On Monday September 8 at WoolwichCrown Court in south London,three Muslims were found guilty of conspiracy to murder. The three men had beenamong eight individuals who had been on trial since April 3 this year.

The charges against the eight menconcerned an alleged plot to blow seven US-bound planes out of the sky over theAtlantic. This plot had been monitored bypolice and MI5 for about a year before arrests were made in August 2006. Thesurveillance operation was code-named "Operation Overt". In August2006 thirteen people had faced various charges related to thealleged plane-bombing plot, but only eight eventually faced trial.

Though the recent trial hasresulted in some convictions, there was disappointment that the jury failed tobe satisfied that the plot to blow up planes was adequately proved in court.

The three men who were convictedof conspiracy on Monday were Abdulla Ahmed Ali, Assad Sarwar and TanvirHussain. On July 14 the same individuals had admittedconspiring to cause explosions, even though they had denied intending to setoff explosions on planes. Ali, Sarwar, Hussain and two other defendants,Ibrahim Savant and Umar Islam, had additionally admitted in July to conspiringto cause a public nuisance. This "public nuisance" would have beenthe release of videos that they had made, in which they appeared to be makingfarewell speeches prior to setting off bombs.

The police who had placed the suspects undersurveillance prior to their arrests in August 2006, and also the prosecution,make no secrets of their disappointment at the results. The combined costs ofthe investigation, which involved US and Pakistani intelligence, and the trialhave come to 10 million pounds ($ million).

Andy Hayman was the MetropolitanPolice's assistant commissioner for special operations until he resigned inDecember 2007. He said: "This was one of our strongest cases - there willhave to be an intensive debrief. But now is not the time for that, now is thetime to prepare for retrials."

The plot outlined by theprosecution in the recent trial had been led in Britain by Abdulla Ahmed Ali, who sometimes went by the name "Ahmed AliKhan". The "farewell videos" had been made in his apartment at386, Forest Roadin Walthamstow, northeast London.Though the jury failed to agree on the issue of there being a specific plot toblow up planes, the conviction of the three men on charges of conspiracy tomurder showed that they were convinced that the bomb plot was real. The"failure" of the trial appears to stem from issues of technicalities.The motives of the three men who were found guilty on Monday were clearlyperceived to be murderous.

The videosthat had been produced in Ali's apartment were played to the jury. These showedthe hatred that the main defendants had to the West. Ali's apartment had beenbugged with listening devices by the police, who heard the speeches being madefor the videos during their surveillance.

Abdulla Ahmed Ali, who acted asthe group's Londonleader, tried to copy the hand gestures used by Mohammed Sidique Khan in his"farewell video". Lacking Khan's skills incommunication, Ali's efforts are clumsy, even amateur. Yet his words leave nodoubt as to his feelings about the country into which he was born: "...And also I'm doing this because of therewards, the big rewards that Allah has promised us - we'll step on his pathand Inshallah (Allah wiling) become martyred and the best amongst us is in theworld is the guarantee of Jannah (Heaven) for myself and those that are closeto me. And on top of this, it's to punish and humiliate the Kuffaar(non-Muslims), and to teach them a lesson they will never forget - is to tellthem that the we - the Muslims - are a people of honor - we are a people of'Izza (domination over non-Muslims). We're not cowards, and enough is enough.We have warned you so many times to get out of our lands, and leave us alone.And you have persisted, in trying to humiliate us, kill us, and destroy us -Sheikh Osama warned you many times to leave our lands or you will be destroyed.And now the time has come for you to be destroyed. You have nothing but toexpect but floods of martyrdom operations, a volcano of anger and revenge eruptingamongst your capital so yes - taste that which you have... made us taste for along time. And you will build the fruits that you have sown."

Of the eight men whose trial hadstarted on April 3, only one man was found not guilty of taking part in anyconspiracy. This individual is Mohammad Gulzar. Other individuals admittedconspiracy to cause a public nuisance by creating videos threatening bombattacks. These were Arafat Waheed Khan, Waheed Zaman, Ibrahim Savant and UmarIslam (who had been known as Brian Young before he converted to Islam).

