Tube Carriages and Bus Were Nail Bomb Targets

By PAUL CHESTON

THREE al Qaeda terrorists who tried to explode devices on the Tube and buses just two weeks after 7/ 7 were convicted today.

The 21/ 7 plotters aimed to be bigger and better than 7/ 7 and were led by a terrorist known as the Emir who had trained in Pakistan. But the homemade bombs they used failed to detonate fully, leaving them to run for their lives. They were caught after the biggest manhunt in British history.

Today ringleader Muktar Said Ibrahim, 29, Yassin Omar, 26, and Ramzi Mohammed, 25, were convicted at Woolwich Crown Court of conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to cause explosions. Each faces life in prison.

They operated from a bomb factory in a north London flat where they assembled their devices using hydrogen peroxide distilled from hair bleach and chapati flour and used an explosive called Mother of Satan as a detonator. They targeted a bus in Shoreditch High Street and Tube trains at Warren Street and Oval.

For the first time it can be revealed that London was saved only by Ibrahims lack of basic arithmetic.

A scribbled note found at the bomb factory showed that Ibrahim, who had failed maths GCSE, had wrongly calculated the ratio of ingredients, rendering the bombs harmless. But for this, the devices, packed with nails and screws, would have devastated the transport network for the second time in two weeks.

The gang Ibrahim assembled were the first in Britain to originate from the Horn of Africa. Some had been influenced and radicalised by race hate clerics Abu Hamza and Abdullah al Faisal.

Ibrahim tried to detonate his bomb on the bus in Shoreditch. Omar was responsible for the Warren Street bomb, and Mohammed took his device to the Oval.

After the bombs failed to detonate, there was widespread panic, enabling the conspirators to escape.

Omar later caught a bus to Birmingham wearing a full length burka and was arrested standing fully clothed in a bath holding a rucksack, similar to the one which had contained his bomb.

The would-be bombs, confirmed by scientists as potentially lethal, were made up of hydrogen peroxide, distilled from hundreds of litres of hair bleach, mixed with chapati flour and high explosive TATP used as a detonator, known to the bombers as the mother of Satan.

The gang spent 500 on buying the hydrogen peroxide. Said an anti- terrorist source: Sadly the fact is that terrorism these days is cheap. The devices were broadly similar in style to the bombs used successfully on 7/ 7, reflecting the training given to Ibrahim in the terror camps in Pakistan.

The bomb factory was located in Omars council flat in New Southgate where Ibrahim had drawn up a strict rota for mixing the ingredients in massive quantities. Police later found a library of the most obscenely violent tapes showing beheading of Western hostages and the glorification of 9/ 11 and 7/ 7.

There were also Evening Standard front page cuttings from 7/ 7 headlined Terror bombs explode across London and from 21/ 7 headed New Tube and bus bombings.

The court heard Ibrahim was obsessed with making a bigger and better impact than 7/ 7 and had also booby-trapped the bomb factory to blow up the police and people in the block of flats.

The jury was continuing to deliberate on Hussain Osman, 28, the alleged Shepherds Bush bomber, Manfo Kwaku Asiedu, 33, who was accused of targeting White City Tube station but is alleged to have got cold feet and dumped his bomb on Little Wormwood Scrubs, and Adel Yahya, 24, who was accused of playing an important part in the planning but was out of the country on 21/ 7.

QUESTIONS were raised today about the security services when it was revealed that Muktar Said Ibrahim had been intercepted at Heathrow seven months before July 2005 on his way to the Pakistan terror training camps. His two companions were later blown up in a suicide bomb attack in Iraq.

He was interviewed by Special Branch and claimed he was bound for a wedding even though he could not name the bride. He missed his plane to Islamabad but caught another the next morning.

Yet he had already been arrested for distributing religious leaflets in Oxford Street and was observed by surveillance officers at what appeared to be a training camp in the Lake District.

When he returned from Pakistan to Heathrow three months later he had only one aim jihad in Britain.

(c) 2007 Evening Standard; London (UK). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.