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Men who planned to blow up planes
Paul Cheston and Justin Davenport7 Sep 2009
Three men were found guilty today of a terrorist plot to blow up transatlantic airliners using bombs disguised as soft drinks.
Here are profiles of the key conspirators:
Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 28, of Walthamstow, east London
Terror leader Abdulla Ahmed Ali claimed he had dreamed of martyring himself in a jihad from the age of 16.
He plotted the suicide attacks while he was on jobseeker's allowance and drew his inspiration from a medieval warrior known as The Sword of Islam.
Ali was born in Newham in 1980 but spent his early years in the village of Jhelum in Pakistan.
His parents, who had first come to the UK in the Sixties, finally settled in the East End in 1987.
His family all went to university; one of his brothers is a probation officer and another works part time for London Underground.
Although Ali himself went on to get a degree a BSc in Computer Systems engineering at City University in September 2002 he seemed unable to hold down a job.
He repeatedly visited Pakistan and its border with Afghanistan in 2002, 2004 and 2005.
Well connected, well travelled and well read he used his knowledge of radical Islamic teaching to exert a hold over his foot soldiers, some of whom had known him since schooldays.
On his arrest, officers searched his baby's cot and found two books by influential Muslim extremists, Sheikh Azzam, the mentor of Osama Bin Laden, and Sayyid Qutb, the al Qaeda ideologist.
While giving evidence in the witness box, he insisted he was motivated by politics, not religion, “just like the IRA”.
But at his Walthamstow home police found his notes using religion to justify killing women and children in Jihad.
He wrote: “In general, rules are to be obeyed, like don't kill women and children [but] it only applies if it does not harm the Ummah (Muslim community).”
And he said: “If there is benefit to the Ummah, then one is allowed to do that thing. “Many times the Prophet killed women and children in war, as it was necessary.”
Assad Ali Sarwar, 29, of High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire
Behind the facade of a shy, bumbling loser beat the cruel heart of a religious fanatic and able scientist.
Assad Sarwar had dropped out of university, never had a girlfriend and had no job at the time of the arrest.
Yet he devoted himself to exhaustive research on targets all over Britain, including every major power station and oil refinery.
Sarwar had also mastered the chemical formulas for bomb-making and reeled off in court exact amounts of hydrogen peroxide needed for the biggest explosion.
He was from High Wycombe with two brothers and two sisters.
He dropped out of Brunel University and in 2001 visited the Muslim Education Centre in Totteridge.
They went to Pakistan in November 2002 and claimed to have met Abdulla Ahmed Ali at the Chaman refugee camp on the border near Quetta.
In 2005 Sarwar returned to Pakistan at the same time as Ali and Arafat Khan — but claimed it was an unsuccessful search for a wife.
Tanvir Hussain, 28, of Leyton, east London
Tanvir Hussain was Ali's right hand — yet loved everything the West had to offer.
He had a reputation for clubbing, smoking cannabis and chasing girls and played London league cricket as well as football and tennis.
Hussain was born in Blackburn but moved to London when he was six.
His first contact with Ali and Khan came in his late teens when he went to Waltham Forest College to do a GNVQ.
In 2000 he made his first trip to Pakistan, before starting a Business and Formations Systems and Computer Communications course at Middlesex University.
He told the court how during his student years he had used drugs and alcohol.
But by 2003 he had become a devout Muslim and in February 2004 went on the Haj pilgrimage.
Colleagues at an NHS clinic at St Anne's hospital in north London, where he worked until 2006, told police he had shown signs of extremism.
His barrister Michel Massih QC claimed Tanvir was a “fun-loving guy” still chatting up girls at clubs when he was involved in the terror plot.
Reader views (1)
'Home grown.'
What a joke this country is.Hope the rest of the world can see the real danger Britain poses!
- Steve, London, 08/09/2009 12:46
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