Thread: Report: 25 British Muslims in plots to bomb airliners

Report: 25 British Muslims in plots to bomb airliners

By ANTHONY FRANCE
Crime Reporter
and ALEX WEST

Published: Today
COPS fear that 25 British-born Muslims are plotting to bomb Western airliners.

The fanatics, in five groups, are now training at secret terror camps in Yemen.

It was there London-educated Umar Abdulmutallab, 23, prepared for his Christmas Day bid to blow up a US jet.

video at the link

The British extremists in Yemen are in their early 20s and from Bradford, Luton and Leytonstone, East London.

They are due to return to the UK early in 2010 and will then await internet instructions from al-Qaeda on when to strike.

A Scotland Yard source said: "The great fear is Abdulmutallab is the first of many ready to attack planes and kill tens of thousands.

"We know there are four or five radicalised British Muslim cells in the Yemen.

Armed officers were also spotted around the airport site and all the luggage was laid out in a long line on the tarmac to be thoroughly searched.

"They are due back within months when they will be under constant surveillance."

The 25 suspects, of Pakistani and Somali descent, were radicalised in UK mosques.

Some had been to university and studied engineering or computer sciences.

Others were former street gang members.

Monitored

Special Branch monitored them as they flew to Yemen, in the Middle East, from British airports in the spring and summer.

In almost every case, their tickets were paid for in cash and bought less than a week before travel.

The source added: "Imams would have promised them rewards in heaven for becoming suicide bombers prepared to kill Westerners."

PM Gordon Brown and Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson were being briefed.

Today Alan Johnson confirmed Abdulmutallab had been refused a new visa and placed on a watch list last May after applying for a bogus course.

Mr Johnson said: "If you are on our watch list then you do not come into this country.

"You can come through this country if you are in transit to another country but you cannot come into this country."

The Home Secretary said US authorities should theoretically have been informed, and he doubted there had been a "hiccup" in procedures.

American officials have said Abdulmutallab was on one of their "long" watch lists, but was not banned from travelling.

Mr Johnson also said he did not believe Abdulmutallab was acting alone.

He added: "We don't know yet whether it was a single-handed plot or (there were) other people behind it - I suspect it's the latter rather than the former."

Dutch cops are investigating claims that an accomplice helped Abdulmutallab board a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.

A US couple on the flight, Kurt and Lori Haskell, said they saw a tall, well-dressed man aged about 50 with Abdulmutallab on Friday morning at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport.

The Haskells have claimed the man spoke for Abdulmutallab and attempted to get him aboard Northwest flight 253 without a passport.

Disappearance

Abdulmutallab's family released a statement today saying they alerted security agencies two months ago after losing contact with him.

The Nigerian's parents described his disappearance as "completely out of character" and a "very recent development".

Abdulmutallab's family said they had lost contact with him while he was studying abroad.

The statement said: "His father, having become concerned about his disappearance and stoppage of communication while schooling abroad, reported the matter to Nigerian security agencies about two months ago and to some foreign security agencies about a month and a half ago".

The warnings came as another Nigerian was last night held in Detroit on the same flight attacked on Christmas Day. It later emerged the man had fallen ill.

Al-Qaeda in Yemen warned the West four days before Friday's attack that a bombing was imminent.

Terrorist Mohammed al-Kalwi issued the video threat in the wake of a Yemeni airstrike on a militant training camp.

Al-Kalwi was reportedly killed in another airstrike on Thursday.

President Barack Obama's administration is to review all airport security.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/ne ... 785733.ece

so they know these cells from england are there training.
if they know the names, why not just arrest them when they land back in London