause explosions on board flights. The liquid explosive would have as its main ingredient hydrogen peroxide, which would be mixed with other substances. Then 500 ml plastic bottles of soft drinks such as Oasis and Lucozade would be pierced at their bases, and their contents drained.

 

Using a syringe, these bottles would be filled with the hydrogen peroxide-based liquid explosive. To fill the bottles, the liquid would be complemented with a powdered drink mix called Tang. Once full, the aperture would be filled with glue. This "injection" method has been used by blackmailers to contaminate products in commercial stores. The caps of the bottles would remain sealed, giving the impression that the product was untouched.

 

The detonators would be hidden inside small AA-size 1.5 volt batteries. These would have their contents replaced with a substance known as HMTD. This substance (hexamethylene triperoxide diamine) has been in existence since 1885. Unless exceptionally pure, it is highly unstable, but in the past was used as a detonator for causing other explosives to ignite.

 

HMTD, chemically N(CH2-O-O-CH2)3N, is less reactive than other chemicals used traditionally as explosives detonators, such as acetone peroxide or mercury fulminate. Like the explosives acetone peroxide and triacetone triperoxide (TATP), HMTD contains hydrogen peroxide. This component in the mixture causes corrosion if the HMTD material is stored in metal containers for any time, as it reacts with the metal to cause salts. HMTD can be caused to blow up when it is exposed to the UV radiation in sunlight, or subjected to heat, shock or friction.

 

Peter Wright QC said that the HMTD detonators would be ignited using metal wire or the flash from a disposable camera.

 

The prosecutor said on Thursday that up to 18 people, including those in the dock at Woolwich Crown Court, could have volunteered to act as suicide bombers.

 

Last Wills and Testaments

 

On Friday, the Peter Wright QC gave details of the farewell videos which had apparently been made by the defendants. Such videos are now almost standard fare for any suicide bomber – deriving from traditions started by Hamas. After a bombing, farewell videos – often containing tedious and moralizing messages – are distributed on the Internet or shown on Arab news channels.

 

The video material produced in Woolwich Crown court fits the expected standards of such valedictions. One of the defendants, Umar Islam aka Brian Young, lived in Leyton, northeast London. His video showed him wearing an Islamic headscarf (keffiyeh) and seated before a black flag bearing white lettering.

 

He states:

 

"We are doing this in order to gain the pleasure of our Lord, and Allah loves us to die and kill in his fires. And anyone who tries to deny this, then read the Koran and he will not be able to deny this. We will not leave this path until you leave our lands, until you feel what we are feeling. This is revenge for the actions of the USA in Muslim lands and their accomplices, such as the British and the Jews. This is a warning for the non-believers that if they do not leave our lands there are many more like us and many more like me until the law of Allah is established on this Earth. Now without doubt your dead are in hellfire, while the Muslims that die due to your acts will be in paradise. Martyrdom operations upon martyrdom operations will keep on raining on these kuffars until they release us and leave our lands."

 

"...I say to you disbelievers that as you bomb, you will be bombed. As you kill, you will be killed. And if you want to kill our women and children then the same thing will happen to you. This is not a joke. If you think you can go into our land and do what you are doing in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine and keep on supporting those that are fighting against the Muslims and think it will not come back on to your doorstep then you have another think coming. You are just sitting there, you are still funding the Army, you have not put down your leader, you have not pressured them enough. Most of them are too busy watching Home And Away and EastEnders, complaining about the World Cup, drinking your alcohol, to care about anything. That is all you seem to care about and I know because I have come from that."

 

Abdullah Ahmed Ali's video was similar, and showed reverence for "Sheikh" Osama bin Laden:

 

"Sheikh Osama has warned you many times to leave our lands or you will be destroyed, and now the time has come for you to be destroyed.... You show more care and concern for animals than you do for the Muslim Ummah. Those that know me, who really know me, will know that I was the happiest person they could ever have imagined and those that know me know that I was over the moon that Allah has given me the opportunity to lead this blessed operation."

 

Ali warned Westerners to avoid interfering in Muslim affairs, saying:

 

"Otherwise expect floods of martyr operations against you and we will take our revenge and anger, ripping amongst your people and scattering the people and your body parts and your people's body parts responsible for these wars and oppression decorating the streets."

 

Other videos were shown to the court. Ibrahim Savant, who lived at Denver Road in Stamford Hill North London, also featured in a video. He said:

 

"All Muslims take heed, remove yourself from the grasp of the kuffar before you are counted as one of them. Do not be content with your council houses and businesses and western lifestyle."

 

"Mujahideen, for years I have desired to meet you, to walk the paths you have walked, to sacrifice what you have sacrificed, now Allah has honored me with an invitation to his kingdom."

