Burning Car In Airport Terminal (Glasgow)

Sky News ^

[UKrepublican]

Burning Car In Airport Terminal Updated: 15:59, Saturday June 30, 2007

A car has driven into the terminal building at Glasgow airport and caught fire. More follows...

[UKrepublican]

Strong words. Just what we want!

[TexKat]

One year on, 7/11 plotters at large

[TexKat]

ANU academics say AFP desperate to keep terror suspect in jail

A justice expert has criticised the investigations into Mohamed Haneef, saying police are struggling to find a link between the doctor and the failed British bomb plots.

The 27 year old Indian doctor has been detained by the Australian Federal Police for more than a week without charge, after being caught while trying to leave the country.

Brett Bowden from the Centre for International Governance and Justice at the ANU said the police are becoming desperate.

Dr Bowden said the length of time Dr Haneef has been detained could be a sign the AFP doesn’t have any concrete evidence linking him to the attacks.

“Nine days seems an awful long time to be honest, as I understand it the police have gone back to his apartment to gather more forensic evidence, whether that means they didn’t do a thorough enough job the first time around, or that they’re getting desperate, you’d hope that if they’d found something to charge him with they would’ve done it by now” he said.

http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/07/12/1976406.htm?section=australia

[TexKat]

AFP search Qld Health building in Haneef probe: report

[USF]

Bump

[TexKat]

The Face of the New Global Jihad

In one of the first comprehensive non-governmental studies of its kind, Dr. Sageman collected data on 400 terrorists, focusing on those targeting the West as opposed to their own governments. He divided them into four large clusters: the old leadership of Al Qaeda; the Magreb Arabs (people from North Africa, Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria), including the second generation who grew up in Western Europe and whose parents come from those regions; the “core” Arabs (Egyptians, Saudis, Jordanians, Yemenis and Kuwatis); and Southeast Asians (Indonesians). The results, he says were surprising.

“It turns out that the terrorists are very much like us,” he says. “They’re not really all that different.” In a 2004 speech, Sageman explained, “Most people think that terrorism comes from poverty, broken families, ignorance, immaturity, lack of family or occupational responsibilities, weak minds susceptible to brainwashing — the sociopath, the criminals, the religious fanatic, or, in this country, some believe they’re just plain evil.”

But Sageman found that three quarters of his sample came from the upper or middle class. The vast majority — 90 percent — came from caring, intact families. 63 percent had gone to college, as compared with the five to six percent typical in the third world. “These are the best and brightest of their societies in many ways,” he says.

The terrorists he studied were not, for example, “the Palestinian 14-year-olds we see on the news,” but they joined the jihad at an average age of 26. Three-quarters were professionals or semi-professionals. They are engineers, architects, and civil engineers. Bin Laden himself is a civil engineer, his right-hand man Ayman al-Zawahiri is a physician, and the 9/11 lead hijacker Mohammed Atta was an architect.

+ Absence of a “Profile”

Whatever commonalities there might appear to be, Sageman says, there is no psychological common denominator among the terrorists he studied, aside from their link to the jihad. “There’s really no profile, just similar trajectories to joining the jihad and that most of these men were upwardly and geographically mobile,” he says. “Because they were the best and brightest, they were sent abroad to study. They came from moderately religious, caring, middle-class families. They’re skilled in computer technology. They spoke three, four, five, six languages including three predominant Western languages: German, French and English.”

But according to Sageman, despite their intellectual acuity, his subjects were ultimately ill-prepared for life in the West. He traced their transition to radicalism back to a universal human motivation — loneliness. “When they became homesick, they did what anyone would and tried to congregate with people like themselves, whom they would find at mosques,” he explains. “They drifted towards the mosque, not because they were religious, but because they were seeking friends.”

These cliques often formed in the vicinity of mosques that had a militant script advocating violence to overthrow the corrupt regimes, thereby transforming these alienated young Muslims into terrorists.

