Brains behind terror plot may be Brit the security services thought

LIAM McDOUGALL

THE smartly dressed British officials smiled and punched the air as news came through that the passport of Haroon Rashid Aswat had been recovered from the body of a young Muslim killed fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Days later and sitting round a table deep within Thames House, the headquarters of MI5 in London, the officers were in no doubt that Aswat's death had eliminated a major terrorist threat to the UK.

Laid out before the group were highly classified photographs and papers from his file, revealing the activities, friends and acquaintances of a young man who was increasingly becoming a headache for Britain's security services.

It was early in 2003, but in the previous few years, the file on Aswat had burgeoned. The activist, from Dewsbury in West Yorkshire, had become increasingly - and dangerously - disaffected with his homeland.

In the 1990s, he had become estranged from his family and had begun worshipping in the notorious Finsbury Park mosque in North London run by the controversial radical cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri. By the late 1990s - still only in his mid20s - he was boasting that he was a "hit man" for Osama bin Laden and openly declaring his hatred of the West.

Aswat was also gaining an international reputation as a terror threat. In the US, FBI investigators wanted to question him about his trips to mosques in Seattle and to Bly, a sleepy backwater in Oregon, where former al-Qaeda members told FBI agents Aswat had tried to set up a terrorist training camp in 1999.

Aswat was believed to be out of the picture . . .

until the massive investigation into the London bombings earlier this month allegedly turned up his phone number during examination of the mobile telephone records of the four suicide bombers who killed 52 people on July 7.

Sources said that days after the first explosions, around 20 phone calls were found to have been made from his mobile to some of the men who caused carnage on the London Underground and a bus in the capital. Officials were forced to admit Aswat had not died in Afghanistan but had been spirited out of the war zone and into Pakistan, where he began to plan an al-Qaeda attack against the West.

A nightmare scenario for the British authorities, that Aswat was the so-called "fifth man" who orchestrated the attacks in London, was beginning to emerge.

With the net closing in on acquaintances of the four suicide bombers, the focus turned to Pakistan where, in the hope of picking up Aswat, his name was passed to the country's security agency, Inter Services Intelligence, by the British authorities.

On July 20, they thought they had got their man when Pakistani intelligence sources revealed that Aswat was arrested in the country after a crackdown on militants.

According to an intelligence source, Aswat was arrested and in possession of a belt packed with explosives for a possible suicide attack. He was also said to have about one million rupees (pounds- 13,000) and a British passport. But it transpired that this was another case of mistaken identity.

The man arrested was in fact a ceramics salesman from London with a similar name.

Then, last Thursday, a breakthrough emerged.

Two US intelligence officials revealed to the Los Angeles Times that Aswat had been arrested in Zambia. One said that British and US anti-terrorism investigators had gone to Zambia after Aswat's detention there the previous week and were in talks with officials in the African state to determine how best to prosecute him.

He is to be questioned over claims that one of the four suicide bombers - Mohammad Sidique Khan - telephoned him on the morning of the July 7 attack and that he was in contact with the group in the days running up to the bombing.

They also want to confirm reports that Aswat also entered Britain before the attacks and left just hours after the explosions went off.

Zambian officials have confirmed that Aswat was detained in the border town of Livingstone after he crossed from Botswana. Prior to his arrival in Zambia, which has a large Indian population, sources said he had lived in South Africa.

Despite the file that MI5 has on Aswat, they are still unsure as to the extent of his involvement in al-Qaeda. What is known is that Aswat, now 31, was born in Dewsbury, one of 10 siblings and the son of an engineer, Rashid Aswat, who now lives in Batley, West Yorkshire.

Aswat is believed to have studied at the London School of Economics before becoming a "highly public" aide of the radical cleric Abu Hamza.

Throughout the 1990s, he cultivated a reputation as a hot-headed young Muslim and first came to the attention of the US authorities around 2000 when he surfaced as a close associate of a Seattle man, James Ujaama, who was planning to build a terrorist training camp in Bly, near the Californian border.

In 2003, Ujaama, who was arrested in the US and pleaded guilty to assisting the Taliban, told FBI investigators that he had become friends with Hamza after moving to London in the mid-1990s, where he designed and maintained the cleric's website, Supporters Of Shariah.

As part of his plea agreement, Ujaama began to tell investigators about his involvement with Hamza and Aswat. According to court documents, in 1999, Hamza sent Ujaama back to the US to begin setting up the terrorist training camp.

Court records say that Aswat travelled to New York on an Air India flight from London in November 1999, then went to Seattle to meet with Ujaama. He then went to Bly and "met potential candidates for jihad training" and began working with Ujaama to set up passwords, security patrols and firearms training.

He appeared in Seattle again in February 2000, and for several months lived at the now-defunct Dar-us-Salaam Mosque in the city. By then, the documents allege, he was openly referring to himself as bin Laden's hit man.

Although US investigators are convinced about the danger posed by Aswat, the plan to set up the camp ultimately failed. Among the reasons given include the fact that he and Ujaama had to share a dilapidated trailer, with no bathroom or running water. There was no food and they were forced to hunt quail and rabbits to eat.

Locals who lived near to the ranch remember their Muslim neighbours. Carlton Poole said:

"People heard gunshots coming from the ranch but everyone around here has a gun and we figured it was folk out shooting rabbits. We had no idea we had al-Qaeda in our midst."

The FBI said that Aswat left Oregon in disgust and returned to Britain, dismissive of the Bly training camp proposal. It was believed that it was after this that Aswat travelled to Afghanistan, where he was killed.

"Until the past two weeks, the FBI thought that Haroon had been killed. That no longer appears to be the case, " a US law enforcement official said.

"His name has surfaced in the UK in connection with the London bombings. We are actively working with the the UK authorities to establish his movements."

Copyright 2005 SMG Sunday Newspapers Ltd.
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