Replies

Well, it smells of an individual instead of a team effort...Like the shoe bomber shlup that got caught in a similar situation...

There was to be more than one shoebomber. One backed out. Other team members involved with the "teamless" shoebomber Richard Reid:

JULY 2001 : (CHARITY PRESIDENT GHUMAL M RAMA MEETS WITH FUTURE SHOEBOMBER RICHARD REID) Reid spent several days in Paris before boarding a Miami-bound plane in December 2001 with explosives stuffed in his sneakers. Last year [2003], Reid was sentenced to life in prison by a U.S. court for trying to blow up the flight.
One of the French suspects, Imam Kamel Lakhram, reportedly acknowledged to French authorities Reid had slept at his mosque in northern Paris.
Another, Ghumal Mastapha Rama, president of a Pakistani Islamic association, originally admitted meeting Reid in July 2001 before retracting his remarks, Le Parisien said.
Rama is suspected of being the French representative of a banned Saudi foundation. Rama said originally two other men, Hassan El Cheguer and Hakim Mokhfi, had introduced him to Reid, the newspaper said.
--------- French wrap up terror probe (shoe bomber Richard Reid) Big News Network.com ^ | Tuesday 30th November, 2004 Posted on Saturday, December 04, 2004 5:11:23 AM by miltonim

DECEMBER 14, 2001 : (UK : BADAT EMAILS HIS HANDLER- ?NIZAR TRABELSI?- SAYING HE WAS GOING TO BACK OUT OF SUICIDE ATTACK) ...the detonation cord on his device was an exact match for the one carried by Reid - it had simply been cut in two. Intelligence sources believe that, like Reid, Badat had collected the cord and explosive at a terror training camp in Afghanistan and smuggled it into Britain with the intention of blowing up a transatlantic airliner. But on December 14 2001, three days before he was due to board a flight for United States, Mr Badat emailed his controller to say he had had a change of heart and backed out.---- "From Gloucester to Afghanistan: the making of a shoe bomber," Guardian, 03/05/05 Mark Honigsbaum and Vikram Dodd ; Posted on Friday, March 04, 2005 11:07:58 PM by Pikamax

DECEMBER 17?, 2001 - 2003 : (BADAT EMAILS HIS HANDLERS {See NIZAR TRBELSI} TO BACK OUT OF SUICIDE SHOEBOMBING PLOT, THEN ENROLLS AT THE CIK&G [WHICH SOUNDS AN AWFUL LT LIKE AL FUQRA'S "COLLEGE"] BUT QUITS AFTER 2 YRS -- See FINSBURY PARK CELL) on December 17 he emailed his handlers that he was pulling out and hid the explosives and detonator in his parents' house. ...After renouncing his part in the plot, Badat had enrolled at the moderate College of Islamic Knowledge and Guidance in Blackburn to train to become an imam. It was a totally different ideological environment to the Afghan terror camps. Confined to the college grounds, he studied the sayings of the prophet Muhammad but also learnt about other religions and citizenship.His choice of college may indicate that Badat was backing away from extremism and returning to the Islamic mainstream. "Everybody knew him as a quiet person, somebody dedicated to what he had to do. He was good at his studies," said college administrator Ahmad Talha.
But Badat did not stick the course. Instead he quit after two years, returning to his family and the Gloucester community. In the weeks and days leading up to his arrest on November 27 2003, Badat lead the traditional Ramadam recitals at the Masjid-E-Noor mosque. Dressed in flowing robes and sporting a long beard, he appeared concerned to set a good example to other young men in the community. But many did not swallow his attempt to cultivate a pious image, whispering about his time in Pakistan - a well-known gateway to Afghanistan and the terror camps.
---- "From Gloucester to Afghanistan: the making of a shoe bomber," Guardian, 03/05/05 Mark Honigsbaum and Vikram Dodd ; Posted on Friday, March 04, 2005 11:07:58 PM by Pikamax

DECEMBER 17, 2001 : (THE SCHEDULED DATE OF BADAT'S MISSED FLIGHT FROM AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS TO THE USA -- See FINSBURY PARK CELL, RICHARD REID, NIZAR TRABELSI) But on December 14 2001, three days before he was due to board a flight for United States, Mr Badat emailed his controller to say he had had a change of heart and backed out.
---- "From Gloucester to Afghanistan: the making of a shoe bomber," Guardian, 03/05/05 Mark Honigsbaum and Vikram Dodd ; Posted on Friday, March 04, 2005 11:07:58 PM by Pikamax

DECEMBER 2001 : (FRANCE : FUTURE SHOEBOMBER RICHARD REID STAYS IN PARIS for a FEW DAYS BEFORE BOARDING FLIGHT TO MIAMI) Reid spent several days in Paris before boarding a Miami-bound plane in December 2001 with explosives stuffed in his sneakers. Last year, Reid was sentenced to life in prison by a U.S. court for trying to blow up the flight.
One of the French suspects, Imam Kamel Lakhram, reportedly acknowledged to French authorities Reid had slept at his mosque in northern Paris.
Another, Ghumal Mastapha Rama, president of a Pakistani Islamic association, originally admitted meeting Reid in July 2001 before retracting his remarks, Le Parisien said. Rama is suspected of being the French representative of a banned Saudi foundation. Rama said originally two other men, Hassan El Cheguer and Hakim Mokhfi, had introduced him to Reid, the newspaper said.
--------- French wrap up terror probe (shoe bomber Richard Reid) Big News Network.com ^ | Tuesday 30th November, 2004 Posted on Saturday, December 04, 2004 5:11:23 AM by miltonim

