Anwar al-Awlaki plotting attacks on UK
By ANITuesday, March 1, 2011
LONDON - The trial sessions of a Bangladeshi British Airways computer engineer who had plotted to blow up a plane have revealed that Anwar al-Awlaki, the American born leader of the al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), is plotting to send operatives to Britain to launch attacks.
Woolwich Crown Court has convicted BA engineer Rajib Karim on four terror charges, including sharing information of use to hate groups.
The Telegraph quoted sources as saying that MI5 discovered his plans after investigating the British links of Anwar al-Awlaki, the al-Qaeda leader behind the “underpants bomb” attack on a trans-Atlantic flight 14 months ago.
The security services believe there could be up to 20 Britons in Yemen who have joined Awlaki’s group, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsular. They are particularly concerned about a number of Karim’s associates, including a man using the pseudonym “Muhammed Britani” based in the city Taiz in southern Yemen, the paper said.
The paper quoted prosecutor Jonathan Laidlaw as saying that Karim was in a “race” for martyrdom with his younger brother Tehzeeb and was “determined to seek martyrdom, to die and to sacrifice himself for his cause.”
Laidlaw also said that Karim was giving assistance to a “major terrorist planner who wanted to bring down an airplane over the Atlantic or US airspace killing hundreds of innocent people, men, women, children and staff on the plane.”
Karim was arrested at his desk at the IT centre in Newcastle February 25 last year. (ANI)
