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Terror Alerts

Pietro_Mercurios said:
coldelephant said:
...

I've just read that Reuters article posted above, and apparently ambulance workers saw smoke coming from the car.

I therefore make the supposition that they thought the car was on fire and might blow up - so they called firemen or something who then saw the cannisters of gas and wires and nails and called the bomb squad.

Can anybody verify that this is what happened?
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This comes from some Irish correspondent, in the Register. I don't know where it originates from:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/29/more_fear_biscuits_please/

...

Today we have news from London, where a "big [explosive] device" was discovered inside a parked car near Piccadilly Circus. The device consisted of petrol, propane gas cylinders, and nails. The car containing it had been abandoned after its driver was observed piloting it erratically, crashing it, then running off, like a true professional. Ambulance workers called to assist nearby noticed what they initially thought was smoke inside the car, but which likely was petrol vapour, and contacted police.

...
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Wait! This is from the Irish RTÉ News site:
http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/0629/london.html

...

Explosives officers were called to examine a car in Haymarket in central London after a member of the public reported a suspicious vehicle shortly before 2am.

Witnesses reported seeing the car driving erratically before crashing into bins by the side of the road. The driver then escaped on foot.

It is understood a passing ambulance crew reported seeing smoke inside the vehicle. Police were alerted and a controlled explosion was carried out on the car.

...
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Does anybody have any experience of it, or other Tiger, Tiger clubs? Are they World music, multicultural venues, or what? According to the site the music is generally classic pop, or dance anthems and they're big on hen nights.
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Dreadful place, cheesy tunes, overpriced drinks, etc etc. No more "multicultural" than most venues in London - it's just a very diverse city. Generally full of hen parties and drunk office workers.

So I wouldn't see any particular political message associated with targeting it. Islamic fundies have a history of attacking clubs and bars though because they associate them with decadent Western behaviour such as drinking, dancing and women being out of their own.
 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/6257194.stm

Blazing car crashes into airport

BBC News Online. 30 June 2007

A car on fire has been driven at the main terminal building at Glasgow Airport.

Eyewitnesses have described a Jeep Cherokee being driven at speed towards the building with flames coming out from underneath.

They have also described seeing two Asian men, one of whom was on fire, who had been in the car.

Strathclyde Police said two people had been arrested and detained in connection with the incident.

The airport has been evacuated and all flights suspended following the incident at 1515 BST.

A Whitehall spokesman said the incident was not being treated as a national security threat however the prime minister is being kept informed of developments and is expected to chair a meeting of Cobra - the emergency committee later.

First Minister Alex Salmond has activated emergency procedures.

The incident comes a day after two cars were found containing explosives in central London.

The cars contained petrol, gas cylinders and nails but the devices did not detonate.

One eyewitness at Glasgow Airport said: "I heard the sound of a car's wheels spinning and smoke coming out.

"I saw a Jeep Cherokee apparently as if it was trying to get right through the doors into the terminal building.

"There were flames coming out from underneath then some men appeared from in amongst the flames.

"The police ran over and the people started fighting with the police. I then heard what sounded like an explosion."

Molotov cocktails

Eye-witness Richard Gray told BBC News 24: "A green Jeep was in the middle of the doorway burning.

"There was an Asian guy who was pulled out of the car by two police officers, who he was trying to fight off. They've got him on the ground.

"The car didn't actually explode. There were a few pops and bangs which presumably was the petrol."

Stephen Clarkson said he helped police restrain one of the men.

Thomas Conroy, a maintenance worker at the airport believes the men deliberately tried to set the car on fire.

"It looked like they had Molotov cocktails with them," he said.

"They sort of burst them round about the flames to make sure the car would go up big style.

"Within minutes it was up and the terminal caught as well."

'No accident'

Dr Rak Nandwani was at the airport building to pick up relatives when he saw a plume of black smoke.

He said: "The whole place has come to a standstill, the terminal building has been evacuated. I have spoken to my relatives and they have been moved to outside the building.

"They were told they could not pick their baggage up from the baggage collection area.

