Posted on 03/23/2006 5:36:27 PM PST by blam
'Gang plotted to buy a radioactive bomb from Russia and attack shopping centre'
By John Steele, Crime Correspondent
(Filed: 23/03/2006)
Terrorists linked to an alleged al-Qa'eda gang which plotted a bombing campaign in Britain tried to buy a radioactive bomb from the Russian mafia, the Old Bailey was told yesterday.
The gang was also said to have discussed attacking the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent, a London nightclub, and gas and electricity facilities
The Bluewater shopping centre in Kent
A Luton taxi driver who is said to be a member of the alleged gang was given information while in Pakistan about a "radioisotope bomb", the jury was told.
Salahuddin Amin was asked by a man he knew from a mosque in the Bedfordshire town to contact another man.
Amin contacted the third man via the internet and was told "they had made contact with the Russian mafia in Belgium and from the Mafia they were trying to buy this bomb".
Amin told police after his arrest that he did not think the attempt to buy the bomb was serious, as he did not think it likely that "you can go and pick up an atomic bomb and use it".
David Waters QC, for the Crown, said "nothing appears to have come of" the radio-isoptope bomb idea but added that, whether it was a realistic prospect or not, the discussion showed Amin's importance to the terrorist organisation.
Mr Waters who opened the case for the second day, said a more concrete contribution from Amin was to research and pass on to the alleged ringleader, Omar Khyam, from Crawley, Sussex, the recipe for improvised, home-made explosives.
Amin and Khyam are also alleged to have received training in Pakistan in how to make the toxin ricin.
The pair and five other co-defendants, all British citizens, deny plotting to carry out explosions in London using bombs made from ammonium nitrate and aluminium powder.
The gang allegedly discussed attacking Bluewater
The charges in the trial do not involve any radiological element. The jury has been told, however, that the British-based gang was in the final stages of a conspiracy to use ammonium nitrate and aluminium powder, with remote-controlled detonators supplied by a Canadian fellow Muslim "jihadi", to bomb Britain.
The detonators were said to be capable of exploding a device at a range of up to one and a quarter miles.
The gang may have planned three bombs, according to evidence from a police and MI5 bugging operation.
They allegedly had more than half a ton of ammonium nitrate. Although no precise targets had been selected, several had been discussed, Mr Waters said. At the home of Khyam and his brother Shujah Mahmood, police found "a long list of synagogues".
Discussions, which also showed the terrorists' attitude to other atrocities, such as a terrorist bomb in Madrid, were picked up after police and MI5 bugged houses and cars.
One defendant, Waheed Mahmood, 34, allegedly raised the possibility - in a conversation bugged in Khyam's car on Friday, March 19, 2004 - of "a little explosion at Bluewater - tomorrow if you want."
"I don't know how big it would be, we haven't tested it, but we could do one tomorrow," Waheed Mahmood said. He also referred to the Madrid bombing of 2004, saying: "Spain was a beautiful job, weren't it, absolutely beautiful, man, so much impact."
The home of Jawad Akbar, another defendant, was also bugged. A conversation between him and Khyam, with Khyam's brother, Shujah, probably also present, centred on potential targets.
Akbar referred to "attacks upon the utilities, gas, water or electrical supplies", Mr Waters said. "Alternatively, a big nightclub in central London might be a target. As he put it: 'The biggest nightclub in central London, no one can put their hands up and say they are innocent - those slags dancing around'."
Akbar continued: "I think the club thing you could do, but the gas would be much harder."
He was heard saying to his wife, on Feb 26, 2004, that he did not pray at the mosque because he "did not want to appear ostentatiously religious". He added: "When we kill the Kuf [non-believers] this is because we know Allah hates the Kufs."
He was later recorded anxiously telling his wife about two missing CDs, adding: "They got Transco written on them . . . Transco, you know what, if we get raided today, we're finished." Waheed Mahmood, the jury heard, worked for Morrison's Utility Services, a contractor hired in the south east by National Grid Transco, which supplies electricity in England and Wales and high pressure gas in Britain.
Another defendant, Anthony Garcia, allegedly approached a supplier of ammonium nitrate in the autumn of 2003 to buy 50kg (110lb) and then 600kg (1,300lb) of fertiliser.
Mr Waters said: "Garcia had originally indicated that he wanted it for his allotment.
''This was perhaps somewhat surprising as the allotment would have to be the size of four or five football pitches and, further, it was the wrong time of the year to purchase and apply ammonium nitrate as a fertiliser."
It was stored in a rented lock-up in Hanwell in west London. The gang chose the password "pink" - "apparently after Mr Pink from the film Reservoir Dogs''.
The suspicious owners of the lock-up contacted police, who were already investigating the gang.
The ammonium nitrate was secretly removed from the gang's lock-up and replaced with an inert material.
In the dock are Khyam, and Shujah Mahmood, 19, both of Crawley; Garcia, 24, of Ilford, east London; Nabeel Hussain, 20, a student at Brunel University, from Horley, Sussex; Akbar, 22, of Crawley; Waheed Mahmood, 34, of Crawley; and Amin, 31, of Luton. The Canadian defendant is Momim Khawaja.
All seven defendants deny a charge of conspiracy to cause explosions between Jan 1 2003 and March 31 2004. Khyam, Garcia and Hussain deny possessing the ammonium nitrate for a terrorist purpose.
Khyam and Shujah Mahmood deny a similar possession charge in relation to an amount of aluminium powder.
An alleged American accomplice, Mohammed Babar, has pleaded guilty in the United States and will give evidence for the Crown.
The trial continues.
Did Jack Bauer stop them?
MensNewsDaily.com - blog: "TERRORISTS PLANNED ATTACK ON UK LINKED TO AMERICAN" by Jim Kouri, CPP (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "One member of the terrorist cell, Waheed Mahmood, had been working for National Grid Transco a company that operates the high voltage electricity system in England and Wales and the high pressure gas system in Britain. The aim of the plot was to destroy a strategic plant within Britain or to kill and injure citizens of the UK as possible, the Daily Mail reported.") (March 22, 2006)
These guys are morons. "Buying a nuke from the Russian mafia" is the modern-day equivalent of buying the Brooklyn Bridge.
The only thing that has saved us is the incompetence of the enemy. Sometime they'll get lucky.
execute them
Capital punishment is abolished in Britain under all circumstances.
I forgot, Britain doesnt have the mettle to meet these lunatics
One day, someone might actually pull off something like that. Do you suppose the British might just change that law then?
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