DECEMBER 22, 2001 : (SHOEBOMBER RICHARD REID CAUGHT IN THE ACT) Mufti Muhammad Iltimas, a radical Islamic cleric who runs a madrasa in Bannu, a village near the border with Afghanistan. John Walker Lindh, the American charged with fighting alongside the Taliban, is believed to have attended Mr. Iltimas's religious school, and Pakistani officials say Richard C. Reid, a British subject and suspected Al Qaeda member arrested in December for trying to blow up a passenger jet with a bomb in his shoe, may also have attended the school. Mr. Iltimas was taken into custody last month [May 2002] during an American-Pakistani operation in the area, and was released the next day......---- Pakistan Says It Seized Americans Tied to Al Qaeda New York Times ^ | Thursday, June 13, 2002 | By DEXTER FILKINS
*******
DECEMBER 22, 2001 : (RICHARD REID ATTEMPTS TO MURDER 197 PEOPLE ABOARD AA FLIGHT FROM FRANCE TO MIAMI, FL -- See FINSBURY PARK MOSQUE/ LONDON CELL, TJ, ARMY OF MOHAMMED/JAISH-E-MUHAMMAD, DANNY PEARL) [Richard Reid] was overpowered by some of the 197 passengers and crew aboard the American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami, when he attempted to light the fuse to trigger explosives packed into his shoes. -------- "'Shoe Bomber conspirator' remanded," icNewcastle ^ | Thursday, December 04 2003
*******
DECEMBER 22, 2001 : (RICHARD REID) Reid had tried to ignite plastic explosives hidden in his shoes on American Airlines Flight 63. Prosecutors said there was enough plastic explosives in his shoes to blow a hole in the fuselage and kill all 197 people aboard. ...------ "BRITS FOIL PLOT TO BOMB U.S. JET," CBS/AP, LONDON, Dec. 3, 2003 Posted on Wednesday, December 03, 2003 7:28:59 PM by freeperfromnj
*********
...on December 22, 2001, Reid, of Bromley, Kent, boarded American Airlines flight 63 from Paris to Miami, intending to blow it up by detonating plastic explosives hidden in one of his shoes. As he tried to light the fuse he was spotted by a flight attendant and, following a violent struggle, was overpowered.
Just over a year later the young fanatic who had attended Finsbury Park mosque in London where Abu Hamza preached was sentenced to life in prison. . ...-----(Richard Reid) Held in darkness and paranoia," The Telegraph [UK] , GMT 02/12/2006
Posted on Saturday, December 02, 2006 8:19:37 PM by fanfan
**********
* Richard C. Reid : An al-Qaeda recruit who tried to blow up a trans-Atlantic jet with explosives in his shoes. wall Street Journal reporter Danny Pearl was investigating the case when he was murdered.
********
BRITISH and US intelligence officials believe the British citizen on American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami on 22 December was sent to check the destructive power of shoe bombs against civilian targets, the San Francisco Chronicle said yesterday. Senior British intelligence officials say there were indications that "more than a few, but less than a dozen" individuals might be preparing similar attacks in the near future, the newspaper said in an article written by a British investigative journalist, Simon Reeve, author of The New Jackals: Ramzi Yousef, Osama bin Laden and the Future of Terrorism.
The officials said they had found similarities in the shoe bomb device with a weapon developed by Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing, who plotted a series of attacks on US airliners in the mid-1990s. "There is a definite pattern here with Yousef's past attacks that we would be foolish to ignore," one intelligence official was quoted by Mr Reeve as saying. "They have tried this before and they are trying it again."
The crew and passengers of Flight 63 averted a disaster by jumping on London-born Richard Reid, who they alleged tried to set off explosives hidden in his shoes with a lighted match during the flight.
The FBI says Reid’s basketball shoes contained between eight and ten ounces of the explosive triacetone triperoxide, or TATP - dubbed "The Mother of Satan" by Palestinian militants, because its instability makes it dangerous to both the victims and bomb maker.
The TATP in Reid’s shoes was blended with an explosive called PETN, or pentaerythritol tetranitrate, which can be ignited with a normal cigarette lighter. PETN is a key ingredient of Semtex, the Czech-made military explosive used to down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.
"These bombs are sophisticated devices," the newspaper quoted a British intelligence official as saying. "They would have been difficult and dangerous to produce. Reid could not have done this himself - he would have trouble tying his own shoelaces. It seems we may have an expert bomb maker on the loose in Europe."
The FBI is trying to trace the money used by Reid who travelled to seven countries last year.
--------- "British bomber suspect was on trial run ," BY James Burnet , THE SCOTSMAN, Tue 8 Jan 2002 http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=24582002
********
The [ the Jan 7, 2002 San Francisco Chronicle ] article said Reid had told FBI agents that he contacted Dutch arms dealers via the internet and paid $1,800 for the explosives. But intelligence sources speculate that Reid obtained them from an al- Qaeda explosives expert in Amsterdam, who adapted the shoes in preparation for Reid’s attack.
FBI agents and British anti-terrorist officials have concluded that the shoe-bomb plot originated with the ideas of Yousef, an early al-Qaeda operative who poposed flying passenger jets into buildings. After instigating the 1993 WTC bombing, in which six people died and over 1,000 were injured, the British-educated Yousef was on the run from the FBI for nearly two years before being captured. He is serving a life sentence plus 240 years. As a fugitive Yousef trained other bin Laden terrorists in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Far East in the use of explosives and told them of a plan he code-named "Project Bojinka" - bojinka meaning "explosion" in Serbo-Croat - which used a form of shoe bomb.
--------- "British bomber suspect was on trial run ," BY James Burnet , THE SCOTSMAN, Tue 8 Jan 2002 http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=24582002