The barbecue was in full swing. Young men spilt out onto the street from the
modest garden in a north London suburb and the air was thick with Urdu and
heavily accented English.
The invitation had been specific: no wives or girlfriends. The party was to
raise funds for a jihadi training camp: “Make sure your pockets are full.”
The party, held four years ago within a few hundred yards of the Metropolitan
police training centre in Hendon, helped to forge alliances among British
Islamist radicals that were to be put to murderous effect.
By the end of the evening £3,500 had been raised for a camp at Malakand on the
Afghan-Pakistan border.
Within weeks two of the most dangerous British-born jihadi terrorists —
Mohammad Sidique Khan, leader of the 7/7 suicide bombers, and Omar Khyam,
leader of the so-called Crevice gang — were learning to make bombs at
Malakand.
Details of the party were disclosed this weekend by one of the guests, Hassan
Butt, a former associate of the Islamist radicals who has turned against
violence.
Butt’s account both illustrates the extent of the jihadist network in Britain
and throws harsh new light on the failure of the British security services
to catch Khan before his 7/7 operation in London in which 52 people died.
Butt reveals that after the jihadist barbecue he drove to Khan’s home near
Leeds with another guest, Mohammed Junaid Babar, who would shortly become a
supergrass. Babar’s testimony helped to secure the conviction last week of
five members of the Crevice gang, who had planned to blow up — among other
targets — the Bluewater shopping mall in Kent and the Ministry of Sound
nightclub in London.
Although Babar describes the barbecue in his testimony, he does not refer to
the drive north, nor to some of the guests named by Butt.
However, if this supergrass was an associate of both the Crevice plotters and
the 7/7 leader, why were MI5 and the police unable to halt Khan’s
conspiracy? And how could Charles Clarke, home secretary at the time, claim
that Khan and his associates were “clean skins” unknown to the security
services?
Butt — who was stabbed and beaten up near his home in Manchester last month
after saying on American television that violence was a cancer in Islam — is
prepared for further serious reprisals. He believes that the British
authorities are only now waking up to the threat of the jihadist network in
the UK. THE guests at the barbecue that evening in late April 2003 — held in
the wake of the invasion of Iraq — included about 100 hardcore Islamists.
The host was a family man of 38 with four young children. He had hired
catering staff to serve lamb kebabs and marinaded chicken breasts, while his
brother, Tan, moved among the guests with an old Quality Street tin for
donations. “People were dropping in whatever was in their hands — £20, £100,
£200,” Butt said.
In the months leading up to the barbecue there had been friction between
British jihadist groups. Their members had returned from training camps in
Pakistan as hardened would-be terrorists; but their personal rivalries and
ideological disputes divided the different factions.
The host was a long-standing activist of Al-Muhajiroun, the group set up by
Sheikh Omar Bakri in 1996, and was experienced in settling disputes between
warring egos. According to Butt, who at the time was also a leading member
of Al-Muhajiroun, he wanted to show it was possible to cooperate. “It was a
mix between a corporate bonding session and one of those mafia meetings
where groups could air any beef between them,” Butt said.
The guest list included men who were later to become notorious. Among them,
claims Butt, was Mohammed Quayyum Khan, a part-time taxi driver from Luton
who is alleged to have sent Mohammad Sidique Khan to the Malakand training
camp on behalf of Al-Qaeda.
Butt also recalls seeing an east London “crew” leader, Kazi Rahman chatting
near the patio doors. Rahman, is serving nine years in prison for attempting
to buy sub-machineguns.
Sitting on pillows and leaning against the wall of the sparsely decorated
living room were other financiers and jihadists from Luton, Croydon,
Hounslow and the home counties.
“The favourite topic of conversation was ‘where were you on September 11’ but
people also came up to me during the evening and asked if I knew how to get
training,” said Butt. “It was clear that people were making deals and
forging links.”
Butt believes that many of those present that evening had followed a similar
trajectory to his own. From flirting with political agitprop before 9/ll,
they had travelled to Pakistan after the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001
and had become hardened through contact with serious players in the jihadi
world.