Ibrahim Savant said in his video:"I have participated within thisblessed raid for.. upon the enemies of Islam for several reasons - I havesacrificed my life cheaply, within the sake of Allah noticing myself from thelife the trials and tribulations but now will fulfill a covenant and promisewith Allah almighty - and to make his deen (way of faith) reign supreme."

Umar Islam was a convert toIslam. He had formerly been known as Brian Young. He came from a West-Indianfamily. He started his video speech with passion, but halfway through began toread from a piece of paper in front of him, stumbling over certain words.

His speech included thefollowing: "We are doing this inorder to gain the pleasure of our lord Allah Subhanna wa Ta'ala (glorified andexalted) as Allah Subhanna wa Ta'ala loves those who strive in his path. AndAllah Subhanna wa Ta'ala loves the mujahideen. And Allah Subhanna wa Ta'alaloves us to die and kill in his path. And anyone who tries to deny this thenread the Koran and will not be able to deny this, because this is the words inthe Koran and the words of Allah Subhanna wa Ta'ala - and we will not leavethis path until you leave our lands and until you feel what we are feeling (helooks down at script and reads) This is revenge.. for the actions of the USA in theMuslim lands, and their accomplices, such as the British and the Jews."

"This is a warning to the non-believers that if they do not leave ourlands there are many more like us and many more like me, ready to strike untilthe law of Allah Subhanna wa Ta'ala is established on this earth. To all thenon-believers, to all the non-Muslims let it be known that you can never win inthis war. never can you win in this war. Even if it seems that you are winning,because of your military strength know that we count it as a victory, as longas we remain steadfast, fighting jihad against you. Know that without doubtthat your dead are in Hellfire while the Muslims who die, due to your attacks,will be in the Paradise insha- Allah (by thewill of Allah)."

Liquid Explosives

Because the jury failed to agreethat a specific plot to attack aircraft had been made by the accused, therewere calls for restrictions on liquids to be lifted. Currently only containersholding 100 ml or less of fluid are allowed onto UK flights. Virgin Atlantic is now urgingfor a review of safety procedures, and even the British government's Ministryof Transport is considering lifting the restrictions on carrying liquids ontoflights, coming into force next year.

The threat of liquid explosivesis real. One Japanese businessman, Haruki Ikegami, had been blown into twopieces on an airplane flight from Manilaon December 11, 1994. He died after terrorist Ramzi Yousef left a small devicecontaining liquid explosives under the seat that Mr Ikegami would sit in.Yousef had planned the WorldTrade Centerbombing of February 26, 1993, which killed six people.

The killing of Mr Ikegami hadbeen a test-run for a plot which had been designed by Yousef andKhalid Shaikh Mohammed (who would later plan 9/11). This plot was called Operation Bojinka and included a plan to useliquid explosives to bomb 12 US-bound planes while over the Pacific in lateJanuary 1995. Details of the plot were found in an apartment in Manila. Ramzi Yousef andtwo other men were found guilty of the Bojinka plot on September 5, 1996.

In August 2006, the notion of aplot to blow up a plane using liquid explosives was certainly plausible. Daysafter the arrests of 24 people in Britain,Jamestown revealed that recipes for liquidexplosives were proliferating on Islamist websites.

Only a small explosion is enoughto cause a pressurized aircraft cabin to rupture. On November 24, 2005 an Algerian who calledhimself Abbas Boutrab was found guilty of having information "for apurpose connected with the commission, preparation or instigation of an act ofterrorism". Boutrab (almost certainly not his real name) had downloadeddetails of a small device and copied it onto 25 compact discs. On December 24, 2005, Boutrab was jailed for sixyears.

An explosives expert from theFBI, Donald Sachtleben, had testified at Boutrab's trial. He had made threetest bombs. The mixture for these could be disguised in a bottle of babypowder. A detonator could be provided by a battery from a CD player. Sachtlebensaid that "a person of average intelligence and average mechanicalskills" could create the device. In a pressurized cabin, he said, it would"more than likely...cause catastrophic failure".

