Biting back at terror suspects

Investigators are desperate to find out exactly why two well-educated young men - one a British-born Iraqi doctor, the other a skilled Indian engineer - were in the burning car packed with petrol and gas canisters, and who else, if anyone, was involved.

The police might never get the chance to question Kafeel: doctors do not expect him to survive. But already their inquiries have led to the arrest of six physicians and the questioning of others from England to Australia. Detectives are trying to find out what the connections between them are, and whether these intelligent, middle-class professionals have links to Al-Qaeda.

For what is so shocking about the suspected plots in Glasgow and London is the nature of the people being questioned. On the surface they appeared model candidates when they came to Britain to study and work. But their lives are turning out to be far more complex.

The Sunday Times has traced the complex web of connections that lie behind the police investigation.

ABDULLA, who was dragged away from the burning car with his hands cuffed, was born in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, and spent his infant years in Britain while his Iraqi father, Talal, was training to be a doctor in the early 1980s.

The family moved back to Baghdad where they were part of the privileged Sunni Muslim elite under Saddam Hussein. His father worked as a rheuma-tologist and one of his cousins became a professor of French literature at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Abdulla was devoutly religious and, according to one family member, would not even permit his mother to take off her headscarf in front of him. His knowledge of the Koran was exemplary and he could recite long passages. But he appeared to be no violent extremist.

Entitled by birth to a British passport, he came to Cambridge in 2001 to improve his English and rented a flat in Chesterton Road, near where an uncle lived.

"He was polite and never mentioned politics to us. He liked to joke a lot," said the uncle, who does not wish to be named.

His nine-month spell in England coincided with the 9/11 Al-Qaeda attacks on America. He returned to Iraq to study at Baghdad University's medical school, and within 18 months Saddam Hussein was toppled and coalition forces took control.

Abdulla marked himself out as a fierce opponent of the occupation. His family's businesses and property in Anbar province had been destroyed during the invasion; and acquaintances say he became further incensed when his best friend was killed in fighting in Falluja in early 2004.

Abdulla's Baghdad tutor, Professor Ahmed Ali, claims he became difficult to control. "He didn't care about his studies. He only cared about the resistance . . . Many times in the class he interrupted to talk about the mujaheddin. I thought he was crazy."

Abdulla sailed through his medical exams. Ali says the university - which was under pressure from the Iraqi resistance - was forced to give him good marks because it was the "only way to get him out".

With this degree Abdulla returned to Cambridge in 2004 to study for the General Medical Council's professional and linguistic assessment board, a test that would enable him to work as a doctor in the UK.

While in Cambridge, the fortunes of his family in Iraq grew worse. His father fled from Baghdad after being intimidated by Shi'ite militiamen.

Also in Cambridge at that time was Mohammed Asha, a Saudi-born doctor trained in Jordan, who did a short stint at Addenbrooke's hospital. Asha, 26, had been a star student, qualifying as one of the top young doctors in Jordan. It is believed he knew Abdulla in Cambridge.

Kafeel Ahmed, now hovering near death in the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, certainly knew Abdulla in Cambridge.

Ahmed was born in Banga-lore, India, in 1979. His parents, both doctors, travelled a great deal through their work, so he and his younger brother, Sabeel, lived with an aunt and attended school with a young relative called Mohammed Haneef. He and the brothers became very close. When they went on to university, Haneef and Sabeel studied medicine while Kafeel studied engineering.

Last week an imam who runs the mosque near the Ahmed family's home said the brothers had joined Tablighi Jamaat, a strict Islamic missionary and revivalist movement.

After obtaining their medical degrees, Sabeel and Haneef sought work in Britain while Kafeel took up a research post at Anglia Ruskin University, which has a campus in Cambridge.

Shiraz Maher, a former Cambridge University student, saw Kafeel come under Bilal Abdulla's sway there.

Maher had come to know Abdulla well after meeting him the city's Abu Bakr Siddiq mosque. Maher said: "At the time, we were all extremists and . . . Bilal liked the fact that the British and Americans were getting a bloody nose in Iraq."

According to Maher, Kafeel shared a flat in Cambridge with a local activist from Hizb ut-Tahrir, a radical Islamic political group. It was through this connection that he came to meet Abdulla in 2004.

Maher said: "Kafeel always looked up to and listened to Abdulla and what he had to say. By the time I left Cambridge, Abdulla and Kafeel were best of mates. In the study circle that we used to hold in the Islamic academy, Abdulla very much used to take the lead and he was always the one asking the questions."

