UK police accuse 3 Brits of Pakistan terror training

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

They sound like Yorkshire lads to me. I wonder if Alan knows these blokes?

http://news.yahoo.com/uk-police-accuse-3-pakistan-terror-training-005908497.html?_esi=1

By RAPHAEL SATTER | Associated Press – 1 hr 43 mins ago

LONDON (AP) — Three British Muslims - including a convert who was featured in a documentary about radical Islam and a former London police support officer - have been charged with traveling to Pakistan for terror training, police said early Thursday.

Scotland Yard said in a statement that Richard Dart, 29, Imran Mahmood, 21, and Jahangir Alom, 26, had traveled to Pakistan between 2010 and 2012 "with the intention of committing acts of terrorism or assisting another to commit such acts."

The statement also alleges that the three provided others with advice and counseling about how to travel to Pakistan, find training, and how to stay safe while there.

Two others, 22-year-old Ruksana Begum and 47-year-old Khalid Javed Baqa, were charged with having material likely to be useful for terrorism.

All five had been arrested earlier this month, and at least two of the accused had previously come to public attention.

Dart was featured in a recent BBC documentary, "My Brother the Islamist," which chronicled the efforts of his filmmaker stepbrother Robb Leech to understand why the former had rejected his family and embraced an uncompromising form of Islam. He was also featured in a YouTube video in which he criticized the British royal family, the marriage of Prince William to the then-Kate Middleton, and U.K. foreign policy.

Alom - a former police support officer who was arrested in an armed raid at his home - also made a YouTube appearance in which he described his time as an officer and expounded on his hardline beliefs.

The force said Begum was caught with a memory chip carrying issues of a publication it identified as "Inspire," the name given to al-Qaida's English-language magazine. Police said she had the documents "without reasonable excuse."

Police said Baqa was also caught with issues of Inspire, along with a CD containing the work "39 Ways to Support and Participate in Jihad."

Scotland Yard did not immediately release much information on Mahmood, but both he and Alom live near Olympic sites.

Alom's home is only a mile (1.6 kilometers) from London's Olympic Stadium, while Mahmood lives just down the street from the site of a Royal Air Force at Northolt in northwest London, from where Typhoon jets and other military elements are due to provide security for the 2012 Games.

Nevertheless police insisted the case has nothing to do with the games, which begin July 27.

Intelligence officials say there has been an expected increase in chatter among extremist groups ahead of the games, but there are still no specific or credible threats targeting the Olympics. In late June two Muslim men were arrested - and later released without charge - after they were spotted canoeing on the River Lee, a branch of which runs through the Olympic site.

Britain's terror level is labeled substantial, a notch below severe. A substantial threat level indicates that an attack is a strong possibility.

[rocks 494]

Alom's home is only a mile (1.6 kilometers) from London's Olympic Stadium, while Mahmood lives just down the street from the site of a Royal Air Force at Northolt in northwest London, from where Typhoon jets and other military elements are due to provide security for the 2012 Games.

[Captain Oates 911]

They sound like Yorkshire lads to me. I wonder if Alan knows these blokes?

You read my mind !

E Bygum ? Nar Thyn ? and the Sikh karaoke singer Gerupter Singh ?

What a set of amateurs these terrorists are. If brains were dynamite, they wouldn't have enough to blow their own hats off

They should have flown anonymously on Yorkshire Airlines

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://news.yahoo.com/uk-terror-plot-foiled-husband-wife-fall-155557625.html

UK terror plot foiled after husband, wife fall out

By RAPHAEL SATTER | Associated Press – 10 hrs ago

LONDON (AP) — A planned bomb attack on Jewish sites in the English city of Manchester was foiled when the husband-and-wife team behind the plot became embroiled in a domestic dispute, prosecutors said in a case that led to the wife's conviction Thursday.

Prosecutor Bobbie Cheema told Manchester Crown Court that police were called when 33-year-old Mohammed Sajid Khan and his 38-year-old wife Shasta got into an argument at their home last July. Shasta's family was drawn into the squabble, and at one point the dispute got physical, with Mohammed assaulting his father-in-law.

Officers called to deal with a domestic violence episode got a little more than they bargained for, Cheema told the jury in opening remarks delivered last month.

She said that one of Shasta's brothers told the officers Mohammed was "a home-grown terrorist." Shasta joined in too, proceeding to "spill the beans" on her husband's terrorist activities — all while denying she had anything to do with them.

Officers searching the home found beheading videos, al-Qaida propaganda, bomb-making guides, safety goggles, syringes, peroxide, bleach and electrical equipment. Detectives perusing the pair's computer records found evidence of Web searches for information on how to make explosives from acid and bleach, as well as notes referring to firearms and addresses at the heart of Manchester's Jewish community.

An examination of the satellite navigation in Shasta Khan's car showed several trips to Jewish areas of the city.

Cheema said the pair — who met on a Muslim dating website in July 2010 and married shortly thereafter — had been radicalized by material such as al-Qaida's "Inspire," an online magazine aimed at English-speaking Muslims. But she said that the "path from radicalization to atrocity" appeared to have broken by the deterioration of "internal domestic affairs."

Shasta Khan, who denied all wrongdoing, burst into tears Thursday when she was convicted of one count of preparing for acts of terrorism and two counts of possessing information useful for the purposes of terrorism. She wailed as she was led into the cells.

Her husband had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing. Both are due to be sentenced Friday.

Jewish protection group the Community Service Trust said that the jury saw evidence of anti-Semitic incitement and noted that the couple "researched Jewish neighborhoods and had driven to these areas in order to engage in hostile reconnaissance against them."

"The verdict shows the "reality of anti-Jewish terrorism in Britain today," trust spokesman Mark Gardner said in a statement.