In the Walthamstow apartmentowned by Abdulla Ahmed Ali there were several empty plastic bottles of softdrinks. The prosecution had maintained during the trial that Ali andaccomplices had intended to refill the bottles with explosives. According tothe argument of lead prosecutor Peter Wright, the explosive fluid would havebeen detonated with HMTD, which would have been hidden in hollowed-out AAbatteries. The power to ignite the HMTD would have come from a wire, or aflash bulb from a throwaway camera.

HMTD(Hexamethylene triperoxide diamine) is only stable when pure. Home-made HMTD israrely of this quality and can easily combust.

The explosive mixture itselfwould have been made mainly from hydrogen peroxide, a substance that is easilyavailable, and was used in the Londonbombings of 7/7, 2005 - killing 52 innocent people - and also in the mixturesthat failed to detonate a fortnight later, on July 21, 2005.

In the recent trial, it was saidthat surveillance of Assad Sarwar, one of the three men convicted of plottingmurder, showed him taking empty hydrogen peroxide bottles to a recyclingcenter. Sarwar, who lived in High Wycombe,Buckinghamshire, stored six of the "suicide videos" in his garage. Hebought much of the bomb-making material. He had hidden a suitcase in Kings Wood in High Wycombe.When this was eventually retrieved on August 15, 2006, it was found to containmaterials for manufacturing explosive devices.

Dr Sidney Alford, an explosivesspecialist, was commissioned by the BBC's Panoramadocumentary series to show how dangerous a liquid-explosive device could be. DrAlford followed the manufacturing procedures explained in the trial. A smallsports drink bottle was filled with the hydrogen peroxide=based liquidexplosive. After this, a powdered drink concentrate called "Tang" wasadded to give realistic color to the fluid. The bottle was placed next to thewall of an airplane fuselage which the BBC had retrieved from a scrap merchant.The ensuing explosion blows a hole in the fuselage. The footage can be viewedon video here. Dr Alford explained that if this hadhappened in flight in a pressurized cabin, the damage would have been fargreater.

It has been argued that the US had urged the Britishauthorities to make arrests before they had enough evidence to clearly prove incourt the intentions of the alleged plane-bomb plotters. The jury at WoolwichCrown Court, after 50 hours of deliberation, failed to find conclusively thatplanes were the target for the bottle-bombs.

On July 14, 2008, Assad Sarwar, Tanvir Hussain andAbdulla Ahmed Ali admitted plotting to set off bombs at Heathrow airport, butdenied that they had intended to kill anyone. One of the main reasons that thejury failed to find sufficient evidence for a plane-bombing plot was because notickets had been purchased at the time of the arrests. Two of the accused hadstill been waiting for their passports in August 2006.

Other targets had apparently also been considered byAbdulla Ahmed Ali and his associates - these included power stations, a gaspipeline, and the national electricity grid. Such plans bear similarities tothose hatched by the Operation Crevice plotters.

The failure to successfullyconvict in a case that possibly represented the most ambitious and potentiallydeadly terror plot in Britain'shistory used up time as well as financial resources. As Philip Johnston wrotein the Telegraph newspaper: "More than 200 mobile phones were seized, together with 400 computersand a total of 8,000 CDs, DVDs and computer disks, containing 6,000 gigabytesof data. Nearly 70 homes, businesses and open spaces were searched."

Rewind to August 10, 2006

The alleged plot to blow up planeswith liquid explosives burst onto the world's press on the morning of Thursday,August 10, 2006. Arrests had been made fromlate Wednesday and continued even as then Home Secretary John Reid announced:"Overnight the police, with the fullknowledge of ministers, have carried out a major counter-terrorism operation todisrupt what we believe to be a major threat to the UK and internationalpartners. The police, acting with the Security Service MI5, are investigatingan alleged plot to bring down a number of aircraft through mid-flightexplosions, causing a considerable loss of life."