At the time Kafeel was working with a research team designing an inkjet to print tactile maps for the blind. A fellow researcher, Snir Dinar, an Israeli, said Kafeel rarely socialised with the group: "Kafeel was a Muslim so he wouldn't join us if we ever went for a drink after work. We knew very little about his lifestyle - except that he always went to the mosque on Fridays."

Sabeel and Haneef, who were working together at Halton hospital in Cheshire, made several visits to Cambridge. Kafeel introduced Sabeel to Bilal Abdulla and they, too, hit it off. Last week Channel 4 News quoted an unnamed friend of the two men saying: "Sabeel and Bilal were like clowns, loud and funny, cracking jokes all the time."

Both Sabeel and Haneef then moved on to work in Liverpool, and last year Haneef applied for a job in the the oncology department of the Gold Coast hospital, 60 miles south of Bris-bane, Australia.

According to Australian authorities, Sabeel attempted to follow him, applying for a post through an Australian government website. He was turned down for lack of experience; he is also said to have failed to meet the necessary language requirements. He stayed on in Liverpool while working at hospitals in Cheshire.

Bilal Abdulla was also on the move. He passed his GMC test and obtained a one-year post last August at Inverclyde Royal hospital in Greenock, Scotland.

He applied through the computerised Medical Training Application Service, which hires doctors without an interview.

"People applied but we had no idea what we were getting," said a senior doctor based in west Scotland. "The system took no account of references and there was no opportunity for previous employers to comment on a doctor's ability or performance."

Before starting the post, Abdulla called to say that he would be two weeks late. Sources at the Inverclyde Royal claim he was in Pakistan at the time.

"There were some problems with a visa and he was about two weeks later getting here," said a hospital source. "There were calls from him about the delay and he was in Pakistan at the time."

If so, investigators will want to know if he met Islamic extremists there: Pakistan is known to have been a training ground for Al-Qaeda terrorists.

Abdulla spend eight months at the Inverclyde Royal hospital before moving to the Royal Alexandra hospital in Paisley, where he appears to have been less than devoted to his work.

Colleagues complained that he spent too much time flicking through Islamic websites on the hospital computers. "It was difficult to motivate him. He was definitely distracted while at work," said one.

He was keen to encourage other Muslims. One colleague said he handed her A Brief Illustrated Guide to Understanding Islam. "We spoke briefly and I told him I had a Muslim background. The next time we met he handed me the booklet," she said. The booklet was from Pakistan.

Abdulla's family say his guiding mentor was Sheikh Ahmad al-Qubeisi, an outspoken Baghdad cleric who has praised suicide bombing on his weekly Dubai television show.

One of Abdulla's British-based uncles said: "When Ahmad came on television he would say that he knew him. He called him his best friend. I think he brainwashed him."

Speaking from Baghdad, Qubeisi last week declined to say whether he knew Abdulla, observing only that: "I am a figure known by millions of Muslims around the world, some of who may be good, others could be bad or evil." Qubeisi revealed, however, that late last year had received an unusual telephone call from the UK. It was from a man with joint Iraqi and British nationality, he said, although he declined to identify him.

"An Iraqi man called me from England," Qubeisi said. "He asked me whether it was right for him to avenge his people in Iraq and carry out attacks against London." Qubeisi said he did not sanction an attack because the man should have entered the country as a "fighter".

He said: "Wars are manly with rules and regulations. Either you enter the country as a fighter, and fight them under such circumstances, and then you will be regarded as a shaheed [martyr]. But if you entered the country under any other circumstance . . . then your acts will not be considered as jihad."

Did Britain's GCHQ monitor the call to Qubeisi? It was the sort of communications "chatter" that was leading MI5 to conclude that Al-Qaeda - particularly its Iraqi offshoot - was planning attacks in Britain.

Three months ago The Sunday Times revealed that Britain's Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre had concluded that Al-Qaeda planners were preparing for an attack in the UK when Tony Blair stepped down.

A report said: "While networks linked to AQ [Al-Qaeda] core pose the greatest threat to the UK, the intelligence during this quarter has highlighted the potential threat from other areas, particularly AQI [Al-Qaeda in Iraq]."

In the same month Canon Andrew White, a British cleric working in Baghdad, says he met "a very bad man" who he was later told was "closely connected to Al-Qaeda". The man gave White a cryptic warning, telling him: "Those who cure you will kill you".

This now appears to have been a message warning of an attack by doctors.White passed on the general warning but not the exact wording. The security services were aware of

the general threat, and MI5 had the names of some of those who would be arrested in the past nine days on its watch lists. But they were not under 24-hour surveillance because they were not regarded as serious threats.

