The unravelling of Dhiren Barot’s most dangerous plan — which he called the Gas Limos Project — began with the arrest of al-Qaeda’s communications expert on July 13, 2004.
Naeem Noor Khan, who had close family ties to Britain, was seized at Lahore airport, then interrogated and possibly tortured by the Pakistani authorities before giving up the address of a terrorist safehouse in Gujarat.
Police raided the house 11 days later and waged an all-night gunfight with the men inside. When dawn broke, the terrorists surrendered.
Inside the building the authorities found what President Musharraf described as a “goldmine of information”: documents, mobile phones, false passports, weapons and, in an upstairs room, a Toshiba laptop computer. The hard drive contained a file called “eminem2”, on which was stored a document entitled Rough Presentation for the Gas Limos Project.
Over 39 pages, divided into four sections, the document set out in detail a plan to pack stretch limousines with explosives and gas cylinders, park them in car parks beneath buildings and detonate them.
Barot, whose fingerprint was found on an electronic circuit diagram at the safe house, has admitted that he was the author of the plan.
The document was written for the consideration and approval of al-Qaeda’s leadership. Barot informed them that the attack would cost a minimum of £60,000. His research and report, which he said took a year to complete, reflected a desire to kill and injure as many people as possible.
He said that the main aims were “to benefit Deen [religion]” and “to be able to inflict mass damage and chaos”.
Barot said that he had decided to use gas as the main component of his bombs because it was easy to obtain. He wrote: “Since in much of the Western world it is not always possible/feasible to obtain real destructive ingredients (eg, common explosives) — from the very beginning the project was based on being an improvised explosive device, hence the choice of gas.
“Gas can be employed to cause large-scale damage to structures since many of them [gas types] are by nature extremely flammable as well as explosive.”
Barot researched the burning properties of butane, propane, oxygen and acetylene and the strength of the cylinders in which they were sold. It was essential that the explosion would ignite the gas and shatter the metal cylinders into flying metal fragments.
Barot further suggested coating the cylinders with napalm and adding petrol cans filled with nails to “further maximise the damage caused”. If the initial charge failed to detonate the bomb, he suggested last-resort solutions.
“As a secondary recourse, we are trying to obtain grenades since these may offer better success. I have several times come close to obtaining a few and feel confident (inshallah [God willing]) that I will be able to get my hands on some in the the near future.
“Also it may be possible to purchase a few Uzi rifles (we already have access to pistols, double-barrelled sawn-off shotguns and a single ‘pineapple’ grenade).”
Police have so far been unable to find the cache of weapons, if it exists. Barot emphasised the importance of planting the bombs indoors, to maximise the damage and the spread of the fire.
He envisaged buying three limousines and putting a dozen 47kg (103lb) cylinders of propane in each. When detonated each cylinder would become a “huge exploding grenade”. He wanted to paint the cylinders yellow to confuse the emergency services into thinking that they were dealing with toxic gases.
The attacks were not planned to be suicide missions, and he wanted an escape plan for his six-man team.
To his superiors, he wrote: “The gas cylinder project has the potential to be a very good one (inshallah), so long as certain ground rules are adhered to. It was selected by applying methods and parameters that I learnt from observing senior planners, ie, to make use of that which is available at your disposal and to bend it to suit your needs, improvise rather than wasting valuable time becoming despondent over that which is not within your reach.
“This project forms the cornerstone [main target] of a series of planned attacks that have been prepared for synchronised execution on the same day, at the same time.
“That is to say projects are planned to be co-ordinated back to back as they were with 9/11, thus forming another black day for the enemies of Islam and a victory for the Muslims (inshallah), by the Mercy of Allah.”
He signed the document “EaB”, the initials of one of his al-Qaeda nicknames, Esa al-Britani.
Explosives and fire experts who studied Barot’s plans said that, although “slightly muddled”, they could be carried out. Charles Todd, of the Forensic Explosives Laboratory, said that it was “a credible plan to make and initiate a very large explosive-incendiary device”.