Abdulla Ahmed Ali and AssadSarwar were the first to be apprehended. They were arrested at a car park inWalthamstow. Ali had with him a memory stick. This contained details which hehad gathered from an internet cafe concerning flights to NorthAmerica. Though Ali maintained these flight details concerned apossible holiday, the prosecutors at the trial were convinced these were thetargets. The flights were all scheduled to leave Heathrow's Terminal 3 within35 minutes of each other and for a large part of their journey they would allhave been airborne simultaneously.

The listed flights were:

1415 UA931 LHR-SAN FRANCISCO(United Airlines)

1500 AC849 LHR-TORONTO (Air Canada)

1515 AC865 LHR-MONTREAL (Air Canada)

1540 UA959 LHR-CHICAGO (United)

1620 UA925 LHR-WASHINGTON(United)

1635 AA131 LHR-NEW YORK (American Airlines)

1650 AA91 LHR-CHICAGO (American)

Passengers were refusedpermission to carry liquids onto airplanes. Mothers with nursing babies wereonly allowed to carry bottles of milk on board if they themselves took a sip toprove the fluid was harmless. Airports across Britain were in chaos as passengerswere subjected to stringent checks on their hand luggage.

By 8pm at the end of the day, atotal of 21 Muslims had arrested in Britain,mainly from addresses in London, High Wycombeand Birmingham.In al, 24 people would be detained. On August 12, 2006 an open letter in severalleading newspapers. This blamed the British government for Muslim terrorism athome, and urged Tony Blair to "change our foreign policy". It stated:"It is our view that current British government policy risks puttingcivilians at increased risk both in the UK and abroad."

The credibility of the"air-terror plot" was not doubted by national authorities. George W.Bush publicly stated that the West was at war with "Islamic fascism".It had soon emerged that the arrests had followed surveillance of individualsby British, American and Pakistani intelligence services.

The key figure who was thenassumed to be, and is still thought to be, the leader of the plot was a mancalled Rashid (Rachid) Rauf. This man was arrested in Pakistan shortly before the arrests in Britain.According to NBC, he was apprehended on instructionsfrom America.The date of his arrest is debatable, as is the location.

His brother Tayib was among thosesubsequently arrested in Britain,but was never put on trial.

Rashid Rauf had lived with hisfamily in St Margaret's Road,Ward End, Birmingham.His father Abdul owned a bakery business, ClassicConfectionery Supplies. At the back yard of the house was a makeshiftmadrassa, where the family gave free classes on Islam. The house had beensearched after Isaiah Young-Sam, a young black Christian, hadbeen stabbed to death by a Muslim gang during ethnic riots in October 2005.

On April 24, 2002, one of RashidRauf's numerous uncles, 54-year old Mohammed Saeed, had parked the deliveryvehicle he used for his work. He was walking to his home, when he was set upon.Saeed was stabbed five times in the stomach and died. Rashid Rauf was - andstill is - the prime suspect for Saeed's murder. At the start of May he fledfrom Britain to Bahawalpur in Punjab province, Pakistan.

On August 12, 2006, two days after Britishairports were mired in chaos and arrests had been made in the UK, the Pakistan Daily Times claimed that money which had been gathered to assist inrelief work had been diverted to fund the alleged plane-bombing plot. Largesums had been sent to three individuals in December 2005 in Pakistan by acharity called Muslim Charity. This charity (registered No.1078488), founded by Shaykh Muhammad Imdad Hussain Pirzada, is basedin Retford Nottingham.

It is unknown whether theoriginal Daily Times article about links between the alleged plotters and UK charitieshas any substance. Many conflicting statements were made in the media at thattime. On August 19 2006, the same Pakistani newspaperstated that Abdul Rauf had been arrested at Islamabad International airport.Abdul Rauf later forced an apology from a British newspaper that repeatedthe claim.

Rashid Rauf was said to be linkedto Al Qaeda through an individual called Matiur Rehman. This individual, whowas said to command the terror group Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, was said to have comefrom Bahawalpur.Rehman was mentioned frequently in news reports in the West and also in Pakistan. In the immediate aftermath of theBritish arrests, most information on Rehman originated from ABC News and their "news consultant",Alexis Debat.

