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From Gloucester to Afghanistan: the making of a shoe bomber Saajid Badat this week pleaded guilty to plotting to blow up a plane. What drove this quiet football fan to thoughts of terror? Mark Honigsbaum and Vikram Dodd Saturday March 5, 2005 The Guardian He seemed the model British Muslim citizen - a poster boy for integration whose knowledge of the Qu'ran and achievement at grammar school made Gloucester's close-knit Islamic community proud. When in November 2003 anti-terrorist police turned up at the terraced house in the Barton and Tredworth district of the city that Saajid Badat shared with his...

A terror suspect arrested last week has been charged with plotting a bomb attack with al Qaeda "shoe bomber" Richard Reid. Sajid Badat, 24, of Gloucester, was also charged with possessing explosives with the intent to endanger life under the Terrorism Act 2000. Badat, who was arrested on Thursday by Gloucest More follows...

The news last month that police had arrested Sajid Badat at his home in Gloucester, England, shook many Britons. The charges against him concerned his training with al-Qaida in Afghanistan and his possessing PETN explosives, the same substance would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid had tried to set off. Police believe Badat intended to carry off the very first suicide bombing in the United Kingdom. But not everyone was shaken by this news. Gloucester's Muslim community esteemed Badat too much to credit the charges. One admirer called him "a walking angel" and "the bright star of our mosque." Another described him...

LONDON (Reuters) - Security services have "undoubtedly" foiled planned terror attacks by al Qaeda followers in Britain and also probably across Europe, according to the head of the country's anti-terrorist force. Peter Clarke warned, however, there was no room for complacency in the race to stop extremists using skills and links forged in war zones such as Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya and Georgia from carrying out attacks around the world. "We are absolutely confident we have stopped a lot of terrorist activity. There would have been attacks," Clarke, head of Scotland Yard's Anti-Terrorist Branch, told Reuters in an interview. But "there...

LONDON (AFP) - Four men arrested in a vast anti-terrorist sweep by British police were charged with seeking to fund terrorist activities and make bombs and firearms, police said. The four, aged between 23 and 26, were to appear in court on Tuesday to be formally charged, a police spokesman said. "The charges against them relate to allegedly obtaining and possessing money to fund terrorism or possessing articles or material which provide instruction or training to make firearms or explosives," the spokesman said. "The offences are alleged to have taken place on or before December 2." He said two of...

(CBS/AP) Sources tell CBS News that British police have foiled a plot to blow up an airliner en route from London's Heathrow Airport to the U.S. Sajid Badat, a Pakistani Briton, was arrested in his hometown of Gloucester last week during a series of police raids across Britain. Badat, 24, was charged Wednesday with conspiring with Richard Reid, the so-called "shoe bomber," and "others unknown" to cause an explosion "likely to endanger life" between September 1, 2001 and November 28, 2003. He is also charged with two lesser offenses of "possessing explosives." Shortly after the arrest, Home Secretary David Blunkett...

British Muslim Sajid Badat has been remanded in custody after appearing at Bow Street magistrates court in London charged with conspiring with shoe bomber Richard Reid to cause a life-threatening explosion. Badat, 24, of St James Street, Gloucester, was arrested by anti-terrorist police last week in the first of a series of raids nationwide. Badat has been charged with unlawfully and maliciously conspiring with Richard Reid and others to cause an explosion, and two further charges of possessing explosive materials, Scotland Yard said. Reid, 29, who tried to blow up a transatlantic jet with explosives hidden in his footwear, began...