Haroon Rashid Aswat is a radical Muslim of Indian descent but born and raised in Britain. Around 1995, when he was about 21 years old, he left Britain and attended militant training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is said to have later told investigators that he once served as a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden. In the late 1990s, he returns to Britain and becomes a “highly public aide” to radical London imam Abu Hamza al-Masri. Reda Hassaine, an informant for the French and British intelligence services (see After March 1997 and Late January 1999), will later recall regularly seeing Aswat at the Finsbury Park mosque where Abu Hamza preaches. Hassaine frequently sees Aswat recruiting young men to join al-Qaeda. “Inside the mosque he would sit with the new recruits telling them about life after death and the obligation of every Muslim to do the jihad against the unbelievers. All the talk was about killing in order to go to paradise and get the 72 virgins.” Aswat also shows potential recruits videos of the militants fighting in Bosnia and Chechnya. Hassaine will add: “He was always wearing Afghan or combat clothes. In the evening he offered some tea to the people who would sit with him to listen to the heroic action of the mujaheddin before joining the cleric for the finishing touch of brainwashing. The British didn’t seem to understand how dangerous these people were.” Hassaine presumably tells his British handlers about Aswat, as he is regularly reporting about activities as the mosque around this time, but the British take no action. [Sunday Times (London), 7/31/2005] It will later be reported that Aswat is the mastermind of the 7/7 London bombings (see Late June-July 7, 2005). Some of the 7/7 suicide bombers regularly attended the Finsbury Park mosque, and may have been recruited by al-Qaeda there or at another mosque in Britain. Counterterrorism expert John Loftus will later claim that Aswat in fact was working with British intelligence. He will say that in the late 1990s British intelligence was trying to get Islamist militants to fight in Kosovo against the Serbians and Aswat was part of this recruitment effort (see July 29, 2005). [Fox News, 7/29/2005]
November 1999-Early 2000: Possible 7/7 Bombings Mastermind Tries to Set up Militant Training Camp in Oregon
Haroon Rashid Aswat and Oussama Kassir, assistants to leading London-based radical cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri, arrive in the US to assess the suitability of a proposed terrorist training camp. Upon arrival, they meet up with James Ujaama, another associate of Abu Hamza who proposed the camp (see October 1999) and its owner Sami Osman. Aswat is considered a close aide to Abu Hamza, who himself is an informer for the British (see Early 1997), and will later be described as the mastermind of the 7/7 London bombings.
Unsuitable Facility – However, Aswat and Kassir are unhappy with what they find, especially as Ujaama does not have a key to unlock the gate to the ranch when they arrive. In addition, the ranch lacks food, running water, toilet facilities, and barracks, and only has a simple trailer on it. They stay at the ranch for about two months and conduct weapons training for around 15 militants present. According to a witness, Kassir brags that he is a “hit man” for Abu Hamza and Osama bin Laden and has had jihad training in Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Lebanon. Jihadi videos are shown and a computer disc with details of how to improvise poisons is displayed. In addition, a scheme for poisoning a water supply is discussed, as are armed robberies, building an underground bunker to conceal weapons, and firebombing vehicles.
FBI Investigation – However, on December 13 Osman’s car is stopped due to a faulty brake light and the police officer notices that two men, who turn out to be Aswat and Kassir, are acting strangely in the car. For example, Aswat clutches a briefcase closely to his chest as the police officer questions him. The FBI previously had Osman under surveillance, but has lost him. A database check performed by the officer alerts the FBI and an agent is immediately dispatched to Bly. He shows a surveillance photo of Aswat and Kassir to the officer, who identifies them as the other two men in the car. More FBI agents arrive to investigate the ranch, but, before they can raid it, Aswat and Kassir leave for Seattle. There, Aswat allegedly boasts of being bin Laden’s “hit man,” just as Kassir has done.