GlobalSecurity.org lists the reliability ofinformation on Rehman as having "low confidence". This is related tothe credibility of Alexis Debat who has been accused of journalistic fraud. After the end of2007, when Debat's crediblity was questioned, stories of Rehman in the Pakistanimedia ceased. A militant leader called Matiur Rehman who was killed in Waziristan in April 2008 is certainly another personage.

According to his wife,Rauf had come to Pakistanto "preach Islam and get religious education. He took admission in aseminary in Multan.He married in 2003 and had two children. Then, he started living in Bahawalpur." He wasplanning to set up in business, it was claimed.

Though the stories of Rehmanbeing a direct link between Rashid Rauf and Al Qaeda are now doubted, Rauf'sown reputation as a figure with strong links to Al Qaeda has not changed.Rashid Rauf remained in custody in Pakistan after his arrest. OnSaturday December 15, 2007, a day before Pakistan's state of emergency came to an end, Raufappeared in court in Islamabadfor an appeal hearing about his detention. At the end of the hearing, he wasdue to be returned to his cell in Adiala jail in Rawalpindi, the garrison city about half anhour's drive from the capital.

Rauf was escorted back from courtby two policemen, and also one of his uncles, Mohammed Rafiq. Along the way,the policemen allowed him to eat at a MacDonalds restaurant, and then allowedhim to enter a small Rukhshanda mosque where, with his handcuffs apparentlyremoved, he escaped with his uncle. The uncle was arrested, and the twopolicemen were also arrested.

The uncle had apparently becomefriendly with the policemen and on other occasions had invited them to hishouse when they were officially escorting Rashid Rauf. There have been(unsubstantiated) suggestions that Pakistan's military intelligenceservice, the ISI, had a hand in the disappearance. Rauf is still at large.

The similarity of the allegedair-bombing plot to Operation Bojinka hints at Al Qaeda inspiration. On August 15, 2006 Dawn newspaper quoted a Pakistani "intelligence source"who claimed Al Qaeda was behind the air terror plot. He said: "It is notOsama bin Laden and itâ¤TMs not Ayman Al Zawahiri, but someone close to the rankof Abu Faraj Al-Libbi... Without arresting Rashid Rauf, it would not have beenpossible to foil the plot." The source confirmed that Matiur Rehman hadnothing to do with the (alleged) air-terror plot.

What is known for certain is thatthere were phone communications between Rashid Rauf and Abdulla Ahmed Ali whichwere monitored. The information gleaned from these phone communications led toRauf being arrested, apparently on orders from the United States.

Links to terrorists and extremists

Abdulla Ahmed Ali had traveled fairly extensively before his arrestin a car park. In February 2003 he was in Pakistan, involved in "refugeework". He went on pilgrimage to Mecca inJanuary 2004, and from August 2004 until January 2005 he was again in Pakistan.During this time Mohammed Sidique Khan, leader of the cell that killed 52people in London on July 7, 2005, was also in Pakistan.Additionally, Muktar Ibrahim, leader of the failed bomb attacks of July 21,2005, was also in Pakistanat that time.

Abdulla Ahmed Ali was back in Pakistan in June 2005, and in May 2006 he was inPakistanfor a family-relateld matter. During the trial, Ali spoke in June of assisting a charity at Chatsworth Road inHackney. He said that three other defendants joined him there - Ibrahim Savant,Arafat Waheed Khan and Tanvir Hussain.

He told the court: "Theyneeded volunteers to go to Pakistanand deliver some of this aid and administer it and I volunteered to dothat". It was in connection with this charity that he was in Pakistan in2003 and 2004. He said that Assad Sarwar and Umair Islam had also gone to Pakistan toassist with this charity. This charity is called the Islamic Medical Association.