"There must be about 50 police cars at the airport. Me and my son, along with everyone else, have been moved to the car rental area."

Taxi driver Ian Crosby said: "This was no accident. This was a deliberate attack on Glasgow Airport."

The reaction of members of the public was not to help the men in the car, but to restrain them, he told the BBC.

Mr Crosby, who said he served in Northern Ireland, told how he shepherded people away from the scene in case of a secondary explosion or a nail-bomb.

Two men, one of whom was reported to be badly burned, were seen being led away in handcuffs.

Michael McRanor from Glasgow, photographed the arrest of one of the men.

A number of people are stuck on aeroplanes and on the airport strip while others have been told they might not be able to leave the airport complex until at least 2100 BST.

Edinburgh Airport has been closed to vehicles which are being turned away on approach however, flights are operating as normal.
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The current threat level is assessed as CRITICAL (as of 30th June 2007).

This means that an attack is expected imminently and indicates an extremely high level of threat to the UK.
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https://www.mi5.gov.uk/output/Page311.html

So is there something more deadly in the air? The recent attacks seem a touch obvious, welcoming Mr Brown to his new position.


I love the fact MI5 feel the need for a secure HTTP link.
 
Glasgow attack 'terrorist incident'

The attack on Glasgow Airport is being treated as a terrorist incident, police have said.

Chief Constable William Rae of Strathclyde Police said the car bomb attack on the terminal building was being linked to the car bomb incident in central Londony.

Speaking at a conference in Glasgow, he said: "I can confirm that we believe the incident at Glasgow Airport is linked to the events in London.

"There are clearly similarities, and we can confirm that this is being treated as a terrorist incident."

Two men from the vehicle, confirmed by police as a jeep Cherokee, were arrested following the incident.

One is being questioned in police custody. The other was taken to Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley with severe burns. His condition is described as critical.

A "suspect device" was removed from him upon his admission.

Chief Constable Rae said: "When he was being treated at the hospital, a suspect device was found at the hospital, and as a consequence of that the hospital was partly evacuated until this device was removed and put into a safe area."

Police confirmed that the device was found "on his person".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uklatest/stor ... 80,00.html
 
Excerpts from an interview with Blair below.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics ... 29,00.html

I don't normally have much time for the man but I think he makes some good points and I wish he had had the balls to say some of it while he was actually in power.

In particular I liked:

'The reason we are finding it hard to win this battle is that we're not actually fighting it properly. We're not actually standing up to these people and saying, "It's not just your methods that are wrong, your ideas are absurd. Nobody is oppressing you. Your sense of grievance isn't justified."'
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I do wish more mainstream politicians had been saying this after the 7 July bombings and that the media had given less airtime to those "community leaders" who seem to think that killing maiming innocent people on trains is a reasonable way to express one's annoyance at government policies.
 
CBS news reckon that on thursday night someone posted a message on an 'Islamist' mb claiming they were going to bomb London. For some reason they chose not to mention to their esteemed 'jihadist' brethren that they were also incompetent dickwads. Also no mention of Glasgow.

Was London Bomb Plot Heralded On Web?
Internet Forum Comment From Night Before: "London Shall Be Bombed"

Hours before London explosives technicians dismantled a large car bomb in the heart of the British capital's tourist-rich theater district, a message appeared on one of the most widely used jihadist Internet forums, saying: "Today I say: Rejoice, by Allah, London shall be bombed."

CBS News found the posting, which went on for nearly 300 words, on the "al Hesbah" chat room. It was left by a person who goes by the name abu Osama al-Hazeen, who appears regularly on the forum. The comment was posted on the forum, according to time stamp, at 08:09 a.m. British time on June 28 -- about 17 hours before the bomb was found early on June 29.

Al Hesbah is frequently used by international Sunni militant groups, including al Qaeda and the Taliban, to post propaganda videos and messages in their fight against the West.

There was no way for CBS News to independently confirm any connection between the posting made Thursday night and the car bomb found Friday.

Al-Hazeen's message begins: "In the name of God, the most compassionate, the most merciful. Is Britain Longing for al Qaeda's bombings?"