Advised to Abandon Ranch – Aswat and Kassir eventually return to Britain and advise Abu Hamza against putting any further effort into the ranch. Kassir will be arrested in the Czech Republic and extradited in 2007 to stand trial. [Daily Mail, 7/24/2005; Sunday Herald (Glasgow), 7/31/2005; Seattle Times, 8/9/2005; O’Neill and McGrory, 2006, pp. 185-186, 194; Associated Press, 9/26/2007]
Summer 2001: Lead 7/7 London Bomber Already Radicalized, Linked to Two Future Suicide Bombers
Manchester businessman Kursheed Fiaz will later claim that in the summer of 2001, he is visited by Mohammad Sidique Khan, Omar Sharif, and Asif Hanif. Khan will later be known as the lead suicide bomber in the 7/7 London bombings (see July 7, 2005), while Sharif and Hanif will both die bombing a cafe in Israel in 2003, killing three (see April 30, 2003). Fiaz will claim that the three came to his offices to encourage young Muslims working there in “the new ways of Islam.” The three discuss traveling to Syria, Pakistan, and Afghanistan to better understand Islam, but the mention of places like Afghanistan turns the potential recruits off. This incident will suggest that Khan was radicalized earlier than previously thought. He apparently attends an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan around this time (see July 2001). The incident also confirms links between the three men, increasing suspicions that Khan helped the other two in a trip to Israel shortly before their suicide attack (see February 19-20, 2003). Fiaz will not disclose this incident until after the 7/7 bombings. [BBC, 7/9/2006] Khan and Sharif are particularly close, as both attend the same mosque in the small town of Beeston, near Leeds. [Independent, 7/24/2005]
July 2001: Head 7/7 London Bomber Trains in Pakistan, Fights with Taliban
In 2008, a British Muslim named Waheed Ali will testify that he and Mohammad Sidique Khan, the head suicide bomber in the 7/7 London bombings (see July 7, 2005), attended militant training camps and fought with the Taliban. Ali is charged with assisting the 7/7 bombings, and while he denies those charges, he describes his trip with Khan. He says that the two of them flew to Pakistan in July 2001. They were picked up at the Islamabad airport by members of the Pakistani militant group Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and were driven to a training camp at the village of Mansehra, in the mountains of Pakistan near the border of the disputed province of Kashmir. They received special treatment because they were from England, which was unusual. They learned to shoot Kalashnikovs. Then the two of them went to a Taliban camp near Bagram, Afghanistan, about one mile from the front line in the civil war with the Northern Alliance. There, they became very ill with diarrhea and did not do much. However, Khan recovered enough to go the front line a few times. [Guardian, 5/21/2008]
September 12, 2001-October 2003: Computer Expert Tries to Warn Police about Group of Radical Islamists, Including Two 7/7 Suicide Bombers
On September 12, 2001, Martin Gilbertson attends a party in Beeston, a neighborhood in Leeds, Britain, where a group of Muslim youths are celebrating the 9/11 attacks that took place the day before. Gilbertson is introduced to three men who run the Iqra Islamic bookshop and some related establishments in Beeston. Their leader appears to be Martin McDaid, a former Royal Marine who converted to Islam and changed his name to Adbullah Mohammed. Gilbertson, a former Hell’s Angel and rock and roll roadie, is not Muslim, but McDaid and the others ask if he can instruct them in website production. Over the next two years, Gilbertson ends up getting paid to do the production work for them himself, as well as repairing their computers and setting up encryptions to protect their computers from being monitored.
Gets to Know 7/7 Bombers – Two of the future 7/7 London bombers, Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, live in Beeston and regularly visit the Iqra bookshop. Gilbertson comes to know them well. But after spending time editing video footage meant to serve as radical Islamist recruiting propaganda DVDs, he becomes alarmed at the content and decides to go to the police.
Informs Police – In October 2003, he goes to the local police to warn them about the circle of radical Islamists he is working for. For instance, he warns that McDaid is “ranting and raving” about “jihad.” He is told to send his material to the anti-terrorist squad at the West Yorkshire police headquarters instead. So he sends them a package containing some of the DVDs he helped make, a contact number, a list of names (including Tanweer and Khan), and details about their e-mail traffic. He leaves the area some months later and loses contact with the group. He never hears back, until he goes to the police again shortly after the 7/7 bombings.
