Press Trust of India

LONDON, Aug 13: The teenage son of a Muslim immigrant from India and suspected Al Qaeda leader in Britain are among 24 people arrested in connection with the foiled plot to blow up United States-bound planes from the UK, according to a media report here.
 
Abdul Patel, 17, the youngest among the suspects held last Thursday, is the son of a Muslim immigrant from India, the report said. Patel was one of the 19 suspects who were named and whose assets were frozen by Bank of England.
 
Scotland Yard believes that one of those arrested is Al Qaeda's leader in Britain and has been acting as a suspected hub in a network of extremist groups, including Kashmiri and north African groups based here, The Sunday Times reported but could not name the suspect due to legal reasons.
 
Quoting Home Office officials, it said one of those arrested is suspected not only of masterminding the foiled plot to bomb the US-bound flights, but also of involvement in other planned atrocities over the past few years.
 
They believe that he was instrumental in sending the ringleader of at least one previous British terror plot for training at a camp in Pakistan last year. He is described by counter-terrorist officials at Mi5, the British intelligence service, as a senior figure in a British terror network involving Kashmiri, north African and Iraqi cells.
 
The investigation into the suspected Al Qaeda leader in Britain and his UK associates was considered by Eliza Manningham-Buller, Mi5's Director General, to be the security service's single most important line of inquiry. He is suspected of being behind two "pipelines" which saw potential terrorist recruits being sent for training at camps in Pakistan and to join the "holy war" in Iraq.

 
"The Al Qaeda leader -- who cannot be named for legal reasons -- acts as a suspected hub in a network of extremist groups. These include Kashmiri and north African groups based in this country. He is linked to a second suspect also in Britain who has played a major role in facilitating support for the Iraq 'jihad'," the report said.
 
About Patel, it said, one of his former friends recalled how the 17-year-old boy had changed from being a carefree person who used to enjoy playing football in the street into a cold and temperamental youth.
 
The friend claimed that Patel's character had changed two or three years ago when his father, a mechanic, Mohammed, travelled to Iraq on a Muslim aid mission and, apparently, never returned home, the paper said.
 
Having attended Northwold primary school, which is directly opposite his home, Patel's secondary education was cut short. He was expelled when 15 or 16.
 
"He was kicked out because he was bunking off lessons all the time. He didn't try to get back into school and ended up staying at home all day. I don't think he started work. At one stage he used to come around to help us carry out repairs in our home, but in less than a year he turned 180 degrees," the friend told the paper.
 
Patel had taken to wearing traditional Muslim clothes. Recently, said the friend, he switched back to western clothing but nobody knew why. "He did have a temper on him. Only last week he was arguing with my grandfather for staring at him on the street."
 
Amin Asmin Tariq, another of those nabbed in east London whose company Jet Airways has suspended him, "did not look shocked, just perfectly calm" when he was held, a neighbour said.
 
Tariq, 23, recently became a father, the paper said.

 
Tariq's cousin Tanvir Hussain, 25 was also arrested. He was described by neighbours as an ordinary, quiet young man.
 
Recently married, he sports a bushy beard and wears western clothes.
 
After leaving university he worked as a telesales representative for Mobile Connections, a phone company.  He was often seen driving a black four-door Mercedes and praying along side his family at the Noor-ul-Islam mosque in Leyton.
 
A local, who did not wish to be named, claimed that Hussain in private had become increasingly resentful over the past two or three years.
 
"He was an angry young man," said the source. The object of his rage was apparently British foreign policy in Afghanistan, Iraq and Israel.
 
Relatives said his behaviour had changed in recent weeks. A friend said Hussain had been making trips outside London.
 
"He visited some friends in High Wycombe about two weeks ago," said the source. During a recent trip to see family members in the West Midlands, he made his excuses and left early. The source was surprised by his behaviour, recalling "he said he wanted to visit some mates in Birmingham."
 
The thwarting of the alleged plot has, however, failed to quash continuing fears among counter-terrorist experts.
 
Senior security officials have briefed ministers that a "second phase" of attacks may be about to be launched.
 
Ayman Zawahiri, Al Qaeda's deputy head, is said to have warned in a message placed on a restricted extremists' website last month that the terrorist group was planning two large-scale attacks this autumn, the report said.
 
The Federal Bureau of Inveatigations has assigned 200 agents to follow up any leads that come out of the British investigation.

 
Security sources said that surveillance operations by the police and Mi5 were continuing into suspected plots by other terror cells.
 
These included plans, said to be in their early stages, to target ferry ports, the railway network and the London Underground. Police say they are also stepping up patrols at mainline railway stations.
 
A senior transport security official said: "The question is: have we got everybody?  If they are going to find airports too difficult, the railways aren't a bad second choice."
 
