Eight men were charged on Tuesday with plotting an Al-Qaeda attack on the UK. The suspects were among the 13 men arrested in a series of raids on August 3. They include a Hindu man suspected to be Osama Bin Laden's UK "general". He has been identified as 32-year-old Dhiren Barot. News agency AP quoted an unnamed US official identifying Abu Musa al-Hindi as being Dhiren Barot.
They will appear in a London court on Wednesday to face charges of plotting terrorist strikes in Britain and the United States, media reports here said.
Security sources believe they may have been planning a "spectacular" attack against a target like Buckingham Palace or Heathrow. It is suspected they were planning a dirty bomb attack which would leave the area radioactive and unusable.
One of the suspects had extracts from a "Terrorist's Handbook" which gave information on preparing chemicals and explosives.
The 32-year-old Barot from Willesden, northwest London, was charged with possessing reconnaissance plans of the New York Stock Exchange, the IMF in Washington and the Citigroup in New York. Counter terrorism officials said the plans "could have been used as a blueprint for an attack on financial institutions in the United States".
Barot comes from a respectable family of Kenyan Indians. But since he converted to Islam he has seldom been seen at his family home in Kingsbury, London. Neighbours of the family say Barot's father Bhartia Barot did not mention his name and said he did not see his son. His mother Manu, works part-time in Sainsbury's and his sister Neeta, 35, is a language teacher. Barot has been described by his former school friends as being a diligent student at Kingsbury High School. A friend said that the last he heard of Barot was that he was in hotel management.
{{/usCountry}}Barot comes from a respectable family of Kenyan Indians. But since he converted to Islam he has seldom been seen at his family home in Kingsbury, London. Neighbours of the family say Barot's father Bhartia Barot did not mention his name and said he did not see his son. His mother Manu, works part-time in Sainsbury's and his sister Neeta, 35, is a language teacher. Barot has been described by his former school friends as being a diligent student at Kingsbury High School. A friend said that the last he heard of Barot was that he was in hotel management.
{{/usCountry}}Reports say he took part in terrorist campaigns against Indian forces in Kashmir and is said to have been the main casing agent for Al-Qaeda.
It is still a mystery what converted Barot from a quiet student to a terrorist. It is believed he converted to radical Islam in his early twenties and travelled abroad. His movements and interests are being examined by detectives. But friends claim Barot left home to work as a travel agent after the relationship with his father broke down. They say Barot was out of his home for about 12 years ago and came home only once since then, when his father had a serious heart attack. They say his father spoke more about his daughter.
It is believed his father is deeply shocked by this development and now refuses to open the front door of his house to strangers and insists, "My son is in Manchester."
Barot reportedly was charged under the Terrorism Act for also possessing notebooks with information on explosives, poisons, chemicals and related matters and a reconnaissance plan of the Prudential Building in New Jersey, US.
An AP wire service report, quoting an unidentified US government official, first identified Barot as being India-born and as using aliases like Abu Eisa al-Hindi or Abu Musa al-Hindi.
The US interrogation of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept 11, 2001 attacks, revealed that Barot was a key Al-Qaeda operative who was sent in early 2001 to do surveillance on possible economic and "Jewish" targets in New York on the orders of Osama bin Laden, the AP report said.
After being questioned for two weeks at the high security Paddington Green police station in London the group of eight was jointly charged with conspiracy to murder. They were also charged with planning to use radioactive materials, chemicals, toxic gases or conventional explosives in an attack.
Barot and Nadeem Tarmohammed, 26, also from Willesden, were charged jointly under the Terrorism Act with having reconnaissance plans of the Prudential Building in New Jersey.
Their arrests followed intelligence from Pakistan and sparked fears of an attack on Heathrow, although the airport was not specifically mentioned in the charges.
Following are the names of the eight charged with terrorism and scheduled to appear at a Belmarsh court, London, Wednesday:
Dhiren Barot (32), Qaisar Shaffi(25), Nadeem Tarmohammed (26), all from Willesden, London; Mohammed Naveed Bhatti (24), from Harrow, Middlesex; Abdul Aziz Jalil (31), from Luton; Omar Abdul Rehman (20), from Bushey, Hertfordshire; Junade Feroze (28), from Blackburn; Zia Ul Haq (25), from Paddington, London.