The Guardian reports:
A Muslim couple were assembling components of a home-made bomb to attack Jewish neighbourhoods after becoming radicalised by al-Qaida propaganda on the internet, a court heard on Wednesday.
Mohammed Sajid Khan, 33, and his wife, Shasta, 38, from Oldham, Greater Manchester, bought substances and equipment from supermarkets to assemble an improvised explosive device to launch a terrorist attack after carrying out visits to potential Jewish targets in Manchester, the city’s crown court heard.
Bobbie Cheema, the prosecutor, at Manchester crown court, said: “Perhaps it can be summarised this way: it was jihad at home. Between them they acquired substances, common or garden, that can be purchased in supermarkets, equipment and information of use that would help them to make explosives, and began the process of assembling an improvised explosive device.”
The couple also carried out “multiple reconnaissance” trips to Jewish areas of Salford or Manchester, it was alleged.
Behind their “apparent normality of daily life”, Khan, an unemployed car valeter, and his wife, a hairdresser, planned to carry out “jihad at home”, Cheema told the court.
The couple were only stopped by chance after a minor domestic row led to police being called to their home in Oldham.
Shasta decided to inform the police after her brother told officers [who] went to the house: “I think he’s a home-grown terrorist.”
Her husband has already pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to terrorism offences. She has denied any involvement and pleaded not guilty to engaging in conduct in preparation for acts of terrorism and three counts of possessing information useful for committing or preparing for an act of terrorism.
“Mercifully they were both stopped and arrested before they could go any further and finalise and carry out their plans,” the prosecutor said.
More:
The prosecution say the pair became radicalised in 2010 and 2011 by material they found on the internet, which had the aim of encouraging western Muslims to carry out jihad by mounting attacks in their own countries, independent of direction.
“In response, the two of them made preparations or assisted each other to make preparations, to carry out a terrorist attack on British soil, with the most likely target being an orthodox Jewish area in Prestwich, Greater Manchester,” she said.
The prosecutor said that the couple were caught at the preparation stage: “They did not achieve the production of a functioning bomb. They scoped possible locations for an attack, but did not yet have the final ability to carry it out.”
The bomb plot was discovered by chance:
The court heard the pair met through an internet dating site for Muslims and quickly married, but were having disagreements by July last year. When an officer investigating a domestic incident spoke to Khan on her own, “she took it as an opportunity to spill the beans about the activities Sajid Khan had been undertaking”.
But the prosecutor added: “As you might expect, she left out of her account entirely her own involvement.”
It was her intention to cause serious trouble for her husband, but she had given no thought to the possible consequences for herself.”
The BBC discloses some of the material they had used, including Anwar Al Awlaki’s “Inspire” magazine:
Prosecutor Bobbie Cheema told the court the couple had become “radicalised by material found on the internet such as an al-Qaeda magazine called Inspire”.
Anwar Al Awlaki was toured around British mosques by organisations associated with the East London Mosque/Lonon Muslim Centre (“ELM” and “LMC”) and the Islamic Forum Europe (“IFE”) in 2003. These organisations are the cornerstone members of London Citizens. In 2008, the IFE’s Azad Ali expressed his admiration for Anwar al-Awlaki and had this to say about him on the Islamic Forum of Europe’s blog:
“I really do love him for the sake of Allah, he has an uncanny way of explaining things to people which is endearing.”
Azad Ali is vice chair of Unite Against Fascism, and advised the police in his role as Chair of the Muslim Safety Forum.
Until he was unmasked as an agent provocateur who had abandoned a child fathered while undercover, disgraced former police officer Bob Lambert successfully argued that Islamist groups such as these should be fostered and partnered with, as a bulwark against terrorism. However, it wasn’t information from these groups that scotched this bomb plot – it was good luck, following a domestic dispute.
Compare the soul searching that took place following Breivik’s massacre with the utter lack of concern over genocidal Jew hatred fostered by Islamist groups and their supporters, overwhelmingly on part of the British Left. Then think of the airbrushing of antisemitism as the underlying motive of Mohammed Merah’s massacre of Jews in Toulouse that took place in newspapers like The Guardian. The same newspaper that roots for antisemites such as Raed Salah and publishes Jew-murderers such as Ismail Haniyeh.
Jews were lucky this time. A domestic row averted a massacre. Had it taken place, there would still be little understanding of the ideology that would have directed it, or the culpability of “progressive” society in failing effectively to challenge it.
The CST has a short piece, here.