Al-Hazeen decries the recent knighthood of controversial author Salman Rushdie as a blow felt by all British Muslims. "This 'honoring' came at a crucial time, a time when the whole nation is reeling from the crusaders attacks on all Muslim lands," he said, in an apparent reference to the British role in Iraq.

"We say to Britain: The Emir of al Qaeda, Sheikh Osama, has once threatened you, and he carried out his threats. Today I say: Rejoice, by Allah, London shall be bombed," the message reads.

Speaking at a news conference Friday after the bomb scare in central London, the Metropolitan Police force's Counter-Terrorism Commander Peter Clarke said that officials had "no indication that we were going to be attacked this way".

Prior to the Thursday night posting by al-Hazeen, there had been no specific allusions to threats against London or Britain seen on al Hesbah, or any other major jihadist forums in recent weeks.

Several responses to the posting by other forum members expressed hope that an attack against London would be realized in the near future.

In response, al-Hazeen urges patience, saying, "Victory is very close, but you are just rushing it."

Reached by CBSNews.com Friday, the Metropolitan Police's media office could not confirm whether investigators were aware of the Internet posting on al Hesbah.

Intelligence sources who spoke to CBS News Friday morning seemed to express surprise at the discovery of the device, suggesting there had been "no warning, no intel, no smell" as a prelude to the plot — a vacuum of informon which reportedly had Britain's domestic intelligence agency "very, very worried".

.....

By Tucker Reals
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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So it's all Rushdie's fault.
 
I am somewhat puzzled about some of this stuff, due in no small part to the ridiculous tv news coverage I've managed to sit through.
How did the police come to find the Hyde Park car? How do they know these Glasgow incompetents weren't copycats? Why have the media gone from stressing that the initial 'carbomb' was totally unexpected, to the police/security folks knowing for a fact that there's definitely a nationwide network of bungling idiots that are responsible for all 3 incidents and for christ's sake don't fall asleep, they could be driving towards your house right now...?
There was a point during fridays bbc 6pm news where the news lady with the square face seemed to be talking about there being 3 locations where 'carbombs' had been found. This may have been due to them using Haymarket/Picadilly interchangeably, but some other folk watching with me were sure they'd heard something about the Trocadero being a target. It was also being stated that the car at Hyde Park wasn't dangerous after all. This last item was being repeatedly scrolled across the bottom of the screen whilst the journalist on camera was claiming the exact opposite.
No wonder conspiracy theories get off the ground so bloody quickly. :roll:
 
Two more arrested following the Glasgow bombing:

Two further arrests were made on the M6 in Cheshire overnight, but no further details are available.

An eyewitness to the arrests, Peter Whitehead told BBC News 24 that three cars straddled the motorway and brought traffic to a halt.

"It turned out they were unmarked police cars. In front of them were a couple of other unmarked police cars and they forced a car onto the hard shoulder and got the occupants out and as far as I can see arrested them," he said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6258062.stm
 
How did the police come to find the Hyde Park car?
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As I understand it the car was parked illegally a few streets away from the Haymarket bomb. The car was ticketed and then towed a few hours later, ending up in a car pound on Park Lane. When the pound's staff arrived for work the next morning, they noticed a smell of petrol and called the police.

There was a point during fridays bbc 6pm news where the news lady with the square face seemed to be talking about there being 3 locations where 'carbombs' had been found.
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A third suspect vehicle was found just off Fleet Street at about 5 - 6pm on Friday evening. Fleet Street was closed for a bit (I know because I almost got caught up in the traffic chaos). I didn't hear any more about the third car so I guess it was a false alarm.

None of this adds up to a conspiracy IMO, more that the desire for 24 hour rolling news means you end up with every tiny detail or rumour which later turns out to be false being reported in great detail.

I have no doubt though that the conspiracy theorsts will be all over this very shortly.
 
Quake42 said:
None of this adds up to a conspiracy IMO, more that the desire for 24 hour rolling news means you end up with every tiny detail or rumour which later turns out to be false being reported in great detail.