Police Fail to Say If They Were Informed – A West Yorkshire police spokesman will later say: “It’s going to be almost impossible to trace what happened to a specific item of mail. We don’t have an anti-terrorist squad, and there’s no way of saying to where it might have gone from the mailroom. We get all sorts of material on extremist groups—but it’s impossible to say whether this made its way into the intelligence system, whether it was discounted as low-level intelligence or whether it was acted upon in some way.”
Talk about Dying for the Cause – Gilbertson will later say that he did not hear any specific plans for suicide bombing. But an associate of his will later say: “Some people made it clear they had no objection to dying for their cause. They didn’t see it as suicide, and didn’t talk much about martyrdom. They saw the suicide bomb as the only weapon they had in a war in which they were outgunned and overpowered.” [Guardian, 6/24/2006]
Police Raid – Gilbertson will later tell the BBC: “I know that other people were talking to the police at the same time. There were many people who were voicing their concerns about what was happening in Beeston. But nobody would listen.” But he also believes that police raided the Iqra bookshop soon after he mailed his warning. He says that in early 2004, he was asked to repair a laptop belonging to one of the people he had warned the police about, and was told the laptop had been damaged after being seized by police. He says that he thought, “Oh, the police listened to me.” [BBC, 5/9/2007]
Late 2001: Lead 7/7 London Bomber Works with Al-Qaeda Leaders, Gets Explosives Training in Southeast Asia
In July 2001, Mohammad Sidique Khan, the lead suicide bomber in the 7/7 London bombings (see July 7, 2005), trains in an al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan (see July 2001). Presumably later in the year, he is sent on a mission to Southeast Asia, where he meets al-Qaeda leader Hambali. Making a total of two trips to the region, Khan is assigned to assess for al-Qaeda how much funding its Southeast Asian affiliate Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) needs. This is according to a militant who will later be jailed in Malaysia. This militant says he takes Khan to meet Nasir Abbas, a JI leader, who then takes Khan to a JI training camp on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, where Khan learns bomb-making skills. Abbas will later corroborate the account after being captured in Indonesia. [Time, 9/26/2005; Manila Times, 10/27/2005] Abbas will claim that while Khan is in the Philippines, he meets Azhari Husin, a chief bomb-maker for JI who is linked to most of JI’s major bombings. While Husin is Indonesian, he studied in Reading, England, and received a doctorate in engineering there in 1990. [Evening Standard, 10/26/2005] Abbas, the brother-in-law of Ali Gufron, another JI leader and one of the masterminds of the 2002 Bali bombings, will be captured in April 2003. He will be able to avoid a jail term by fully cooperating with the authorities, but it is unknown if his information about Khan is shared with British intelligence before the 7/7 bombings. [New Straits Times, 4/3/2004]
December 2001: FBI Monitors 7/7 London Bomber while He Visits US
In December 2001, Germaine Lindsay, one of the suicide bombers in the 7/7 London bombings (see July 7, 2005), travels to the US to visit his mother in Cleveland, Ohio. He is allegedly monitored by the FBI after spending a month-long holiday with her. It is unknown what causes the surveillance. He is just graduating from high school around this year. [Daily Mail, 7/24/2005] Lindsay will also allegedly come to the US in 2002 or 2003 and make contacts in New Jersey and Ohio, but details are sketchy. [ABC News, 7/15/2005] US intelligence is also given his name by British officials at some point in 2004 after his name comes up in the course of an investigation into a fertilizer bomb plot in Britain early that year (see 2004). At some point, the US places him on a terrorist watch list at the request of Britain. A US official will later say, “He was on the radar, then he was off the radar.” [Daily Mail, 7/16/2005] Shortly after the 7/7 bombings, British authorities will deny they had heard of Lindsay prior to the bombings, but in early 2006 Newsweek will report that they “now concede they may have.” [Newsweek, 2/5/2006]
December 12, 2001 and After: Al-Qaeda Suspects Cleared for Extradition to US but Stay in Britain
Britain’s highest court rules that three alleged al-Qaeda operatives can be extradited to the US to face charges of involvement in the 1998 African embassy bombings (see 10:35-10:39 a.m., August 7, 1998). The three, Khalid al-Fawwaz, Ibrahim Eidarous, and Adel Abdel Bary, were arrested in London in late 1998 and early 1999 (see September 23, 1998-July 12, 1999). But the Washington Post reports that the three “can bring still more appeals in Europe that could delay any US trial for months or even years.” [Washington Post, 12/18/2001] In 2002, Eidarous is sent to a mental hospital after psychiatrists say he is mentally ill. In July 2004, he is set free in Britain because he has been diagnosed with leukemia. An insider at his hospital says: “Doctors know that his cancer is well advanced and he probably does not have that long to live. Many here were shocked he has been released though. He is wanted by the FBI for one of the worst terrorist atrocities in history.” [Mirror, 7/22/2004] There have been no reports of him dying since. In 2005, the Times of London will report that al-Fawwaz may be extradited to the US soon. His lawyers are said to be making “last ditch” appeals to delay his extradition. [London Times, 8/31/2005] But as of 2008, neither he nor Abdel Bary have been extradited to the US or charged in Britain.