 

Waheed Zaman lived at 104 Queens Road, Walthamstow, and along with two other defendants (Ibrahim Savant and Arafat Waheed Khan) was a frequent visitor to the Masjid-E-Umer mosque across the street. This is a Deobandi institution. The ideology of Deoband, which inspired the Taliban, is austere and fundamentalist. Zaman was a biochemistry student at London Metropolitan University. Here he was head of the college's Islamic Society. Reporters found audio tapes and written material by extremist preachers in the Islamic Society's "library". Zaman was also a member of the Deobandi-inspired fundamentalist group Tablighi Jamaat.

 

Zaman's faewell video states:

 

"America and England have no cause for complaint. I am warning these two nations and any other country who seeks a bad end, death and destruction will pass upon you like a tornado and you will not feel it, you will not feel any security or peace in your lands until you stop interfering in the affairs of Muslims completely."

 

Zaman also stated on video: "I have been educated to a high standard and had it not been Allah had blessed me with this mission, I could have lived a life of ease but instead chose to fight for the sake of Allah's Deen [his religion]." Despite these expressed sentiments, Zaman's sister had argued in 2006 that: "He loves fish and chips and Liverpool football club and his favorite TV program is Only Fools and Horses (a Cockney-based comedy). He even wanted to join the police as a forensics expert. He is a great believer in the importance of integration between our community and the Western world."

 

Tanvir Hussain of Leyton, northeast London, said on his "farewell" video:

 

 "I only wish I could come back and do it again and again until people come to their senses and realise - don't mess with the Muslims. People saying we target innocents but we are targeting economic, government and military targets. People are going to die but it's worth the price."

 

Other Targets

 

 

 

On Friday, other revelations were made by the prosecution. 27-year-old Assad Sarwar, who was described by Peter Wright QC as one of the three main leaders of the plot, lives in High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, west of London. When he had been arrested on August 9, 2006, a Sony video recorder was found. On a video cassette in the recorder were farewell videos from the defendants Umar Islam (Brian Young) and Arafat Khan.

 

Other video recordings were found in a search of Sarwar's home. Mr. Wright said: "The recordings of those men were significant, we say, because they amounted to recordings in which each of these men contemplated losing their lives in some violent act perpetrated by them as a perceived act of martyrdom."

 

The prosecutor said that Sarwar had also been developing plans to attack nuclear power stations, a European gas pipeline between Belgium and Britain and Britain's national electricity grid. He also hoped to target Canary Wharf in London's Docklands, as well as the airport control tower at Heathrow. Sarwar allegedly wanted to sabotage the main exchange for Britain's Internet service providers.

 

Sarwar also allegedly planned to attack oil refineries according to references made in a diary that he possessed. These were the Fawley in Hampshire, the Coryton in Essex and the Kingsbury oil terminal in the Midlands. The prosecutor said: "The horizon of Sarwar's terrorist ambition, we say, was limitless."

 

Sarwar had gone to Pakistan between June 13 2006 and July 8, 2006. Mr. Wright claimed that in this country he had probably conferred with senior Islamists about the airline plot. The prosecutor said: "Mr. Sarwar's responsibility within this terrorist network was far too precious. It is the crown's case that he was one of those engaged in this plot with direct links to those overseas who may have a clear interest in the success of any such terrorist outrage struck in the name of Islam."

 

At Sarwar's home in High Wycombe, a memory stick was found which contained information about gas terminals, the national grid and "power stations, including nuclear power stations."

 

Relative Terror

 

On Friday, the jury was shown video evidence of bombs which had been made according to the alleged plans of the group being successfully detonated.

 

In August 2006, after mass raids, woods near Sarwar's Hih Wycombe home were searched. A suitcase was found buried in these woods which matched one that had been previously purchased by the defendant. Inside this suitcase were discovered syringe and chemicals.

 

As if a plan to commit mass murder were not disturbing enough, certain details of the case defy belief. During surveillance operations on members of the group, police heard two of the defendants in conversation. Abdulla Ahmed Ali and Umar Islam were heard discussing a possible train bombing at an apartment in Forest Road, Walthamstow, which was said to be their "bomb factory." Ali mentioned that one of the plotters had wished to take his own child on such a suicide mission. Ali explained: "That's why he wanted to take his kid on the train with him – shake them up."

 

Prosecutor Peter Wright said that Abdulla Ahmed Ali had also said: "Should I take my lot on? I know my wife would not agree to it."

 

In August 2006 detectives had suggested that a husband and wife among the people arrested had planned to use their baby in a suicide bombing. The couple was Abdulla Ahmed Ali and his wife Cossor Ali. Their son Zain was born in February 2006. According to a neighbor at that time, Abdulla Ahmed Ali was "religious and seemed to love his family."

 

The "bomb factory" had been purchased for £138,000 cash ($275,216) on July 30, 2006 less than a fortnight before the August 2006 mass arrests. It was on the top floor of a row of terraced houses at 386A, Forest Road in Walthamstow. According to Mr. Wright, it was "ideal for manufacturing the volatile mix" needed for the creation of explosives.

 

He said: "It is the Crown's case that this unoccupied property in a busy road in a residential area was ideally suited to the needs of the conspirators, because within a day of the sale being completed the property had been transformed into a bomb factory." The apartment contained "paraphernalia,” including drink bottles, syringes, light bulb filaments, disposable cameras, and food dye.