According to Butt, several hundred British radicals received weapons training
and Islamist tutorials. Lacking central leadership, however, they splintered
into cells, incapable of operating effectively on their own.
Babar, his fellow guest at the jihadist barbecue, played a key part in
bringing these groups together before he became a supergrass.
An American citizen and at the time a member of Al-Muhajiroun, Babar is
intriguing both as a jihadist and as a deserter from the cause. According to
Butt, he had been regarded as a fat lay-about at home in New York.
“He was the black sheep. He was the only one of three children who never
completed his degree and he lived in the basement of the family home,
separated from the three floors above where the rest of his family lived.
“He told me once that he’d robbed a hot dog vendor to get enough money to
escape from his parents. He was planning to run away to California but he
didn’t get very far.”
Babar went to Pakistan, Butt said, to prove himself to his family. They came
from the tribal
areas of Pakistan — home to the terrorist training camps — and he was one of
the few members of Al-Muhajiroun who could speak Pashto, the local language.
When Butt first met him in Pakistan he was still overweight — “a fat blob” —
but his experiences there and in the Afghan war brought to light an
unsuspected steeliness. He organised a training camp and is alleged to have
taken orders directly from Al-Qaeda to plan a terrorist attack in Britain.
BY April 2003, Babar was staying in the host’s home in north London, scene
of the barbecue. As the party continued into the early hours, he became
embroiled in a row with some members of Hizbut-Tahrir, an Islamist group
widely infiltrated into British universities.
“They were itching to get the shisha [smoking pipe] out,” said
Butt. Babar disagreed with smoking tobacco because he felt that it was
“haram” (forbidden) in Islam. They backed down, but continued to taunt Babar
and Butt had to restrain him.
Butt, who had borrowed his brother’s navy blue Audi TT to get to the
party from his home in Manchester, decided it was time to head back north.
Babar asked to be dropped off near Leeds.
“He told me that he was trying to fix up a marriage with some girl in Leeds,
but he’d only just got married [to a supporter of Al-Muhajiroun in Pakistan]
and by now I thought it was getting far too late for him to start stopping
in at some future fiancée’s house,” said Butt.
At 3am they stopped to buy snacks at a petrol station. Babar showed a glimpse
of his old weakness. “A normal person
would buy one drink, one pack of crisps and one chocolate. He’d [ask for] five
of everything. Maybe it’s a New York thing.”
Back in the car Babar began to confide details of a plot to murder President
Musharraf of Pakistan. “He [was] getting a hit squad together...to have
Musharraf killed,” said Butt.
As the sun rose, Babar directed Butt to a terrace house in Batley, West
Yorkshire, 15 minutes from the M1. A man in pyjamas came out to greet them.
It was Mohammad Sidique Khan.
Butt had met Khan before. Babar had introduced them in 2002 at a gathering at
Butt’s flat in Islamabad. Khan now recognised Butt and asked him if he
wanted to come in.
“I was tired so I really didn’t want to go in but he kept insisting,” said
Butt. They were shown into the front room. “The way Junaid [Babar] sat
there, he looked very comfortable,” said Butt, who believes the two men knew
each other well.
Khan’s small house was sparsely decorated with just a few large cushions and a
rug to adorn the front room. Khan offered Butt something to drink and the
three got talking.
“I was there for no more than 20 minutes and I remember talking about Iraq and
Afghanistan; how the Americans couldn’t find Bin Laden and Mullah Omar and
how Allah protects people who are sincere and that was it,” said Butt.
He expressed surprise that the security services, once Babar had turned
supergrass, did not find out more from him about Khan that could have
prevented the 7/7 bombings in London.
The FBI, which had been tracking Babar since he gave a hate-filled television
interview to a western network in Pakistan in late 2001, arrested him when
he flew home to America early in 2004. Faced with possibly spending the rest
of his life in jail, he agreed to turn against his friends. He spent a week
being debriefed and later pleaded guilty to five counts of providing
material support to terrorists.