I have no doubt though that the conspiracy theorsts will be all over this very shortly.
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That's what I mean though. Sometimes I think it would be useful if tv news programmes, or at least the 24 hour news channels, contained a couple of minutes, once a week say, for corrections, in the way that newspapers do.
 
The headline sums up how surreal this whole thing has become...

Six NHS doctors held over al-Qa'eda campaign
By Duncan Gardham, Nigel Bunyan, Auslan Cramb and Richard Edwards
Last Updated: 7:27am BST 03/07/2007

The suspected al-Qa'eda terrorists behind the attempted car bomb attacks on Britain were almost all foreign doctors working in the NHS, it can be disclosed today.

It comes as an eighth person - also a doctor - was arrested in Australia in connection with the attacks and police carried out a controlled explosion on a car parked outside a Glasgow mosque.

In a development that will raise questions over the vetting procedures for medics from abroad, it emerged that five of the seven suspects held by British police are young Middle Eastern men employed at British hospitals.

One is Mohammed Asha, a "brilliant" neurosurgeon from Jordan. Another being questioned over both the London and Glasgow attacks is Bilal Abdulla, an Iraqi junior doctor who was a passenger in the car that rammed Glasgow airport.

The driver of the Jeep Cherokee -who suffered 90 per cent burns after setting himself on fire in the attack - is said to be a locum doctor working at the hospital where he is now being treated. Two of his colleagues at the Royal Alexandra Hospital, Paisley, Renfrewshire, were also arrested yesterday and another junior doctor is understood to have been the man police arrested in Liverpool.

Disclosures of the suspected terrorists' backgrounds - which came as the hunt for any others who may have been connected to the terrorist incidents continued - surprised detectives and the intelligence services.

Five men have been arrested, while a sixth, the Jeep driver, is under police guard in hospital. He was operated on yesterday but doctors said his chances of survival were slim. He has not been officially arrested because detectives are waiting for him to recover and do not want to trigger the 28-day maximum time limit for detaining him as a terrorism suspect.

The seventh person arrested is Dr Asha's wife.

Last night Scotland Yard said an eighth person was arrested at an undisclosed location, believed to be in Britain, in connection with the London and Glasgow attacks. Meanwhile inquiries were also taking place overseas and there were reports of another arrest overseas.

As Britain remained on its highest state of alert, information emerged on how the suspects were tracked down through their mobile phones and the number plates on their cars.

Clues were gathered from mobiles which were meant to act as detonators in the London car bombs. The bombers called twice to the mobile in a Mercedes parked outside Tiger Tiger nightclub in Haymarket and another in a car parked 200 yards away four times. The devices failed because of technical problems and detectives tracked the calls to identify suspects.

Dr Asha and his wife were stopped by police on the M6 in Cheshire on Saturday in an operation involving up to 15 unmarked police cars. An alert had been put out on his vehicle and it was clocked by Automatic Numberplate Recognition cameras as it headed north.

The focus of an ever widening investigation yesterday centred on the Paisley hospital.

The men arrested yesterday, aged 25 and 28, lived in the block attached to the occupational health unit. Police said they were "not of Scottish origin" but refused to elaborate. The arrests were followed by a series of controlled explosions on a blue Vauxhall car in the hospital car park. Police were searching the building and grounds.

A white BMW was blown up the day before and both vehicles are thought to belong to men who worked at the hospital. Two others are believed to have been living in staff accommodation, while two others, who are suspected of launching the attacks in London and Glasgow, were renting a semi-detached house in the village of Houston.

Sources confirmed that Abdulla qualified in Baghdad in 2004 and registered with the General Medical Council in August last year.

Sources said the man arrested in a vehicle near Lime Street Station in Liverpool, who had lived in the city, was also a junior doctor.

One of the Liverpool man's colleagues told a Muslim website yesterday that the suspect, who is 26, was a post-graduate trainee from Bangalore in India.

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He said he believed it was a case of mistaken identity involving another associate from a hospital in the city, who went abroad a year ago.

He said the suspect, who began work at the hospital just under a year ago, may have been detained because he had mobile chip of the former associate and was using his internet account.