Police sources claimed to have seized "high grade evidence" including chemicals, documents and a video during last week's raids in east London, Birmingham and High Wycombe in  Buckinghamshire.
 
They believe they have arrested "the ringleaders, the technical experts and the foot soldiers" behind the plot. "The leadership was very professional," the newspaper quoted a source as saying.
 
The British terror leader's suspected links with other Al Qaeda figures in Pakistan have been the subject of intense Mi5 scrutiny since last August.
 
It was the arrest of another associate in Pakistan last week that prematurely triggered Operation Overt, the counter-terrorist plan that is said to have foiled the transatlantic airline plot.
 
Contrary to claims by the Pakistani government, the arrest was not anticipated in London. There were also conflicting reports about the reasons for the suspect's arrest.

 
A Pakistani official said he had been under surveillance for several weeks following a tip-off from Britain. He was said to have monitored visiting radical imams and seminaries that had been linked to terrorism.
 
The official said he had travelled to some of the same places as Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, two of the July 7 bombers.
 
Some of those arrested were reported to have travelled to Pakistan to engage in charity work following last October's earthquake.
 
Two of those arrested last week are said to have visited Pakistan in the months before the planned attacks. They are said to have met Matuir Rehman, an Al Qaeda suspect and specialist in explosives. After the two Britons returned to this country, they are believed to have received a wire transfer of money.
 
The report quoted Pakistani authorities as saying the man arrested there last week had fled the WestMidlands several years ago. He had received training in explosives at Al Qaeda camps along the Afghan-Pakistan border and had organized Al Qaeda funding for the organisation's leader in Britain.
 
According to the report, it was British detectives who uncovered the role of the man arrested in Pakistan last week and tipped off their Pakistani counterparts.
 
The report said Rashid Rauf, a Muslim, was arrested by the Pakistani police in connection with an investigation into the murder of his uncle, who had been stabbed in Britain in April 2002.

 
Quoting a senior Pakistani government source, the report said Rauf had been arrested while going to catch a bus in the southeast Pakistani city of Hyderabad.
 
This conflicts with a Pakistani intelligence source who claimed that he had been caught in Bhawalpur, in the home of a militant linked to the proscribed Lashkar-e-Jhangvi group, a band of Sunni extremists.
 
He was linked to Al Qaeda. "He's the main guy," said the intelligence source. "He has a very large network, extending beyond Europe."
 
His brother Tayib Rauf is believed to have had links to a British citizen of Syrian origin who intelligence officers say, had sent the leader of one alleged terrorism plot in Britain to an Al Qaeda training camp in Pakistan.
 
As a result, the surveillance on Rauf involved dozens of Mi5 officers. His telephones were bugged and, warrants were obtained to insert listening devices in his home.
 
According to the report, the FBI had sent Mi5 a bulletin outlining fears that suicide terrorists had been plotting to hijack transatlantic aircraft by smuggling individual explosive ingredients past airport security and then assembling the bombs on board. The FBI warning was entitled Possible Hijacking Tactic for Using Aircraft as Weapons.
 
It said: "Components of improvised explosive devices can be smuggled onto an aircraft, concealed in either clothing or personal carry-on items such as shampoo and medicine bottles, and assembled on board. In many cases of suspicious passenger activity, incidents have taken place in the aircraft's forward lavatory."
 
In June an Al Qaeda website, protected by a password but secretly monitored by Mi5, yielded more clues. It detailed information in the style of a manual on how to destroy planes using new types of miniature bombs.

 
 
One device used an adapted flash unit from a disposable camera as an electric detonator. Various ways of powering the detonator were suggested, including personal music players.
 
One potential type of explosive was nicknamed 'Mother of Satan' because of its power and volatility. Known as triacetone triperoxe or TATP, it can be made from mixing two or more harmless household liquids, such as hair bleach and nail varnish remover. If properly mixed it can be as lethal as military-grade explosives.
 
Similar mixtures were used by the suicide bombers on July 7, 2005 in London.
 
Despite the warnings and suspicions, the security services faced considerable uncertainty. Several of their suspects seemed far from the typical image of would be terrorists.
 
One was Don Stewart-Whyte, the son of a Tory party agent (who died nine years ago) who had been brought up in the stockbroker belt of Buckinghamshire. He had converted to Islam only about six months ago and changed his name to Abdul Wahid.
 
Another convert was Brian Young, 28, whose parents, from St L ucia, had brought him up as a Christian. But three years ago he converted to Islam and changed his name to Umar Islam.
 
Oliver Savant, son of an accountant and architect, had converted to Islam, changed his name to Ibrahim Savant and began to frequent Masjid-E-Umer mosque in Queen's road, Walthamstow.
 
At least five more of the people taken into custody last week also attended the mosque, including Waheed Zaman, 22, a final year student in biochemistry at the London Metropolitan University.