Posted on 08/11/2004 12:10:46 PM PDT by take
Plans for terrorist plots on US targets found
More than 1,000 computer disks holding details of previously unknown terrorist plots on the US were seized during raids by MI5 and police in Britain, according to US intelligence sources.
The reports were found during raids in London, Luton, Bushey and Blackburn in which 13 people were arrested.
They contain information that officials in Washington say could lead to more security alerts similar to the one which pinpointed five financial targets in Washington and New York.
The new information is believed to point to an attempt to attack the US during the Presidential election in the autumn. "We've seen that al Qaeda seems determined," one official told the New York Times.
Among those arrested last week by MI5 and Scotland Yard's Anti-Terrorist Branch is believed to be Abu Musa al Hindi, a senior al Qaeda suspect, allegedly ordered to America four years ago to select targets for an attack.
His arrest with other suspects is believed to have been brought forward after the seizure in Pakistan of al Qaeda computer expert Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan.
Khan travelled to Britain on at least six occasions and files and emails on his laptop pointed to plans to attack Heathrow Airport and buildings in London and also triggered the US alert. Reports yesterday claimed that Khan spent three weeks living near Heathrow late last year. He is said to have lived in a ground floor flat in Reading with his grandmother and his aunt.
Photographs downloaded on to his computer are also said to included pictures of the heads of the IMF and the World Bank, as well as one of Gordon Brown who also attends IMF annual meetings.
The discovery underlines the growing fear that al Qaeda is planning a massive strike on the scale of the September 11 atrocity. In Britain documents found in the flat of one of those arrested in the raids suggest he trained as a suicide bomber and failed to win asylum here.
They included a photograph of a man in camouflage fatigues holding a Kalashnikov and notepaper with the heading of the al Quds brigade, a Palestinian terrorist group.
Police have been given until Tuesday to question nine men still being held on suspicion of plotting terrorist acts. They were among the 13 men originally held. Ten were British and two of them Palestinian.
Two men have been released. One, Mohammed Dawoud, 19, of Willesden is due to appear before Horseferry Road Magistrates Court today charged with possession of forged identity documents. A 24-year-old man was bailed on a similar charge.
Ten were British ,you do NOT need a Visa to get into America
AL-QAIDA Suspect Arrested in Texas
Al-Qaida Suspect Arrested in Texas Updated: Wednesday, Jul. 28, 2004 - 1:00 PM
By J.J. Green FederalNewsRadio.com
A South African woman picked up in Texas almost 10 days ago may turn out to be a key, high-level al-Qaida operative.
Her name is Farida Goolam Mohamed Ahmed. She was stopped at McAllen Miller International Airport on July 19 headed to New York.
Eddie Flores of the U.S. Border Patrol office in McAllen, Texas tells FederalNewsRadio.com that a review of her papers raised some concerns.
"In looking at her documents, they did not find any entry documents in her passport where she was legally admitted into the United States," says Flores.
Ahmed produced a South African passport to the agents with four pages torn out, and with no U.S. entry stamps. Ahmed reportedly later confessed to investigators that she entered the country illegally by crossing the Rio Grande River. Ahmed was carrying travel itineraries showing a July 8 flight from Johannesburg, South Africa to London. Six days later, Ahmed traveled from London to Mexico City before attempting to travel from McAllen to New York.
Government sources tell FederalNewsRadio.com that capturing this woman could be comparable to the arrest of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of 9/11. It was revealed in court Tuesday that she was on a watch list and had entered the U.S. possibly as many as 250 times.
Tuesday, the South African government issued a warning that Al-Qaida militants and other terrorists traveling through Europe had obtained South African passports, and authorities believe they got them from crime syndicates operating inside the government agency that issues the documents.
This is what happens when you abandon sane immigration policy.
And we want to change the president, why?
Pardon me?
Two were released? Are the Brits nuts?
I have no problem with intermin camps for arabs! Maybe we need to think about this.
Where are these guy getting their funding from?
America
Luton, pronounced looton, is north of London and is best known for its airport which several discount European airlines fly into & out of. A couple of years ago I flew from Luton to Gibraltar, one way, for approx. $125 U.S.. Luton is 40 minutes by train from central London.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.