Unnoticed, Kafeel Ahmed left Cambridge and by early this summer was sharing a rented three-bedroom house with Abdulla in Houston, a middle-class commuter village near Glasgow.

According to a local cab firm, Abdulla took a taxi to Glasgow airport on June 13 but did not catch a flight. Was it a reconnaissance or a visit for innocent purposes? Three days later the Jeep that would later crash into the terminal building was bought for £1,720 and parked outside a mosque around the corner from Sabeel Ahmed's house in Liverpool.

Two secondhand Mercedes were acquired and a number of gas canisters were obtained from a B&Q branch in Paisley for £29.95 each. Petrol, nails and mobile phones completed the paraphernalia for a potential bomb. TEN days ago, on Thursday June 28, as the Mercedes cars were being driven south to London, a message appeared on a Sunni website frequently used by Al-Qaeda to disseminate propaganda. It read: "Today I say: rejoice, by Allah, London shall be bombed."

For the thousand or so revel-lers at the Tiger Tiger nightclub in Haymarket, central London, that night the prophecy almost came true.

One of the Mercedes was parked outside the club's front door primed to explode. The other was parked by allnight bus stops not far away, possibly to catch the crowds running from the first incident.

Inside the car outside the club were at least three 3ft high cylinders of propane gas and petrol cans containing about 15 gallons of fuel or more. Petrol had been poured over the interior and the gas cylinders had been opened. Mobile phones had been set as remote-control-led detonators.

In the event, both bombs failed to go off, despite several calls being made to the phones. Detectives say a "goldmine" of clues were recovered from the cars - and some of these led to Glasgow.

Early on Saturday the website of America's ABC televi-sion news was reporting the Scottish connection. One source with knowledge of the inquiry said last week: "We believe the suspects may have become aware of the ABC tele-vision website report."

Investigators also traced a call on one of the mobiles to a lettings agency in Paisley near Glasgow. As the Scottish serious crime squad spoke to the agency on Saturday afternoon, Abdulla and Kafeel were already in the Jeep heading towards Glasgow airport.

"It was a last stand at the Alamo," said one well-placed official. "They knew we were onto them." Witnesses said the Jeep was driven fast alongside the terminal building and then suddenly turned 90 degrees and smashed into the doors. Abdulla got out and Kafeel was seen to spray petrol over himself and the car interior, setting it alight as he did so. Both were seized by police and passers-by - Kafeel putting up a savage fight despite his injuries.

Within hours, the police began to track down suspected associates. First were Mohammed Asha and his wife, Marwa, who were boxed in by a pack of police cars as they drove along the M6 near their home in New-castle-under-Lyme on Saturday night.

Their arrest shocked Asha's family. His father protested that police must have got the wrong man because Asha, he said, was "no terrorist". He added: "He loved Britain, the law and order and the respect for people. He was hoping to settle there and raise his children."

Sabeel Ahmed was arrested in Liverpool and two other men - thought to be Saudi Arabian doctors at the Royal Alexandra hospital - were also arrested.

Australian police seized Mohammed Haneef as he attempted to board a plane from Brisbane to India with a one-way ticket. He had been in such a rush that he left washing on the line, but his family said he was hurrying to India to visit his wife. She had given birth there 10 days earlier and had told him the baby was ill.

A cousin in India said Haneef had been appalled at the London Tube bombings.

She said: "I remember Mohammed saying, 'Because of these bloody people, others will suffer. Now innocent Muslims will be double-checked everywhere they go and they won't get any respect. People like us work so hard to earn the respect of society and look what happens."

Detectives say it is too early to know with certainty who was behind the Glasgow incident and the alleged plot to bomb London. But well-placed officials are investigating potential links with Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

One said: "Although it was moderately funded, this was certainly a well-planned operation, prepared over months not weeks. It was organised and it was deadly serious. So it has the hallmarks of Al-Qaeda, but [the police] are still tracking the evidence."

The terrorist threat level, which was raised to "critical" after the Glasgow incident, is back down a notch at "severe". But that still means an attack is highly likely.

As one Whitehall official put it: "The tide has gone out. But everyone knows it's just a matter of time before it comes back in again."

Website reveals support for bomb suspects

Mainstream Muslim organisations were quick to condemn the attacks in London and Glasgow, but many Muslims discussing events on British websites took a different view.

On the ummah.com forum a lively debate flourished. One participant, junaid368, asked: "Shouldn't the Muslim community of UK protest [against] the recent terror attacks?"

