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The MI5 spy who saved children from a UK bomb attack

Tom Marcus is still jittery three years after retiring as a spy, he tells the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme. Walking down the street, he sometimes sees suspicious behaviour where there is none - shady people lurking in doorways; unusual bulges in coats; nervous, furtive glances.

Tom - not his real name, it can’t be used for security reasons - saw plenty during his eight years as an MI5 surveillance officer to make him suspicious.

On one occasion he helped thwart a plan to blow up two coaches full of schoolchildren returning from a trip to France.

Undercover as a homeless man, and positioned near a mosque, he had noticed that a young Muslim man he had been tracking - who had fought with militant Islamist group Boko Haram in Africa before returning to the UK - had entered the place of worship but not left it. He had also counted more women leaving the building than going in.
He decided that one of the “women” leaving must have been the male extremist disguised in a burka. He informed his superiors, and the man - found to have six home-made bombs in his car - was arrested. The bombs were all set to go off at the same time via a mobile phone found on the suspect, meaning Tom almost certainly saved lives that day. (snip)
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-37504999

*Shukrijumah* hmmm, the FBI still hasn’t verified his death.

Widow of ex-South Florida al Qaeda figure reported in Pakistan hostage swap

Nearly two years after Pakistan’s army said it killed fugitive terrorist leader and ex-Broward resident Adnan El Shukrijumah, the FBI still hasn’t verified his death. But recent news reports say al Qaeda recently claimed that Shukrijumah’s widow was one of three women released by Pakistan in exchange for the son of the country’s former army chief.

The other women reportedly handed over to al Qaeda in the exchange were the adult daughters of Ayman al Zawahiri, who took over as leader after Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces in May 2011.

The Long War Journal, a project of the nonprofit, nonpartisan Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, first reported the story Sept. 2. Al Qaeda’s unverified claims about the exchange were made in late August in Al Masra, a magazine published by an organization linked to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.