“It’s all really group dynamics,” he told an audience last year. “You cannot understand the 9/11 type of terrorism from individual characteristics.” Sageman points to the Madrid bombers, who blew themselves up when the police surrounded their apartment, as a perfect example: “Seven terrorists sharing an apartment and one saying, ‘Tonight we’re all going to go, guys.’ You can’t betray your friends, and so you go along. Individually, they probably would not have done it.”

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/front/etc/today.html

[TexKat]

I am not a terrorist, says arrested doctor

Hedley Thomas
July 13, 2007

GOLD Coast Hospital terror suspect Mohamed Haneef has told Australian Federal Police agents of his family ties and telephone contact with accused suicide bomber Kafeel Ahmed, and revealed how they shared a house in the British city of Liverpool for up to two years.
More National security stories
But The Australian has discovered that the AFP has been unable so far to identify any incriminating evidence against Dr Haneef to justify charges under the Crimes Act, despite executing several search warrants in a massive top-priority investigation over the past 10 days.

Current documents circulated by senior public servants in the Howard Government show the AFP acknowledges that while it has scant or no evidence against Dr Haneef, agents still suspect he has “provided support to the terrorist organisation responsible for terrorist acts in London and/or Glasgow during 29 and 30 June, 2007”. Dr Haneef, who insists he is not a terrorist, is a second cousin of Mr Ahmed, who was involved in the failed attempt to blow up Glasgow airport with a burning Jeep Cherokee.

The attack followed a failed bombing attempt in London days earlier and led to the arrest of seven suspects in Britain - many of them Middle Eastern-trained doctors - and Dr Haneef in Brisbane.

Revelations in the documents of the lack of evidence against Dr Haneef, who has been held without charge since his arrest on July 2 at Brisbane International Airport, will fuel calls from lawyers and critics of the Howard Government’s tough anti-terrorism laws for his release.

The AFP has been delaying further formal questioning of Dr Haneef, 27, because without incriminating evidence, which officers still hope to obtain from a vast volume of material, they cannot test his knowledge.

The documents known to The Australian show that seized materials include 1636 photographs, a 40-gigabyte hard drive that belongs to Dr Haneef, an 80-gigabyte hard drive belonging to his friend and fellow Gold Coast doctor Mohammed Asif Ali, two mobile telephones, a personal digital assistant, two 128-megabyte flash drives, a Cybershot digital camera, documents including email addresses, clothing, computer discs, a global positioning system and phone packaging.

“Investigations are complicated by the need to interrogate these computer hard drives - significant resources have been committed to this analysis resulting in approximately 95 per cent of material being examined to date,” the documents say.

The AFP is expected to argue in the Brisbane Magistrates Court today that Dr Haneef’s detention without charge should continue for a further 72 hours as he “appears to have had significant contact with people in the UK who appear to have been involved in the terrorist acts”.

“If Mr Haneef was released from detention, it would be more difficult for authorities to effectively monitor his movements and who he communicates with, either in Australia or overseas.

“If he was to communicate with people who were either involved in or associated with the terrorist acts, he could take steps to have potentially incriminating evidence that has not been located destroyed; and/or organise for others to assist him to provide innocent explanations for potentially incriminating evidence,” the documents say.

But they disclose that investigations here and overseas “could take 14 more days to complete”.

The documents, prepared with information from AFP agent Adam Simms, a special member of the “Joint Counter-Terrorism Team”, reveal that when first interviewed within hours of his arrest and detention, Dr Haneef told the AFP of his most recent contact with Kafeel Ahmed, a known perpetrator of the Glasgow airport bombing.

Ahmed, a radical extremist and Dr Haneef’s second cousin, remains in a critical condition with severe burns from the attack.

Dr Haneef, whose family has repeatedly protested his innocence, told the AFP that the contact occurred earlier this year in an internet chat when Ahmed “congratulated him on his job” as a registrar at the Gold Coast Hospital, which employed him in September last year.

In relation to Dr Haneef’s disclosures, the documents state: “He is not very close to UK Suspect 1 (Ahmed). He occasionally chats with him online, the last time being about March/April 2007 when UK Suspect 1 congratulated him on his job.