He was said to have been travelling home from Penny Lane Mosque late on Saturday night when he was arrested.

Medical sources said the men were probably recruited by the NHS or applied directly to the hospitals.

From 2006 foreign applicants had to have a visa allowing them to work in Britain - normally associated with working at a given hospital.

It is understood that the suspect in intensive care had been working as a locum at the Royal Alexandra Hospital.

Police sources said last night they hoped they had the main figures in the suspected cell.

Officers are trying to ascertain the real identities of the men and believe one may be a British citizen. Another arrest was made at Stansted airport last night.

http://tinyurl.com/2yzq9z

If Islam can turn men trained to save life into ruthless assassins, then Islam is truly an evil religion.
 
sonofajoiner said:
Quake42 said:
None of this adds up to a conspiracy IMO, more that the desire for 24 hour rolling news means you end up with every tiny detail or rumour which later turns out to be false being reported in great detail.

I have no doubt though that the conspiracy theorsts will be all over this very shortly.
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That's what I mean though. Sometimes I think it would be useful if tv news programmes, or at least the 24 hour news channels, contained a couple of minutes, once a week say, for corrections, in the way that newspapers do.
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One of my big bug bears is lazy journalism and how reports are apparently conducted without any serious preparation and knowledge of events. It's right that any serious news agency should be on the scene, but increasingly it just seems like lazy speculation for 2 minutes of feed.
 
Warning! Danger Will Robinson! Danger!

Hurry! You may not have much time!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6902143.stm

Sydney urged to pack for attack

By Phil Mercer. BBC News, Sydney. 17 July 2007

Residents of Australia's biggest city, Sydney, have been urged to pack a survival kit to prepare for a terrorist attack or a natural disaster.

The local authority wants people to put together an emergency "Go-Bag", including maps, food and a radio.

Officials have denied the campaign is a government attempt to create fear and enhance national security credentials ahead of elections due later this year.

Senior ministers said planning for the initiative began two years ago.

Emergency buddy

Sydney's city council said residents need to think about what they would do in the event of a terrorist attack, a natural disaster or an outbreak of a contagious disease.

WHAT TO PACK IN A GO-BAG?
An emergency Go Bag
Maps, phone numbers, insurance details
Radio, first aid kit, spare keys
Running shoes, spare change, energy bars, toilet paper
Officials have suggested they pack a special bag with items such as a first aid kit, running shoes and a baseball cap.

The list also includes toilet paper and sticky tape.

It is all part of a new advertising campaign called "Let's Get Ready Sydney".

Posters, leaflets and a website will advise people what to do if the worst happens.

They would be encouraged to team up with an emergency buddy and head to one of three designated safe sites in the city centre.

There is also a helpful suggestion for cat owners, who have been told that if disaster does strike they can carry their pet in a cotton pillowcase.

Scheme lampooned

Critics are not impressed.

A member of the Greens in Sydney said the campaign was a conspiracy by the federal government to whip up fear ahead of national elections due in the next few months.

That accusation is denied by the government of Prime Minister John Howard, who is seen by many Australian voters as a leader with strong national security credentials.

The scheme has drawn scorn from some Australian newspapers.

One cartoonist depicted a frantic woman worrying which of her designer bags to pack.

Sydney's Lord Mayor, Clover Moore, has brushed aside the criticism.

She said that cities had to be aware of the threats posed by militant groups and climate change.

The mayor has admitted, however, that she is yet to pack her own emergency survival kit.
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Don't forget the running shoes, you might need them! :shock:
 
Can you imagine being caught without a baseball cap in an emergency? I hope they remembered to include suncream on the list.
 
Can you imagine being caught without a baseball cap in an emergency?
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Well, to be fair, a hat in Australia, especially in Summer, is a necessity.
 
Quake42 said:
Can you imagine being caught without a baseball cap in an emergency?
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Well, to be fair, a hat in Australia, especially in Summer, is a necessity.
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Not a baseball hat though, no ear or neck protection and they're difficult to fold if you need to put them away, what you want is a boonie hat with horizontal slits cut into it for ventilation. I also noted a lack of waxed matches or water purification tablets, a sheet of polythene would have been useful for a solar still in Oz, I'm begining to think their govt doesn't really care with the standard of advice they're giving out. :?
 