His evidence against some of his former associates in Britain’s biggest
terrorist trial — named after Crevice, the police operation that cracked the
conspiracy — helped last week to condemn them to a lifetime behind bars.
Why then did Mohammad Sidique Khan remain free to kill?
Butt believes the answer lies in short-sightedness: “The security services
were so engrossed in Crevice and other southern plots that they didn’t take
anyone from up north seriously, because at that time there was no one up
north who was being arrested.”
He also questions what the security services were doing between mid2004 and
2005. “After Crevice, who were they actually tracking if not Khan? Crevice
ended in March 2004, so what happened after that? Was everyone on holiday
for the next year?
“They [the security services] have to realise that everyone they put under
surveillance is a potential bomber if they have the links because very few
radicals are going to work as individuals.”
Sir,
I think we should leave it to the professionals, and be quite wary of falling prey to persons prone to such caprice in their post 11/9 Damascene non-violence conversions.
It strikes me as quite odd that they are now such voluble self-publicists, with a touch of the Walter Mitty about them.
I would rather put my faith in our unrecognised methodical security services, rather than be in thrall to some sensationalist terror-entrepreneurs.
Slowly, slowly, catchy monkey.
SC, London, United Kingdom
Will it ever be save to act on the evidence of a "super grass"? In the US it has been proved over and over again that these two timers are not reliable and could do and say anything to save their own skins,
The British can set an example here and now that the system works and spend a lot more time building better relationships with the Muslim Community in Britain. It is dangerous to "thumb your nose" at people who believe in their way of life, rightly or wrongly. Hundreds of people more deserving that Salman Rusdie have not been awarded peerages. Why then was he honoured? This is personified provocation.As a Buddhist I would not want anyone to be disrespectful to any belief. Respect begets respect. The root of all this lies in a country that existed only in the Biblical myths till 1948. Europe wanted to rid themselves of an embarrasing situation that has existed since the middle ages. Anti Semitism and helped create Israel. Think about it.
Only Judaism recognised Israel before 1948.
Peter Casie Chetty, Liverpool, United Kingdom
Fundamental Islam has declared all out war on us and it's about time we bit the bullet and did the same. By "all out war" I mean attack them in their lairs in Pakistan or anywhere else. It's no good waiting for anyone else to do anything, the Germans and French will never stick their necks out for what is the decent and moral thing to do - they never have in the past and never will so it is up to us and the Yanks as usual. A good start would be a total blockade of any country that shows support for these animals. Also, Muslims in the UK should be required to make a public statement of loyalty and all radicals should be deported on the slightest suspicion. Rights have to be earned they do not come with a passport.
William E Smith, Vulcan, Alberta, Canada T0L2B0
Peter Jamerson is right. It is the media and the government who inflate the risk and make this sound like a battle for civilisation. In doing so we glorify what these miguided idiots are doing and make them feel important.
John, Leeds, UK
"why do these people stay in our country if they think our way of life is so evil?"
Because...to paraphrase Monty Python's Life of Brian, they're not messiahs: they're just very naughty boys.
Peter Jamerson, London,
The west has to wake up and tackle the islamic militants and be prepared to put the national security above individual rights. We too have the right to choose to live and if the islamic militants want to meet their virgins it is their business. The root of all this evil lies with the madrassas and the mosques which preach hatred at the same time hide under the umbrella of a free society which they claim to hate.
K S lam, Hong Kong,
Don't Polarize
or Finger Point
and
keep a stiff upper lip
Mike, DC/Baltimore, Maryland, US
why do these people stay in our country if they think our way of life is so evil??why not move to parts of asia where they can live fully by islamic law??they wont because they are 2 faced..they live a western life to suit them and then want to destroy it....we dont want you here to ruin our way..so go elsewhere..but then again you wont be given the freedom elsewhere that you enjoy here to do western things like drive flash cars..or have designer clothing..or the other trappings..will you.??? NO...so just how islamic are you in reality??not very much...
nobby, luton, england