 

The trial, which is expected to be the largest terrorism trial in Britain's history, is expected to continue for up to eight months. It is being presided over by the judge Mr. Justice Calvert-Smith.

 

Denials

 

One aspect of this case, which is becoming increasingly common, is the manner in which Muslim so-called "representatives" and "community leaders" instantly denied that any plot had taken place.

 

Azzam Tamimi is a member of the Muslim Association of Britain, a group founded by senior Muslim Brotherhood member Kemal el-Helbawy. Tamimi is Palestinian in origin, and supports suicide attacks against Iraelis, even claiming that he would like to be a suicide bomber. Despite this, he is still regarded as a "representative" of Muslims in Britain.

 

In a commentary in the Guardian newspaper in August 2006, Tamimi wrote: "I have a feeling that all the Muslims detained in connection with the recent police operation to foil and alleged plot are innocent and will soon be proven so. I also suspect that the entire episode has been deemed, despite its enormous cost, to be of utility to a government that is increasingly out of touch with reality and seriously short of public support and sympathy."

 

At the same time, Fahad Ansari of the Islamic Human Rights Commission claimed that Muslims would be skeptical of police announcements (of the plane plot). He said: "Over the last few years we have seen many high profile raids like this plastered over the press to terrify the public. We have seen it time and time again. It has been hit and miss on too many occasions. It is causing a lot of mass hysteria." He also said it was possibly a ploy to distract attention away from the government's Middle East problems.

 

Shabud Ullah of the Sandwell Confederation of Bangladeshi Muslim Organisations said on August 10th (according to the Express & Star) that "no formal link with Islamic extremism" had been detailed. "We all condemn terrorism," he claimed, adding: "But until we are given straight information about this, we don't know what to believe. We do condemn terror, but at the same time the Government's anti-terrorism laws marginalise the Muslim community."

 

The Guardian of August 11th stated that a spokesperson for the Waltham Forest Islamic Association said: "I know five of the men very well and they are really respectable young Muslim men. I am totally shocked. I don't believe they've done anything to warrant this."

 

The Islamist Anjem Choudary, who supported the actions of 9/11 and other terrorist actions said at the time: "I think this is another case of whipping the public into a frenzy over terrorism with very flimsy evidence."

 

Choudary is not a representative of any normal Muslim – he spends his time shilling for extremist preachers such as Omar Bakri iMohammed and arguing for Britain to be converted into a Sharia state. But when "representative" Muslims such as Dr. Mohammad Abdul Bari (head of the Muslim Council of Britain) stated "We need to find out what was the connection between 7/7 and subsequent attacks. It is imperative to find that link to stop continuing Islamophobic attacks," it becomes plain that for some so-called "leaders" propaganda about "victimhood" is more important than factual accuracy and public safety.

 

Mohammed Sidique Khan, mastermind of the 7/7 attacks made a " farewell video" before he attacked London transport on July 7, 2005, as did his fellow bomber Shehzad Tanweer.

 

Khan stated:

 

"Until we feel security, you will be our targets – not until you have stopped the bombing, gassing, imprisonment, and torture of my people, we will not stop this fight. We are at war, and I am a soldier. Now you too will taste the reality of this situation.........Jihad is an obligation, on every single one of us, men and women, and by staying at home, you are turning your backs on Jihad, which is a major sin, it's a Kabira gona (clears throat). If you have any doubts or reservations about this and the other Jihad ayats, then I strongly suggest you research them, check the Islamic history - the books are very widely available - look to the classical scholars. See what sort of lives they led."

 

"Our so-called scholars today are content with their Toyotas and semi-detached houses. They seem to think their responsibilities lie with pleasing the kuffar instead of Allah, so they tell us ludicrous things, like "you must obey the law of the land". So how na- how on earth did we conquer lands in the past if we were to obey by this, this law? By Allah, these scholars will be brought to account, and if they fear the British government more than they fear Allah, then they must desist in doing talks, lectures, and passive fatwas and they need to stay at home where they are useless, and leave the job to the real men, the true inheritors of the Prophets."

 

The reasons why Khan and Tanweer carried out their attacks are plain – as plain as the rhetoric spewed by the defendants in this trial in their videos. They hate the West, and hate the complacency of Muslims who live out Western lifestyles. They use Iraq as an excuse to bomb Britain as "retaliation."

 

And more than anything, these extremists use the same Islamic texts that are followed by "moderate" Muslims to justify their actions. The same texts that are interpreted aggressively by Bin Laden and Muslim Brotherhood luminaries such as Sayyid Qutb. For Britain's Muslim "leaders" to deny this is to place a severe obstacle in the way of averting similar plots in the future.

# # #

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Adrian Morgan is a British based writer and artist who has written for Western Resistance since its inception. He also writes for Spero News. He has previously contributed to various publications, including the Guardian and New Scientist and is a former Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Society.

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