“Whilst in the UK, he resided with Suspects 1 and 2, (Kafeel Ahmed and his brother, Sabeel Ahmed) at 13 Bentley Road, Liverpool. He has had ongoing contact with UK Suspect 2. He visited Cambridge University in June/July 2004 and in November 2004 to visit his cousin, Suspect 1, who was studying a PhD in engineering at the university.

“He had never heard of the other UK suspects, although he knew a person from Cambridge with the same first name, Bilal, as the person charged in relation to the terrorist attacks (Bilal Abdulla).

“When (Dr Haneef) left the UK, he left behind his ‘O2’ (mobile phone) SIM card, which was to expire in August 2006. He stated that UK Suspect 2 wanted it as he wanted to access the extra-minute deal offered by ‘O2’ at that time. He corresponded with UK Suspect 2 during online chats, the most recent ... following the birth of his child (26 June 2007) when UK Suspect 2 contacted him to congratulate him.

“On 2 July 2007, he arranged for an Australian person of interest (Dr Asif Ali) to attend his (Gold Coast) unit and collect his laptop computer, car and some jewellery for safe-keeping ... (that day) he was attempting to travel to Bangalore where his wife had recently given birth.”

The documents show the AFP have “reason to believe Mr Haneef provided (Dr Ali) with the computer to conceal evidence relevant to the investigation into the terrorist acts in (Britain)”.

The AFP believes it has obtained information from the seized computers that suggests “a further possible link between Mr Haneef and another UK suspect, namely Bilal Abdulla, who was charged with conspiracy to cause explosions in relation to the terrorist acts pursuant to the UK’s Terrorism Act 2006”.

The documents show the AFP also suspects that “Mr Haneef has not been entirely truthful in relation to the information he has provided police in relation to his attempt to leave Australia”.

The documents disclose that while British authorities have been provided with “Australian holdings on Mr Haneef for cross-analysis in an attempt to identify commonalities with the UK investigation”, the volume of data in both countries will take “a significant period to analyse”.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,22065863-601,00.html

[TexKat]

Police free woman in car bomb plot case

A woman arrested in connection with the alleged London and Glasgow car bomb plots has been released without charge. Marwa Asha, 27, was arrested with her husband, Mohammed Asha, 26, of Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, on the M6 motorway in Cheshire on June 30. The arrests came hours after a burning jeep was driven into the Glasgow airport terminal.

The attempted attack followed the discovery of two car bombs in London that had failed to detonate.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said the woman was released at 7.40pm yesterday.

Muhammad Haneef, an Indian doctor who was arrested in Australia on July 2 in connection with the attacks, may also be released today, according to The Australian newspaper.

Australian police today dropped their application to extend the detention of Mr Haneef, who has been held for 11 days, leaving them 12 hours to question him before he must either be charged or released.

They have found no evidence to charge him, according to The Australian.

more...

[TexKat]

Report: No Evidence on Indian Doctor

Australian police suspect an Indian doctor has links to last month’s failed bomb attacks in Britain but have found no evidence to charge him with a crime, according to news reports Friday.

Despite a massive investigation, authorities have failed to uncover any evidence with which to charge Muhammad Haneef, 27, but do not want to release him because they suspect he “provided support to the terrorist organization responsible for the terrorist acts in London and/or Glasgow,” according to government documents cited by The Australian, one of Australia’s most respected newspapers.

“If Mr. Haneef was released from detention it would be more difficult for authorities to effectively monitor his movements and who he communicates with, either here or overseas,” the newspaper quoted the documents as saying.

The Australian Federal Police refused to comment on the report, saying the “investigation is ongoing and it is not appropriate to comment any further.”

Haneef, an Indian national who emigrated to Australia from Britain last year, is a distant cousin of Kafeel and Sabeel Ahmed, two suspects held in Britain in connection with two bomb-laden cars found in London on June 29 and an attack on a Glasgow airport the next day.

Haneef told police of his family ties to the Ahmed brothers, with whom he shared a house in the British city of Liverpool for up to two years. He has also allegedly acknowledged having extensive phone conversations with Kafeel Ahmed, but denies any link to the failed attacks, the newspaper said.

