CNN: Sources: Bombing link to 2004 raid ~~ FBI investigating Egyptian biochemist

CNN ^ | Friday, July 15, 2005; Posted: 12:35 a.m. EDT (04:35 GMT) | staff

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, would not elaborate about the nature of the evidence, but they said they were following up on it to see where the information took them.

In late March 2004, just weeks after the deadly Madrid train bombings, British authorities launched Operation Crevis, which resulted in the arrest of eight British Muslims, ages 17 to 32, on suspicion they were planning or instigating "acts of terrorism."

At the time, police sources said the suspects were linked to "possible Islamist terror."

In the raids, more than 700 British police fanned out at sites in London and across south-central England, seizing the ammonium nitrate along with the suspects.

Ammonium nitrate was a key part of the bomb used by Timothy McVeigh in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people and wounded hundreds of others.

At the time of Operation Crevis, authorities said they believed they interrupted some type of attack in the planning stage due to the amount of ammonium nitrate found.

They also worried there might have been more people connected to the cell and more terror plans.

The officials who spoke to CNN late Thursday said a working theory is that the July 7 bombings that killed 54 people and wounded hundreds more might have been a follow-up to what authorities believe they thwarted last year.

With the probe into London's deadliest attacks since World War II widening, law enforcement officials also told CNN the FBI has now begun to investigate the background of Magdy El-Nashar, an Egyptian biochemist who is being sought by British police for questioning in connection with the bombings.

[endthematrix]

"authorities said they believed they interrupted some type of attack in the planning stage"

Turn on the light switch and watch the cockroaches scurry! Lives were saved here...

[carumba]

... investigate the background of Magdy El-Nashar, an Egyptian biochemist.

I thought he was a chemical engineer. What good is a biochemist for explosives? Toxins, yeah, but not explosives.

[Rokurota]

Came to a U.S. university, too. Amazing.

[Sacajaweau]

The University does a lot of Anthrax research because it is an animal disease. That WAS the first thought of the investigation as well.....until someone else at the Sun got sick.

I have a possible "which came first, the chicken or the egg scenario" in my head....NC, then Sun??...or just Sun.