LONDON, 6 July 2007 — New information yesterday emerged about four of the suspects in the failed car bomb attacks in central London and at Glasgow Airport last Friday, all of whom reportedly had links with the famous university town of Cambridge. At the same time, Britain’s tough new anti-terrorism laws introduced by the previous Blair government in the wake of the 7/7 and the foiled 7/21 attacks on London’s transport system, which made it a serious criminal offense to incite or encourage terrorism, yesterday netted five convictions and sent an uncompromising message to those intent on using the Internet or demonstrations to incite religious hatred and terrorism.
The quick arrest of eight suspects linked to the foiled bombings and the above convictions allowed the UK government’s Joint Terrorism Assessment Center (JTAC) yesterday to downgrade the terror alert one notch from the highest “critical” level to “severe,” which stresses that another attack is likely, but not imminent.
According to security sources, the alleged ringleader of the failed plot, Dr. Mohammed Asha, worked at the Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, while Iraqi doctor Bilal Abdulla, one of the two involved in the burning Jeep attack on the arrivals terminal at Glasgow Airport, lived on Chesterton Road in the town. Similarly, Dr. Kafeel Ahmed, the other terrorist suspect who suffered 90 percent burns in the Glasgow Airport attack, studied for a Ph.D. at the Anglia Polytechnic University, while his brother, Dr. Sabeel Ahmed, who was arrested in Liverpool, also lived in Cambridge for almost a year in 2005.
To add to the complications, Zakia Ahmed, the mother of Kafeel and Sabeel Ahmed yesterday confirmed to Sky News that they in fact are the cousins of Dr. Mohammed Haneef, the eighth suspect who worked at Queensland’s Gold Coast Hospital and who was arrested at Brisbane Airport in Australia en route to India on a one-way ticket. Dr. Sabeel and Dr. Mohammed graduated from the same medical college in Bangalore.
Scotland Yard yesterday refused to comment on US news reports that counterterrorism officers found a suicide note written by one of the two airport bombers, stressing that the investigation is a “live” one and therefore it could not comment on any evidence recovered as part of an investigation.
Of the five convicted for incitement to terrorism, Tunisian-born Younes Tsouli, 23, of west London; Briton Waseem Mughal, 24, of Chatham, Kent; and UAE-born Tariq Al-Daour, 21, of west London, were sentenced by a judge at Woolwich Crown Court to a total of 24 years. The three so-called cyber terrorists had already pleaded guilty to inciting terrorism and murder through the Internet. Tsouli, the alleged ringleader was sentenced to 10 years; Mughal to seven and a half years; and Al-Daour to six and a half years. Tsouli and Al-Daour were also recommended for deportation on completion of their sentences.
The trio was charged with inciting terrorist attacks against non-Muslims. They are the first to be convicted of inciting terrorist murder via the Internet in a two-month trial.
A fourth man, Mizanur Rahman, 24, of Palmers Green, north London, who called for British soldiers to be brought back from Iraq in body bags, during a protest in February 2006 outside the Danish Embassy in Sloane Street in London against the cartoons published in a Danish newspaper depicting the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), was yesterday convicted at the Old Bailey of inciting murder. He will be sentenced later this month with three others — Umran Javed; Abdul Muhid; and Abdul Saleem — who were earlier convicted over the demonstration.
The most significant “catch”, according to Scotland Yard, was the conviction yesterday at Manchester Crown Court of Omar Al-Tamimi, a failed asylum seeker and father of three, following a four-week trial.
Al-Tamimi, from Bolton in Lancashire, was convicted of possessing files relating to an organizational chart for a terror cell, instructions on bomb detonators, instructions on making explosives, and details about chemical explosives and “bombing strategies.”
He had also reportedly identified events such as festivals and buildings as targets for bombing. The prosecution alleged that he hoarded terror manuals and gruesome hostage execution videos on his computer and had “a library of terror” on how to carry out bombings using cars filled with gas bottles.