The New York Times also reported on its Web site early Friday that Australian police have established links between Haneef and the other suspects, but they’re not strong enough to support charges.

But theTimes said that Australian investigators, whom it did not further identify, as well as police affidavits viewed by the newspaper have offered the first official details about the contacts between Haneef and some of the London suspects.

The Times reported that investigators were trying to differentiate those contacts that are honest relationships from more sinister ones.

The Times said that in the affidavits, the Australian police say that Haneef visited Sabeel Ahmed in Cambridge, England, twice in 2004; and that he had corresponded with Ahmed “during on-line chats,” the last time earlier this year.

Haneef has been held without charge since July 2 when he was arrested in the eastern Australian city of Brisbane while trying to leave the country on a one-way ticket to India.

Haneef claims he was rushing to leave Australia to visit his wife and newborn baby in Bangalore, India, but the documents reportedly said officials believe “Mr. Haneef has not been entirely truthful in relation to information he has provided to his attempt to leave Australia.”

Under Australia’s tough counterterrorism laws, authorities can continue to hold Haneef with the permission of a magistrate. All court hearings related to the case are closed.

Federal police are expected to return to the Brisbane Magistrates Court in Queensland state on Friday to request a further 72 hour detention.

Police plan to use the extra time to continue their examination of materials seized in raids on Haneef’s home and workplace, including two computer hard-drives, two mobile phones, two flash drives, a camera and more than 1,600 photographs, the newspaper said.

On Thursday in London, Marwa Asha, 27, the only woman arrested by police investigating the botched London and Glasgow terrorist attacks was released without charge, British police said.

She was arrested with her husband, Dr. Mohammed Asha, 26, of Newcastle-under-Lyme on the M6 highway in Cheshire on June 30. Police declined to provide any other information about her case.

She and her husband were among the eight suspects detained after police found two unexploded car bombs in central London on June 29 and two men crashed a Jeep Cherokee loaded with gas canisters and gasoline into the Glasgow airport the next day.

The other suspects who remain in custody or under police guard include Kafeel Ahmed, who is in a Scottish hospital with critical burns after allegedly ramming the Jeep into the airport. His alleged accomplice in the Jeep, Bilal Abdullah, is a 27-year-old doctor born in Britain and raised in Iraq.

Sabeel Ahmed, Haneef, and two other suspects being questioned in London that are unidentified trainee doctors, aged 25 and 28.

http://asia.news.yahoo.com/070713/ap/d8qbfm4g0.html

[TexKat]

Husband guilty but wife freed in terrorism trial

Fri Jul 13, 2007 3:15PM BST LONDON (Reuters) - A British man was convicted on a terrorism-related charge on Friday but his Dutch wife walked free after the jury rejected evidence purporting to show she had urged him to become a "martyr" for Islam.

Yassin Nassari, 28, was found guilty of possessing documents likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism, but cleared of a graver charge of possessing articles for terrorist purposes.

After a six-week trial at the Old Bailey, his Dutch wife Bouchra El-Hor, 24, was acquitted of failing to disclose information to police that she knew or believed could have prevented Nassari from committing a terrorist act.

The charges related to files on the hard drive of Nassari's computer -- including plans for building a missile -- which were found when the couple were arrested at Luton airport in May 2006.

PIVOTAL TO THE CASE

Pivotal to the case against El-Hor was a letter from her to Nassari in which she wrote she was proud of him and happy that Allah had granted him the chance to be a martyr in the cause of jihad, or holy war.

She told him that jihad was "compulsory" and she wished she could accompany him. But the two must "separate for the sake of Allah" and she would raise their young son to be a righteous Muslim and "follow in his father's footsteps".

Asked by her defence counsel if this meant she wanted her son to become a suicide bomber, El-Hor replied: "Of course not." She told the jury the letter was a work of imagination, based on a story, and had never been meant for her husband to see.

Evidence discovered on Nassari's computer included jihadist material and instructions on how to build rocket-propelled missiles of a type used by the Palestinian group Hamas, together with information on explosives such as land mines, TNT and nitro-glycerine.

Nassari told the court he had lent his computer to another man while in Syria, and was unaware of the files.