It seems like an odd list and one better prepared for some sort of apocalyptic attack rather than an isolated and relatively small scale act of terrorism. I'm intrigued by the insistence on toilet roll, though - it's certainly changed my perception of Australians.
 
Well, they do say:
They would be encouraged to team up with an emergency buddy and head to one of three designated safe sites in the city centre.
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..so presumably they'd concentrate all emergency resources at said sites, with fresh water and shelter.

At least they're thinking ahead. Pity it even has to be done, though.
 
The whole thing is a sinister AQ plot. You are encouraged to carry cats in pillow cases. This will drive the cats psychotic (would you like to be in a pillow case in Oz heat) and the casualty level will be horrific.
 
Remember when, in the wake of the likes of 9/11 and 7/7, they rolled out anti-Terror laws, around the World? Well, they've been very useful for dealing with anti-airport crusties, round Heathrow and now, apparently, in New Zealand, for hunting down Maori, as well as "environmental and political activists from disparate groups," too.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7062341.stm

Does New Zealand face a terror threat?

BBC News Online. By Colin Peacock. Wellington, New Zealand. 1 November 2007

After the US was attacked on 11 September 2001, governments around the world adopted new laws to combat terrorism. New Zealand was one of them.

Like other nations, it wanted to be ready in case foreign terrorist groups entered the country.

But it was New Zealanders who were arrested when the Terrorism Suppression Act was used for the first time.

Armed police carried out raids throughout the country in the early hours of 16 October, after discovering what they said was a secret paramilitary-style training camp in a remote part of the country's north-east.

Police said they seized guns, ammunition and molotov cocktails, and they even said some of those arrested had detonated a napalm bomb a week earlier.

All this was shocking news in New Zealand, which has no experience of armed insurrection in its modern history.

In fact it has barely had any experience of serious political violence at all.

Flamboyant agitator

The alleged training camp was in a region populated mainly by indigenous Maori people, whose ancestors resisted British colonialism in the 19th Century.

More recently, some have backed a long-standing movement for Maori independence, but that campaign has always been a political one - and not an armed struggle.

Maori people living nearby say there are no training camps and no paramilitaries in the bush there - only pig-hunters and campsites where local youths learn hunting and survival skills in summer.

"It is the forest margin. It is no secret that there are scores of camps. There are some old and illegitimate guns. But they're usually more dangerous to the users," says Dr Rawiri Taonui, the head of Canterbury University's Maori Studies school.

"And napalm? Fire-starting cubes, dirt and petrol and glycerol mixes are standard outdoor things. The odd idiot makes a big one, but that's a far cry from making bombs."

Among those arrested on 16 October was Tame Iti, a charismatic campaigner for Maori sovereignty. He is now behind bars charged with breaking New Zealand's gun laws.

He is known as a flamboyant and confrontational agitator who enjoys his notoriety, but not as a violent man.

"We're very disappointed that my father's in custody," says his son Toi Iti.

"But my father is not a terrorist and I believe the majority of the New Zealand public realise that."

Mr Iti's detention has become the focus of Maori anger, with hundreds of people protesting at his latest court appearance, in Rotorua on 25 October.

The protesters say the armed raids were politically motivated and nothing to do with law and order.

"This is about scaring the community to enhance state power and restore a police force beset by scandals," says Dr Rawiri Taonui.

Raids 'necessary'

However, most of those arrested were not Maori. They were environmental and political activists from disparate groups throughout the country.

Some of them have also been charged with having illegal guns, but none has yet been charged with offences under the anti-terror law that was used to authorise the raids in the first place.

Consequently, most New Zealanders are finding it hard to believe that they have formed some sort of militant alliance ready for violent action.

...
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More here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7052052.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7048487.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7044448.stm
What would Gandalf say?
 
Yeah, I've been following the NZ terror raids story with interest. It's hard to know what to think.