There is a charity called the Islamic Medical Association, which isbased in Walsall, registered number 280764. Its main spokesman lives in Palmers Green in North London. This man, Dr A. Majid Katme, is apsychiatrist with some dubious views that can be seen as extremist. Katme's contributions to medicalhealth include recommendations that Muslims avoid"un-Islamic" vaccinations. However, his charity - which makes solittle money it would struggle to keep a tumor alive - may not be connectedwith the charity shop at 19Chatsworth Road, London E5 0LH, that bears the same name.

The charity shop lies near theHomerton end of Chatsworth Road,where the road becomes Brooksby's Walk. In the 1990s, I used to live a stone'sthrow away from this location, when it used to be a yellow-painted Islamicbookshop. It lies within view of the HomertonUniversity Hospital'sVD annex. In spring of 2006, the shop was asking readers ofthe Islamist forum "Ummah.com" for donations.

In August 2006, the youngest ofthe suspects to be arrested in connection with the alleged air-terror plot wasaged 17. He was indicted for the following: "On a daybetween 1 October 2005 and 10 August 2006 within the jurisdiction of theCentral Criminal Court had in his possession a document or record, namely abook on improvised explosives devices, some suicide notes and wills with theidentities of persons prepared to commit acts of terrorism and a map ofAfghanistan containing information likely to be useful to a person committingor preparing an act of terrorism (contrary to Section 58 (1) (b) of the TerrorismAct 2000)."

This young suspect went on trialin the Fall of 2007. On Friday, October26, 2007, he was sentenced to six months in jail. His name is AbdulMuneem Patel. He was freed early from Glen Parva jail on January 7.

Abdul Muneem Patel's father -Mohammed Patel - runs the Islamic Medical Association charity shop in Chatsworth Road.During the recent trial that saw Abdulla Ahmed Ali, Assad Sarwar and TanvirHussain found guilty of conspiracy to murder, Mohammed Patel was mentioned.According to the Press Association, the prosecution"unmasked Afghan war veteran Patel as an extremist sympathiser who usedhis contacts to smooth the path for Ali and others."

It is of no small interest thatthis particular location in ChatsworthRoad is mentioned in a terror trial. In themid-1990s, it was formed as an Islamic bookshop - the al-Koran. The bookshop's founder was Mohammed Hamid. This individualalso ran an Islamic bookstall on busy OxfordStreet in London's West End. Mohammed Hamid called himself "Osama bin London". Hamid wasalso involved with assisting at the Islamic MedicalAssociation store in ChatsworthRoad. He had taken seven containers to Afghanistan inearly 2002. On Tuesday February 26, 2008, 50-year old Hamid was foundguilty on three counts of "soliciting to murder" and three counts ofproviding terrorist training in Britain.On Friday March 7, 2008, Hamid was sentenced to an"indefinite" jail term, of not less than seven and a half years.

Assisting Hamid to run the stallin London's West End was Muktar Ibrahim, who ledthe cell that attempted to commit suicide bombings in London on July 21, 2005. Ibrahim wasphotographed with the other 21/7 cell members at a training camp in the LakeDistrict of northern Englandon May 3, 2004. This camp had been organized byMohammed Hamid.

Eritrean-born Ibrahim, who wasconvicted on July 10, 2007 and jailed for life, also knewAbdulla Ahmed Ali. Ibrahim had been in Pakistan between December 2004 andMarch 2005. Ahmed Ali had been in Pakistan from August 2004 untilJanuary 2005. According to journalist Richard Watson on BBC's Newsnight on September8, 2008, "Ahmed Ali was in phone contact with Muktar Ibrahimout there (in Pakistan)."

Mohammed Sidique Khan, leader ofthe 7/7 cell, had gone to Pakistanwith his fellow-suicide bomber, Shehzad Tanweer, on November 19, 2004, returningon February 8, 2005. There is no evidence of Mohammed SIdique Khan beingdirectly involved with Abdulla Ahmed Ali, but he and Tanweer certainly knew the main figures in the Operation Crevice plot. The Crevice cellplanned to use liquid fertilizer to carry out bomb attacks in Britain.Members of the Crevice cell had spent time in terror training camps in Pakistan.