It was the fourth terrorism trial in just over a week to conclude in Britain, where security services say militant Islamists pose a continuous and growing threat.

The spate of cases coincides with investigations into three failed car bombings in London and Scotland late last month, which authorities suspect may be linked to al Qaeda.

[TexKat]

Detainee doctor ‘in a hurry’ to leave

July 14, 2007 01:27am

DETAINED Gold Coast doctor Mohamed Haneef told an associate he was in a hurry to leave Australia shortly after the foiled bombing attacks in the UK.

Dr Haneef made no mention of visiting his ailing wife and newborn child in an email, Fairfax newspapers reported today.

The revelation comes as the federal police yesterday withdrew a request for an extension of time to question Dr Haneef, opting instead to recommence his interrogation.

An affidavit presented to Brisbane Magistrates Court says federal agents suspect the doctor “has not been entirely truthful about his departure”.

Dr Haneef told authorities he was on his way to Bangalore to visit his wife, who had just given birth, after being arrested with a one-way ticket at Brisbane airport on July 2.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a source told the Herald Dr Haneef sent an email after the bombings to an associate saying “he had to leave in a hurry”.

“He made no mention of his sick wife or child,” the source said.

However, counter-terrorism officials say the contents of the email are not enough to lay charges with, and much hinged on the interview, which began about 3pm yesterday.

Police have 12 hours to question Dr Haneef before they must either release him or charge him.

The doctor is related to two men detained in the UK over the plot, Sabeel and Kafeel Ahmed, who allegedly drove a Jeep Cherokee into Glasgow airport.

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,22072482-5001028,00.html

[Fred Nerks]

thanks.

[Fred Nerks]

Haneef to be charged under Terrorism Act
July 14, 2007 - 7:49AM
Source: ABC
A Gold Coast-based doctor believed to be linked to the recent UK bomb plots will be charged today under the Federal Government’s Terrorism Act.

Dr Mohammed Haneef has been in Australian Federal Police (AFP) custody since his arrest at the Brisbane International Airport almost a fortnight ago.

Yesterday afternoon AFP officers dropped a court application for more time to investigate whether Dr Haneef is linked to the failed terrorism plots in the UK, and a 12-hour questioning period began.

The 27-year-old’s lawyer, Peter Russo, has spent all night at federal police headquarters where his client has been interviewed.

This morning he said Dr Haneef would be charged today with a terrorism offence and has been transfered to the Brisbane watch-house.

He said his client is very upset by the news and will apply for bail.

[TexKat]

Haneef charged with supporting terrorist organisation

Melbourne, July 14 (PTI): Dashing his hopes of being released, Australian police today charged Mohammed Haneef with charges of supporting a terrorist organisation, 12 days after the Indian doctor was detained in connection with a failed UK terror plot.

Police had yesterday decided not to seek extension of the 27-year-old Gold Coast Hospital registrar's detention leading to hoped that he might be released.

Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Mick Keelty said in Canberra that police will oppose bail. If found guilty Haneef faces a maximum of 15 years in jail.

"The allegation is that Haneef provided support to a terrorist group," TV Channels quoted Keelty as saying.

"The specific allegation regards recklessness rather than intention-- the allegation being that he was reckless about some of the support he provided to that (UK) group in particular the provision of his SIM card for the use of the group."

The mammoth and difficult investigation involving about 300 policemen and lawyers was being supported by the London Metropolitan Police and the counter-terrorism command in Britain, he said.

A vast quantity of material which can fill 3,600 "four-draw filing cabinets" has been seized by the police, he said.

Meanwhile, Haneef's lawyer Peter Russo spent the whole of all last night at the federal police headquarters where his client has been interviewed.

Haneef to apply for bail

He said his client is very upset by the news of him being charged and would apply for bail, according to ABC radio.

Keelty praised the public for making widespread use of the National Security Hotline during the course of the investigation. But he was critical of some aspects of media reporting.

"I can assure you that the joint investigation by the Queensland police, the Australian Federal Police and the West Australian Police and other policing organisations around the country has been driven by the evidence, driven by the facts and driven by the inquiries emerging both out of Australia and out of the UK," he said.