2002-2004: 7/7 London Bombers Attend Sermons Given by Extremist Imam Abu Hamza Who Has Deal with MI5
Lead 7/7 suicide bomber Mohammed Sidique Khan (see July 7, 2005) first attends the radical Finsbury Park mosque in London in 2002. The mosque is run by extremist imam Abu Hamza al-Masri, an informer for Britain’s security services (see Early 1997). Khan and fellow suicide bomber Shehzad Tanweer first heard Abu Hamza preach in Leeds, and when Khan arrives at the mosque he is carrying a letter of recommendation from Haroon Rashid Aswat, a top aide to Abu Hamza, an alleged mastermind of the 7/7 bombings, and a possible British informant (see Late June-July 7, 2005 and July 29, 2005). Reportedly, Khan makes several visits to the mosque, sometimes sleeping in the basement. Aswat recruited young men to join al-Qaeda at Finsbury Park, at least in the late 1990s (see Late 1990s). Khan also takes Tanweer to the mosque, where, according to authors Sean O’Neill and Daniel McGrory, they are “shown gory videos and DVDs portraying the suffering and slaughter of Muslims in hotspots around the world, and [are] urged to make common cause with the people of Chechnya, Iraq, and Afghanistan.” O’Neill and McGrory will later comment: “Instructors at Finsbury Park would have spotted that in Khan they had a small-time street boss who was an ideal candidate to organize his own cell.” Khan, Tanweer, and a third bomber, Jermaine Lindsay, will also attend gatherings led by Abu Hamza outside the mosque after it is closed by police (see January 24, 2003). [O’Neill and McGrory, 2006, pp. xix-xx, 190, 269, 271-272]
2002-2004: 7/7 London Bomber Visits Pakistan at Least Once; Details Murky
Three of the suicide bombers in the 7/7 London bombings (see July 7, 2005) have families from Pakistan, and two of them, Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, make multiple trips to Pakistan and attend militant training camps there (see July 2001, Late 2003, July-September 2003, and November 18, 2004-February 8, 2005). The third ethnically Pakistani bomber, Hasib Hussain, does go to Pakistan, but exactly when, how many times, and what for remains murky. It is undisputed that he travels there some time in 2002. According to some friends, he visits a madrassa (Islamic boarding school) there, but according to other friends, he only visits relatives. His 2002 trip also takes him to Saudi Arabia, where he goes on the religious haj to Mecca. When he comes back to Britain he is noticeably more religiously observant, growing a beard and starting to wear robes. Friends say he also starts openly supporting Islamist militancy. [Sunday Herald (Glasgow), 7/17/2005; BBC, 5/11/2006] It will be widely reported just after the 7/7 bombings that he returns to Pakistan on July 15, 2004. However, it will later be determined that the passport record is of someone else with the same name who does go to Pakistan on that date. [BBC, 7/21/2005] But Hussain’s parents say that he is gone for about four months in the middle of 2004, so he could be in Pakistan after all, or in some other unknown destination. [Washington Post, 7/19/2005]
