LONDON, 2 February 2007 — The terrorist threat in the UK took a new turn yesterday with British Muslims serving in the UK armed forces, civil service and police, and others prominent in politics and business, seemingly the target. They have been put on security alert following Wednesday’s arrest of a gang of nine Britons — all of Pakistani descent — who allegedly were plotting to abduct and behead a British serviceman “Iraqi-style”. At the same time officers from the Midlands Counterterrorism Unit in Birmingham are hunting two more suspects.
Reports in London said Scotland Yard had identified 25 Muslims on a hit list of the gang. The gang deems them “traitors”. Two British servicemen — one a corporal in military intelligence who has recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq — are believed to have been the target of the plotters, who planned to film the intended victim pleading to British Prime Minister Tony Blair to withdraw British troops from Iraq before being beheaded and the video posted on the Internet. The two servicemen and members of their family are under armed guard.
Yesterday, politicians, community leaders and the media yet again called on Muslim leaders “to make clear where they stand” and to strongly denounce the extremists in their midst. The situation once again highlights the issue of leadership in the British Muslim communities, which at best is weak and divisive.
According to the BBC, the police are confident about the quality of their intelligence this time. The alleged plotters, all from the Birmingham area, have been under surveillance for six months. The investigation was triggered off by a tiny group of extremists who were demonstrating at the funeral last year of Lance Cpl. Jabron Hashmi who was killed in action in Afghanistan.
Yesterday, Hashmi’s brother Zeeshan, himself an ex-soldier in the British Army, encouraged Muslims not to leave the services because of fears of being kidnapped. “I saw at first hand that the work we were doing in Afghanistan was improving the lives of many poor ordinary Muslims,” he told The Evening Standard.
In Birmingham, police forensic experts continued to search 12 properties in connection with the alleged plot at addresses in the Sparkhill, Alum Rock, Kingstanding and Edgbaston. Among the properties raided were two houses and a general food store in Alum Rock and the Maktabah Islamic book store in Stratford Road, Sparkhill. Those arrested included Amjad Mahmood, 29, a father of two, who ran Khan’s General Store; Abu Bakir, who worked at Maktabah; and Azzar Iqbal, 38, who ran the Pizza Pronto takeaway.
They also continue to question the nine men arrested under the Anti-Terrorism Act. Under the act, police have up to 28 days to hold them, after which they must either charge them or justify an extension to their detention to a high court judge. Assistant Chief Constable David Shaw of the West Midlands Police, at a news conference stressed that it was a “very major investigation, which would take days if not weeks to complete.”