There appear to be extensivelinks between British-based jihadists, and for many of these, Pakistan is aplace where they receive training in explosives manufacture. Richard Watsonstated: "We found out that the man who drove the burning Jeep into Glasgow airport - Kafeel Ahmed - last year, he has aconnection with a man called Abbas Boutrab, a convicted terrorist, an Algerianterrorist, who was under surveillance in Northern Ireland in 2003."

There are other links connectingsome of these extremists. Kafeel Ahmed later died of burns he had sustained inhis attack on Glasgowairport on June 30, 2007. In his native Bangalorein India,Kafeel Ahmed was linked to a proselytizing group called TablighiJamaat.

Richard Reid, the Britishterrorist who tried to blow up a Miami-bound plane with a bomb hidden in hisshoe, was involved with Tablighi Jamaat. Three of the 7/7 bombers, includingleader Mohammed Sidique Khan, had attended the Markazi mosque at Savile Townin Dewsbury. This mosque is the headquarters of Tablighi Jamaat in Britain, builtin 1980 with Saudi financial assistance.

Assad Sarwar, one of the threemen convicted of conspiracy to murder on Monday September 8 was also involvedin Tablighi Jamaat. His brother said: "He was at Tablighi Jamaat, which isa sect in Islam which encourages the youth to grow beards, pray five times aday; and how the prophet lived on a daily basis. He thought religion is moreimportant than study."

One of the men who was convictedat the same trial of conspiracy to "cause a public nuisance" and whowill be re-tried for plotting to cause explosions on board planes is WaheedZaman. He frequently attended TablighiJamaat meetings near his home in Walthamstow.

Muktar Ibrahim, who was in directphone contact with Abdulla Ahmed ALi, also attended a Tablighi mosque in east London. The fifth member of the 21/7 cell,Manfo Asiedu, also had involvement with Tablighi. This organization is ideologicallylinked to the extremism of the Deobandis,and it should be remembered that the Taliban leadership were graduates fromDeoband madrassas. In May 2006 when Tablighi Jamaat held a convention in Waziristan, Pakistan,the local Taliban ordered a ceasefire to give attendees safe passage.

In Newham in London, Tablighi Jamaat have been attemptingto build a "mega-mosque" near the site of the 2012Olympics. In France,Tablighi Jamaat have been responsible for radicalizing Muslim prisoners,causing French intelligence officials to call it the "antechamber offundamentalism". Michael Heimbach of the FBI has said: "We have a significant presence ofTablighi Jamaat in the UnitedStates and we have found that al-Qaeda usedthem for recruiting now and in the past."

Journalist Patrick Johnstonargued that it was "enough" that hundreds of lives had not been lost- the obvious consequence if a plane-bombing campaign had been brought tofruition. In the short-term this may be true. But Britain has allowed preachers andyoung radicals to act with impunity for two decades. Muslims from Al Muhajirounand other groups have preached the legitimacy of hatred and murder. Many ofthose individuals, such as Abu Izzadeen, are now in jail. But their sermons ofhate have influenced others. Some of the Crevice plotters were Al Muhajirounmembers, and the group is linked to the 2003 suicide bombing in Mike's Bar inTel-Aviv, in which 3 innocent people were killed.

Islamist terror plots have sprungup like mushrooms from the compost originally laid down by the godfathers ofBritish Jihad - Abu Hamza, Omar Bakri Mohammed, Abdullah el-Faisal. Their wordsinspired the second generation of British jihadists and already a thirdgeneration of would-be terrorists is emerging. Tolerance of intolerance has gotBritainnowhere in the fight against extremism. So-called "moderate leaders"have spun tissues of lies to mislead and distract the authorities away dealingwith from the Islamist danger in British society. From Islamist ideologyterrorism naturally evolves. For that reason, a retrial is essential, if onlyto send a tough message to those who may be on the verge of adoptingradicalism.

Westminster Journal's CurrentAffairs Editor is Adrian Morgan

---

Bookmark with: