Three Muslim men were found guilty of the biggest terror plot since a 2006 conspiracy to bomb transatlantic airplanes was foiled. Prosecutors alleged the plan would have been even deadlier than the July 5, 2005 bombing on London's transportation system, in which the underground rail system and a double decker bus were targeted. That attack killed 52 and injured more than 700. This most recent plot was thankfully uncovered before anything happened.
The men were found to be greatly influenced by American Al-Qaeda imam, Anwar Al Awlaki, who was killed in a drone strike. Awlaki (also spelled Aulaqi), served as imam to a mosque in Falls Church, Virginia, where he preached to the 9/11 attackers, and also exchanged several emails with Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist who went on a rampage at Fort Hood, killing several people before he, himself was killed.
Awlaki was just as dangerous, if not more dangerous, than Osama bin Laden, in terms of developing extremists, although President Obama has taken heat from some U.S. citizens for killing him with a drone instead of giving him a fair trial, the fact is, he is dead and no longer able to spew his twisted view of Islam.
The men who plotted a terror attack were born in the UK and from Birmingham, England. Irfan Naseer, 31, Irfan Khalid, 27, and Ashik Ali, 27, were convicted of plotting to set off a series of eight bombs nestled in backpacks scattered in crowded areas of London. Two of the men, Naseer and Khalid, were found to have traveled to Pakistan for terror training, and also to recruit more men into their terror network.
The three men were sentenced to life in prison, although all three of them have denied the charges. However, the British intelligence agency, MI5, recorded them discussing their plot during the course of an 18-month investigation.
The men had falsely posed as street collectors for a charity called Muslim Aid. They had collected more than £12,000 ($18,400), but lost the majority of that money due to poor investments in the foreign currency markets and had to take out loans to recoup their losses.
Some of the plots investigators heard during their surveillance of Naseer, Khalid, and Ali are enough to make your toes curl. The men discussed other outlandish and ideas, like welding knife blades to the front of a truck and driving it into a crowd, or smearing poisoned beauty cream on the steering wheels of random vehicles. If these men had succeeded in their terror plot, there's no telling how many innocent lives would have been lost.
And again, they were followers of the late Anwar Al Awlaki, who preached violence against non-Muslims. People might rage against President Obama for drone strikes, but the fact remains, a terrorist is dead, and can no longer preach his brand of violent hate anymore.
Photo: Anwar Al Awlaki/Muhammad ud-Deen
©2013 Reno Berkeley for Gather News. Berkeley can be found on Tumblr, Google+, and Twitter.
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Comments: 7
I have been reading about this and I find it bizarre how varying the reports are:
A New America Foundation report found that only 2 percent of the thousands killed by drone strikes have been high-level operatives.
ProPublica tracking “the precise number isn’t known, but some estimates peg the total around 3,000.â€
CNN terrorism expert Peter Bergen has reported numbers between 1,900 and 3,300, including civilian deaths as high as 305 and as low as 261 associated with the strikes.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism estimates deaths worldwide at 4,756.
“We've killed 4,700,†Lindsay Graham said. “Sometimes you hit innocent people, and I hate that, but we're at war, and we've taken out some very senior members of Al-Qaeda.â€
The jury is out for me - if the alternative (as your Slate article says) is that hand-to-hand combat would likely kill more civilians, the drones, I guess - would be the lesser of two evils. On the other hand, it just seems wrong in theory - some guy or gal in Washington pushing a button which will kill...
Sorry for the long comment!
As always, a thought provoking article. However,
a terrorist is dead, and can no longer preach his brand of violent hate anymore.</</strong>em>
Good sentiments, but unfortunately far from being accurate. There were hundreds of tapes made from Al Awlaki's recorded hate filled speeches. Those tapes have been reproduced many times and passed around extremist and terrorist communities throughout the world. Ergo, Al Awlaki's brand of extremist hatred and terrorist thinking is still being taught to hundreds of new recruits in terrorist training camps wherever they may exist.
{i.e.} To the dismay of the western world and its allies, Al Awlaki's word lives on, although Al Awlaki himself, is supposedly in heaven with 71 virgins to serve (service) him.
The three men who were recently arrested in the United Kingdom, were terrorist of the worst kind. I make that charge, inasmuch, as they were not plotting a warranted military assassination, but the maniacal murders of innocent people on a mass scale. Fortunately, for the British people, their government's security agaencies were successful in foiling those terrorist plots without the necessity of killing the terrorist themselves. A non violent action which is not always possible, but is the most desired means by a moral society.
However, what really concerns me, is that there are those among us who constantly attempt to challenge our countries right to take the actions necessary to defend ourselves against a terrorist enemy. Writers such as Renee Nal, a GN contributor who not only takes every chance afforded to her to write unfavorable articles concerning the American government and/or the POTUS, but a person who is not even a citizen of the United States of America. (although she frequently alludes to herself as being such in many of her posted comments)
Just as in this article, she deliberately brought up the question of why our government killed Al Awlaki's son and then posed the legality of having done so without a trial. She did this, even though the article was not about, nor did it even mention Al Awlaki's son in any way. She deliberately used the afforded chance to create another scenario of doubt, distrust and suspicion of our government.
Renee, always attempts to portray herself to the readers as being a morally concerned individual and not as a disingenuous instigator or provocateur. But, its not hard to see right through her mask of false innocence and phony moral concern. IMO, her real agenda, is to portray the American government in the worst light possible, as well as to create suspicion of our president's approved military actions as Commander In Chief.
Since Renee took advantage of this article, to once again attempt to promote and create an atmosphere of disenchantment and distrust of the American government, I felt that I could take the same opportunity to state that I am sick and tired of her doing so. I am a proud American citizen who believes in and supports my government. An american who does not appreciate her antagonistic and disingenuous exploitation of my government in her articles and posted comments.