The truth is that there is a very dark side to NZ which doesn't feature in their ad campaigns and part of that dark side is a svery serious racial tension between Maori (and Pacific Islanders) and "Pakeha" (settlers of European, usually British/Irish) descent. Several years ago, when still in her teens, a white Kiwi friend of mine was severely beaten by a Pacific Islander woman in an unprovoked racial attack and I do not think her story is an unusual one.

So the arrests may not be as ludicrous as they first sound, although I agree that using anti-terror laws in this way is unacceptable.
 
On the face of it this prosecution seems ludicrous and a worrying attack on free speech:

'Lyrical Terrorist led double life'
By Victoria Bone
BBC News



The Mujahideen Poisons Handbook was found in Malik's home
Samina Malik was born in Britain and grew up in the west London borough of Southall.
Like many from the area, she found work at Heathrow Airport where she was a shop assistant at WH Smith.


But during her trial, prosecutors claimed Malik hid another, radicalised identity behind her everyday existence.

It was an identity they said she had crafted online after becoming involved with extremist Islamist organisations.

Calling herself the Lyrical Terrorist, they said she wrote and posted poems praising Osama Bin Laden, supporting martyrdom and describing gruesome subjects like beheading.

Police also told the Old Bailey they found a "library" of extreme literature in her bedroom including The Al-Qaeda Manual and The Mujahideen Poisons Handbook.



But throughout her trial, 23-year-old Malik insisted her poems were "meaningless".

She called herself the Lyrical Terrorist, she said, "because it sounded cool". It did not mean she was actually a terrorist or wanted to be one, she said.

In fact, she said: "I did not realise there was such a thing as extremism."

The jury found her not guilty of possessing articles for terrorist purposes.

But they did convict of the lesser terror charge of collecting articles "likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism".


This gives Malik the dubious honour of being the first woman ever convicted for offences related to Islamist terrorism in the UK.

'Out of context'

Malik told the court she started writing love poetry while at Villiers High School in Southall.



In early 2002, using the name Lyrical Babe, she said she began writing rap poems about guns and violence in the style of artists Tupac Shakur and 50 Cent.

At the same time, she said her interest in Islam began to grow and in 2004 she started wearing a hijab.


It was then that Malik changed her online name to the Lyrical Terrorist. She told the court: "It is only a user name. You have taken it too literally and out of context.


Malik wrote on a WH Smith till roll about her "desire" for martyrdom
"It was only because it was a cool name. It doesn't mean I'm a terrorist."


In the evenings after work, the prosecution said Malik posted her poems to a number of extremist websites.

The court also heard that she wrote about terrorism on the back of WH Smith receipts.

One note read to the jury said: "The desire within me increases every day to go for martyrdom."

On other till rolls, police said they found scribblings about Soviet spy weapons and "poisoned bullets" capable of killing the inhabitants of an entire street.



Prosecutor Jonathan Sharp said the evidence showed she was "deeply involved" in terrorist organisations, claiming: "It all adds up to Samina Malik being a dangerous extremist."

'Meaningless poem'

Malik, however, denied there was anything sinister about her behaviour.

Of one of her many poems, she said: "This does not mean I wanted to convert my words into actions.



"This is a meaningless poem and that is all it ever was. To partake in something and to write about something are two different things."

She said that another of her screen names Bint al Shaheed - meaning "daughter of the martyr" - was simply chosen in honour of her grandmother, who died of liver cancer in 2002.


Nevertheless, she said she did like to be known as Stranger Awaiting Martyrdom.

Malik also admitted visiting various extremist websites, including that of controversial cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri, but insisted she had "stumbled" upon it.

"I was being exposed to Abu Hamza, who we all know is a radical preacher," she said in court.

"Through the media's continuous spotlight and through his preaching, which the media continuously kept shedding light upon.

"I stumbled across his website. There was also Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed who was the leader of Al Muhajiroun."
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7068945.stm

She sounds like a deeply annoying and rather silly young woman, but did she really need to be dragged through the courts?
 
Reading between the lines, I'd guess she came under scrutiny because she worked at the airport and made those till-roll jottings.

