1 Were they really unidentified?
In addition to the men charged in connection with the fertiliser plot, 55
people were identified as worthy of follow-up investigations. They were
divided into “essential targets” and “desirable targets”. Mohammad Sidique
Khan and Shehzad Tanweer were placed in the lower category.
This decision was taken in the knowledge that the two men had met Omar Khyam,
the leader of the fertiliser plot, on five occasions in the weeks when he
was engaged in the final stages of planning.
Khan and Tanweer had done a lot to arouse suspicion. They were followed
driving with the bomb plotters and observed taking antisurveillance
precautions. Their car was tailed from the South East to West Yorkshire
where Khan, who was driving, stopped in Beeston, and then drove to his own
home in Dewsbury.
MI5 says the men were “unidentified” but in March 2004, the ownership of the
vehicle was checked and found to be registered to Khan’s wife. Two months
later MI5 checked again; this time it was registered as Khan’s at a
different address.
2 Clear evidence of terror camp visits
Several of Khan’s conversations with Omar Khyam were recorded. One transcript
comprises two pages of discussion of financial crime, but eight pages about
terrorist training and travelling overseas to pursue jihad. In one extract
Khan asks Khyam: “Are you really a terrorist, eh?” KHYAM: “They're working
with us.” KHAN: “You’re serious, you are basically.” KHYAM: “No, I'm not a
terrorist but they are working through us.” KHAN: “Who are? There’s no one
higher than you.”
Later, Khyam offers him some advice about obeying the al-Qaeda leaders at
training camps. KHYAM: “The only thing, one thing I will advise you, yeah,
is total obedience to whoever your emir [leader] is . . . up there you can
get your head cut off.”
The CPS also wanted to introduce evidence at the trial of Khan’s attendance
at an overseas camp in 2003.
In the words of the trial judge, the Crown wanted to produce that evidence to
demonstrate “that the purpose of the training camp was to plan and cause
explosions in the UK”.
3 Riddle of pictures sent to supergrass
The Security Service has been in a state of disarray over what happened with
the surveillance pictures of Khan and Tanweer. They were caught on film
talking to Khyam and on their own at an M1 service station.
During 2004, as part of the follow-up operations to the Crevice arrests, a
batch of surveillance pictures was sent to the US to be shown to terrorist
detainees. One of those was Mohammed Junaid Babar, who had met the Crawley
gang and Khan (whom he knew as Ibrahim) in Pakistan in 2003.
Babar had pleaded guilty to terrorist offences but agreed to become a
supergrass witness to avoid a 70-year prison term. The initial version of
events offered was that the pictures were of such poor quality that they
were not sent to the US and thus never shown to Babar.
During the six weeks when the jury was considering its verdict, that story
changed. MI5 now appeared to be claiming that while it had not sent pictures
to America, Scotland Yard had. It was stated that the pictures had been
shown to Babar and that he had not recognised Khan/Ibrahim.
But there appears to be confusion at Scotland Yard over this explanation. Its
position has been that all investigations into the “peripheral” targets were
carried out by MI5.
4‘Clean skins’ – but the men had form
Only after 7/7, MI5 says, were Khan and Tanweer fully identified as associates
of the fertiliser plotters. Yet Khan’s name appeared twice in its own
records as the owner of a car that had been tailed and of a mobile phone
that had been used to make calls to Omar Khyam. It may be better for MI5 to
admit that Khan had been identified but his significance was not appreciated
at the time.
Resources were diverted after Operation Crevice to another antiterror
operation, but a series of arrests was made in that case in August 2004, 11
months before 7/7. There was still time to revisit the “peripherals”.
The MI5 line has been repeated religiously this week by John Reid, the Home
Secretary, who insists that Khan and Tanweer were “clean skins”. But such a
description sits uneasily with men who were consorting with high-priority
suspects, discussing terrorist-related fraud, planning to go abroad for
military training and who were under MI5 surveillance.
1 The following is an extract from MI5’s statement “Links between the July
7 bombers and the fertiliser plotters” carried on its website .
Throughout 2003-04, the Security Service and police undertook Operation
Crevice, a large-scale investigation into a terrorist conspiracy known as
the “fertiliser plot” . . .
At the time, this was both the Security Service’s and the police’s largest
ever counter-terrorist operation. The scale of intelligence gathering meant
switching resources from other less urgent investigations. It also meant
making judgments on a daily basis about where to concentrate resources based
on who presented the greatest threat to the UK public.
It was in the investigation of this conspiracy that Khan and Tanweer first
came to the Security Service's attention as unidentified individuals on the
periphery of the plot. To give an idea of scale, the links between the
fertiliser plot bombers and Khan and Tanweer represent less than 0.1% of all
the links on record in relation to the fertiliser plot investigation.
2 Two men discuss fraud scams at fund raising meetings
During February and March 2004, an unknown man subsequently identified as Khan
met with members of the fertiliser plot on five occasions. He was
accompanied by another unknown man, subsequently identified as Tanweer, on
three of these occasions. The meetings took place in Crawley, the home of
several of the fertiliser plot conspirators.
There was no indication as a result of the intelligence available at the time
on these meetings that either Khan or Tanweer were involved in terrorist
plotting. These meetings appeared to centre on the raising of money.
Conversations record Khan and Tanweer discussing how to raise cash through a
variety of fraud scams, such as purchasing building equipment on credit,
defaulting on payment and selling the goods on for cash. There is no record
of Khan and Tanweer discussing terrorist activity or bomb building.
The Security Service did record another conversation involving an individual
identified after July 7 as Khan. From the context of the recorded
conversation it is possible that Khan was talking about going to fight with
militia groups in the Pakistani border areas.
3 A man called “Ibrahim”
It has become clear since July 7 that Khan was known to detainees held outside
the UK in early 2004. Some detainees had mentioned men from the UK, known
only by pseudonyms, who had travelled to Pakistan in 2003 and sought
meetings with al-Qaeda figures. In the aftermath of the July 7 attacks, Khan
was identified by a detainee (who had seen a press photograph) as one of the
UK men, known to him only as Ibrahim.
Follow-up investigations in 2004 into the unidentified men on the periphery of
the fertiliser plot included the circulation of photographs to foreign
intelligence services in an attempt to identify these individuals.
Photographs of Khan were shown to two detainees who had provided the earlier
information, but without a positive result.
If Khan had been recognised, the Security Service might have allocated more
resources to investigating him. However, given the operational priorities at
the time, there is no guarantee that Khan would have been seen as a
high-priority target even then. In the event, the investigation was put on
hold due to the need to focus on far more urgent cases posing potential
large-scale threats to life.
4 Investigation of Khan and Tanweer post 7/7
Following the atrocities of 7/7, the Security Service and police undertook a
large-scale investigation into the perpetrators of the attacks. It was only
at this point that the identities of Khan and Tanweer became clear.
Painstaking analysis of surveillance records following the attacks, in order
to determine what — if anything — of the bombers was known to the Security
Service and police prior to 7/7, revealed their presence on the periphery of
the fertiliser plot. Examination of Khan’s telephone records showed his
contact with Omar Khyam. This, along with a subsequent review of
surveillance photographs taken during the fertiliser plot investigations,
confirmed his presence in meetings with Khyam and others during
February-March 2004.
