In a recent Wake up America article, I reported that the trial for the eight men that were arrested in August of 2006, in connection to the foiled terror plot to blow up planes destined for the US and Canada, had started.
The men on trial are Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 27, Waheed Zaman, 23, and Arafat Waheed Khan, 26, all from Walthamstow, East London; Ibrahim Savant, 27, from Stoke Newington, North London, Mohammed Gulzar, 26, from Barking, East London, Assad Sarwar, 27, from High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, Tanvir Hussain, 27, from Leyton, East London and Umar Islam, 29, from Plaistow, East London.
Reports now show some of the information that is coming out of that trial and it is, indeed, what many are calling chilling.
Details not only include how prepared and advanced the plot was, but even more disturbing to some is that members of the British Muslim terrorist cell spoke of bringing their wives and children on suicide missions to blow up those transatlantic airplanes.
The prosecutors played a tape recording for the jury, in which two of the accused, Umar Islam and Abdullah Ahmed Ali, were at the bomb factory where they discussed bringing their families with them and in reference to a train bombing where a man wanted to take his child, Ali said, "That's why he wanted to take his kid on the train with him. Shake them up.
"Should I take my lot on? I know my wife would not agree to it."
Ali and his wife had a nine month old son at the time of his arrest in August 2006.
In a search of his house, police found a paper which he had written, "If I was to be given the news that I will be meeting the most beautiful wife and the news of having a baby boy just born, it is more dear to my heart that I will be waiting in a tent in the cold dark chilly weather waiting for dawn so that I may attack the enemy."
Six of the eight-strong gang each made "chilling" suicide videos expressing the desire to wreak "death and destruction" against the West and "Kuffar", or non-believers.
The videos that are being presented to the jury show the men's stated desire to kill as many as possible.
One video was made by Tanvir Hussain, where he states, "PEOPLE are going to die. It's worth the price. For many years I dreamt of doing this, but I didn't have any means. Thank God Allah has accepted my duas (prayers) yeah, and provided a means to do this. I only wish I could come back and do this again and again until people come to their senses and realize: Don't mess with Muslims."
Another video shown was from Arafat Waheed Khan, who said, "We will rain upon you such terror and destruction that you will never feel peace and security. There will be floods of martyrdom operations and bombs falling through your lands. There will be daily torment in this world. I'd like to address the bootlickers who stand shoulder to shoulder with Kuffar in condemning these beautiful operations."
Those two videos are representative of the six.
If their plan had seen success, over 2,000 people from the flights alone would have been slaughtered, not counting those on the ground if the planes had fallen on land.
The men sat, dressed in Islamic garb, in the Woolwich Crown Court, South-East London, watching their suicide videos along with the jurors and after the videos were played, the prosecutor, Peter Wright QC, told the jury that the men's video messages left "very little room for any degree of ambiguity" as to their intentions.
Details have started to emerge about how advanced this plot was and how close these men were to implementing it.
The martyrdom videos were made, they had secured a top-floor apartment in a terrace house in Walthamstow, East London just weeks before their arrest. They were using the property as a bomb factory. Assad Sarwar had spent the months before his arrest stockpiling the necessary ingredients to make the bombs. In the days before their arrests they had also applied for new passports, claiming their old ones had been lost so they could discard their old ones containing stamps for travel to Pakistan.
Last but not least, in a bugged conversation from July of 2006, just weeks before their arrest, Ali said the attack was a "couple of weeks" away.
One of the eight men did not make a suicide video for a reason.
Assad Sarwar was not intending to be on the planes as they blew up. His intent, according to the prosecutor, was to rebuild the terror cell after his cohorts had blown up the seven planes, to plan further attacks.
According to Wright, who referred to diary found in Sarwar's home as well as a memory stick that contained a "mine" of information, future targets were to include Canary Wharf, the Greenwich foot tunnel under the Thames and nuclear power stations – to plunge Britain into a Chernobyl-style disaster.
The diary also referred to referred to UK airports plus the Fawley oil refinery in Hampshire, the Coryton refinery in Essex, the Bacton gas terminal in Norfolk and the Kingsbury oil terminal in Warwickshire.
A computer memory-stick in his home contained a "mine" of information on improvised bombs and attacking aircraft, it was said.
Chillingly, it also had details of the nuclear catastrophe at Chernobyl, and information on British nuclear power stations.
The trial for these men has just begun and yet the details being revealed show an advanced plot that would have caused one of the worst terrorist attacks in history had they succeeded.
Press coverage of this trial has been scarce as was noted by U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff as he blasts the media for deliberately shying away from reporting on this story.
Chertnoff writes his own thoughts on the media over at the Homeland Security's Leadership Journal.
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