I'd be the first to cheer if those jottings had been more life-enhancing than her horrible job.

Maybe she was going through an Islamic-morbid-goth thing but her poems were clearly not meaningless. The morbid fantasies of many an adolescent might be classed as worrying without having any cultural context for realization. The combination of morbid reverie plus culture plus situation rang some alarm bells here and why not? And twenty-three is not seventeen.

There seems to have been no evidence of active involvement with terror groups so maybe the law courts were not the right place but as more and more people seem to exist outside the mainstream, their introduction to it seems to be the legal system.

We would, though, be highly critical of security services which failed to investigate such a case. :(
 
JamesWhitehead said:
And twenty-three is not seventeen.
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True, but some people don't get beyond the teenage years. Ask anyone who has worked with habitual minor criminals.

JamesWhitehead said:
We would, though, be highly critical of security services which failed to investigate such a case.
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Very good point.
 
By all means withdraw her security clearance for the airport. I just don't see her nutty views and bad poetry as a criminal matter, that's all.
 
I must admit, I had to laugh, when I read the descriptions of some of the stuff she had around. I found some of her poetry only slightly less funny. James Whitehead probably has her pinned about right, with the "Islamic-morbid-goth thing."

I honestly, can't really work up a lot of sympathy for her particular case. This 'bint' really was asking for it, more, or less, literally. I will be interested to see what sort of sentence she gets. Counselling would make more sense than custodial. No point in making a martyr out of her.

Were the fleshly pleasures of boy bands, or decadent pop and film stars, forbidden to her, so that her mind and urges, found outlet in morbidity and the contemplation of extreme violence? Was the whole beheading thing a reflection of her own feelings of impotence expressed as a fascination with the ultimate in castration fantasies?

Will be interesting, though, to see if this sort of application of the new law is applied to others, with different ideologies, or religious beliefs and extreme violent views, Neo-Nazis, Animal Liberationists, anti-abortionists, Satanist-Death-Metal-Goths, etc, who advocate the use of violence and terror tactics.

We'll have to wait and see.
 
THOUGHT CRIME ALERT!!!!

And yes what about all your thrash metallers et al?

Think Ive got a floppy with an old anarchist cookbook on it and have often thought about beheading the main server guy here (dont ask)

Best nip down and hand myself in I guess...

And how about all those nasty Gangster Rappers?

Sad, silly girl. I also fail to see how taking her to court does anyone any good.
 
This is a troubling case in as much as it challenges freedom of speech and, as pointed out, many other forms of expression (death metal, gangsta rap et al) bear similarities. However, the existence of material titled How To Make Bombs and How To Win In Hand To Hand Combat suggest the possibility that what may be a morbid interest today has the potential to turn into something more dangerous tomorrow. She had also joined a group which, it's claimed, disseminates terrorist propaganda and had tried to donate money to a terrorist group. In such circumstances it would seem rather perverse to believe in a 'Kaffir' conspiracy and then expect the same conspirators not to view such actions and materials in the worst possible light.

I'm not entirely convinced that her behaviour neccessarily means she was a commited Jihadist rather than a misguided young fantasist. However, I think it's difficult to distinguish between the two - the notion that you're working on behalf of God and will be rewarded on death for your slaughter must make one question the individual's grip on reality in the first place. The threat in this case comes from a different mindset to the territorial or politically inspired terror we're more used to facing. Also groups like the IRA or the UVF had structures in which more earthly, or at least more calculating, types would wield some sort of centralising control. Examining an individual's place within such structures might help determine the threat any individual posed. In the case of Islamist terror there is little structure, no real leaders and no direct orders, only figureheads and appeals.

There is, of course, a danger that this conviction might convert some Muslims not so far involved in Jihadist activity to that cause but at the same time issuing a message of intolerance for such views might be no bad thing. If you are going to write poetry, which in effect contains hate speech against various ethnic groups, then best not to research and promote that which you'll later deny support for and particularly if you're going to be foolish enough to take material from them which could be used just as well for slaughter as for art.
 
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