Federal police had worked closely with the Indian High Commission to ensure Haneef continued to have access to his family in Bangalore.

"The requirement here-- in this investigation-- was to move through as quickly as possible a considerable volume of material," he said.

Keelty has defended the length of time it took investigators to charge Haneef.

He said it was a question of balancing human rights and the needs of the AFP to establish the facts.

"The detention of Haneef, whilst attracting considerable media attention, is something that the organisation and certainly myself believed was necessary in order to afford everybody the best opportunity to understand what has occurred," he said.

Keelty said the AFP has had more than 300 lawyers and police working on the investigation, who had to examine a considerable amount of material.

Federal Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd said he pleased with the the way Australian Federal Police handled the case.

"My message to the Australian people is this: that when it comes to terrorism, terrorists and those who support terrorist organisations, this country must continue to adopt a hardline uncompromising stance-- there are no alternatives," Rudd said.

According to 'The Age' Haneef was charged about 7am (local time) after questioning that started at 4am and continued in hour-long blocks.

Haneef was detained at Brisbane Airport on Monday last week as he was about to board a flight to India less than 24 hours after federal police were tipped off by their British counterparts about his alleged links to the attempted car bombings in London and Glasgow.

Haneef's wife says charges baseless

Disappointed and angry at the Australian police charging her husband Mohammed Haneef with supporting a terrorist organisation, his wife Firdous today said the grounds on which he was being held in detention were "totally baseless and unfair".

"Why did the Australian Police wait for 12 days to press these charges against him. The police was aware from day one that he had left his SIM card with his cousins (Sabeel and Kafeel Ahmed, two other suspects in the UK terror plot)," Firdous said.

"They (the Australian police) could not find anything substantial against him (Haneef). Hence, they have charged him with this," she said as hopes of release of her husband gave way to gloom.

The prospects of Haneef's release had brightened yesterday after the Australian police dropped a request to extend the detention of Haneef who is in custody for 12 days without charge in the failed UK terror plot.

The hopes were shortlived as the Australian police today charged Haneef with providing support to a terrorist organisation, saying he "recklessly" gave his mobile phone SIM card to people planning the car bomb attacks.

"I was expecting them to release him," Firdous said, adding, "but they have decided to frame these charges after such a long delay.

"Was there anything wrong in his having a communication with his cousins (Sabeel and Kafeel)," she asked.

[USF]

Thanks for all the updates.

(I’m still following this thread)

[UKrepublican]

like wise.

[TexKat]

UK terror plot: Two Indian doctors charged

Mohamed Haneef has been charged with providing support to a terrorist organisation. Photo: AP

Haneef breaks down in front of lawyer

This undated photo made available on Sunday, July 8, 2007, by B. R. Ambedkar Medical College, BRAMC in Bangalore, India, shows Indian doctor Sabeel Ahmed. Ahmed, 26, who was arrested in Liverpool in connection with the foiled terror attacks in London and Glasgow on June 29 and 30. The records showed Ahmed graduated from the college. (AP Photo/B.R.Ambedkar Medical College, HO)

Indian doctor faces U.K. terror charges

[Fred Nerks]

http://www.bigpond.com/news/breaking/content/20070715/1978794.asp

AFP tight-lipped on Perth raid
July 15, 2007 - 7:00AM
Source: ABC

Officers from the AFP and WA Police removed items which were placed in evidence bags.
Photo: ABC
Australian Federal Police (AFP) and WA Police have spent the night examining a house in the Perth western suburb of Subiaco which is believed to be connected to an investigation into alleged links between terrorism and foreign trained doctors.

The AFP are refusing to say why they raided the house on Coghlan Road yesterday afternoon, only that their search warrant was part of an ongoing investigation.

Officers from the AFP and WA Police removed items which were placed in evidence bags.

They also searched a car.

[Fred Nerks]

http://abc.net.au/news/photos/2007/07/15/1978793.htm

Court sketch of Mohammed Haneef Source: ABC TV Published: Sunday, July 15, 2007 6:54 AEST

[USF]

Bump