Quote:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2408278/posts
UK: Jihadists who plotted to blow up shopping center had been granted permission to work...
(by David Leppard for THE SUNDAY TIMES, December 13, 2009) via JIHAD WATCH.org ^ | December 15, 2009 12:11 PM | posted by Robert
Posted on December 15, 2009 3:20:33 PM PST by Cindy
Note: The following text is a quote:
UK: Jihadists who plotted to blow up shopping center had been granted permission to work as security guards
Why not? To disallow them would have been “Islamophobic.” “Manchester terror suspects cleared to work as guards,” by David Leppard for The Sunday Times, December 13:
Ten members of a suspected Islamist terror cell, said by MI5 to be plotting to blow up a shopping centre and a nightclub in Manchester, had been granted permission by the Home Office to work as security guards in Britain.
The Pakistani students — who were never charged for lack of evidence — were arrested over an alleged plot to bomb Britain last Easter. Police believed they had conducted “hostile reconnaissance” of the Arndale and Trafford shopping centres and the Birdcage nightclub.
It has now emerged that in the months before the alleged plot, the men were given licences to work as security guards by the Security Industry Authority (SIA), a Home Office body that regulates the private security industry.
They all passed a vetting programme designed to bar criminals and undesirables from taking up sensitive security posts protecting airports, ports and Whitehall buildings from terrorist attack. When arrested, two of the students were working for a cargo firm which had access to secure areas at Manchester airport....
Posted by Robert on December 15, 2009 12:11 PM
“U.K.: Al-Qaeda cell came “within days” of attack around Easter of 2009”
SNIPPET: “This was the case where officials were sent scrambling due to an assistant police commissioner being photographed with highly-classified documents visible. The new details illustrate what a close call this may have been, no thanks to said commissioner. “Al-Qaeda came within days of terror attack on Britain last year, court hears,” by Duncan Gardham for the Telegraph, March 9 (thanks to all who sent this in):
An alleged al-Qaeda terrorist cell arrested in the North West was within days of launching an attack on Britain a senior officer in MI5 has told a tribunal.
The men, who were arrested in Manchester and Liverpool in April last year, were said to be in direct contact with al-Qaeda in Pakistan, using coded email messages that talked about cars and girls.
They were said to be “operating in a similar manner” to those planning the mass casualty attacks of July 7 2005 and the trans-Atlantic airline plot of 2006.
Sources at the time said the gang was targeting Easter shoppers but police found no sign of bomb-making equipment and they were never charged.
The operation had to be brought forward after Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick, then Britain’s most senior counter-terrorism officer, was photographed entering Downing Street with details of the operation visible.
The “Al-Qaeda Pipeline,” still in action:
Four of the men, who had all arrived from Pakistan on student visas, are now appealing against a government decision to deport them on national security grounds. [...]”