One response advised: "Don't forget, if they [the alleged bombers] are Muslim, they are your brothers. Don't ever give the impression the kufr [nonMuslims] are more valuable." And a user called AbuMubarak posted: "Instead of kissing kufr butt, why don't we go forth and tell them that they must worship Allah and fear the fire?"

Another poster, Saadet, wrote: "No Muslim should make any official condemnation of this incident . . . If any kufr out there wants to hear a condemnation from me simply because I'm Muslim, here it is: I condemn the massacres of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan by coalition forces and their Shi'ite militant allies. I condemn 'extraordinary rendition', Camp X-Ray, and violations of civil rights in the name of 'the war on terror'. How's that for a condemnation?"

Someone called Redmist wrote: "I reckon it's just a media coup to coincide with the coming into office of Gordon Brown."

But not all comments were negative. A contributor called Kal-El wrote: "It's time to show the world that we are not barbaric people who lust for blood. I am sick and tired of my faith being tarnished in this way and . . . being labelled a terrorist simply because I am a Muslim."

The medical loophole

Two of the doctors arrested in connection with the attempted bombings applied for medical jobs in Australia, but were rejected, one apparently for inadequate language skills. Yet they were allowed to work in Britain. So how does the UK system work?

Under General Medical Council (GMC) rules, doctors must obtain a visa to work in Britain and a job offer with a hospital. The GMC also asks doctors to pass an exam in language and clinical skills.

They must supply a valid passport, evidence of their medical degree and a certificate of "good standing" from their previous employer which should include details of performance and disciplinary proceedings.

However, there is no attempt to check whether applicants have criminal convictions or terrorist connections. Senior doctors also complain that under the system they have little personal control over who joins their teams because they do not get to conduct face-to-face interviews.

In October last year the Department of Health introduced an online application system intended to centralise the selection process and reduce costs.

It has since been dropped amid accusations that thousands of junior doctors were mistakenly denied training posts.

A similar system piloted in Scotland in 2005 and 2006 enabled hundreds of overseas doctors to apply for foundation training posts for those with limited medical experience. Bilal Abdulla, one of those arrested after a blazing Jeep Cherokee ploughed into Glasgow airport, secured a position at Inverclyde hospital in this way.

Approximately 240,000 physicians are registered to work in the UK and more than 90,000 obtained their medical degrees overseas, including 6,000 from Middle Eastern countries such as Iraq, Iran and Syria.

Where doctors in the UK qualified

UK 149,560 India 27,558 South Africa 8,188 Pakistan 6,634 Ireland 5,472 Germany 4,132 Australia 2,927 Nigeria 2,612 Egypt 2,581 Sri Lanka 2,287 Iraq 1,985

Al-Qaeda provides inspiration

If Al-Qaeda did have a role in the attempted bombings in London and Glasgow, how does the organisation now work? The nature of Al-Qaeda has changed markedly in recent years, writes Nick Fielding.

In its early days, members of Al-Qaeda swore allegiance directly to Osama Bin Laden and instructions were given from the centre, although local commanders controlled the details of attacks.

After Bin Laden was driven from Afghanistan and into hiding, control became more diffuse.

A 2004 treatise, entitled The Call for a Global Islamic Resistance, argued that Al-Qaeda should become not so much a fighting organisation as the philosophical inspiration for "franchised" groups.

The various proclamations from Ayman al-Zawahiri, Bin Laden's deputy, provide the ideological underpinning and broad targets for attacks. But local cells pick their timing and targets.

Adherents may receive training in Pakistan, Afghanistan or Iraq. They can easily hide among the many Muslims who travel to and from the UK.

However, once they return to their home countries it is up to them to source weapons, explosives, money and false documentation without any reference to the centre.

In the case of the 7/7 bombers and other recent conspirators, only a few of the participants had received military training in Pakistan. The rest received their indoctrination and physical training in Wales or the Lake District.

Information on guerrilla warfare and bomb making is also accessible on DVDs and the internet. Until its demise two years ago, a publication called Sawt al-Jihad, available on the internet, was the most comprehensive source for aspiring jihadis to learn bomb making and assassination techniques.

With the arrest and elimination of Sawt al-Jihad's mostly Saudi Arabian publishers, such material is now less easily accessed. But police in Britain and elsewhere still regularly turn up such material on computer files and DVDs.

In November 2005, for example, a manual containing 80 pages of instructions and pictures of bomb making techniques turned up on a jihadi internet forum. Divided into nine lessons, it even included instructions for how to build a crude nuclear device.