Police are trying to trace a gang of British Muslims who are thought to have returned to plot terror attacks in Britain after being trained abroad for more than a year by Al Qaeda. Nine Britons, all said to be in their twenties, were among a group of 12 Western recruits groomed by Al Qaeda at a secret camp near the Afghan border to set up new terror cells in London and other Western capitals. Police do not know the real identities of this gang, who are known as the “English brothers” because of their shared language. As well as nine Britons, they include two Norwegians and an Australian who were smuggled into the Waziristan tribal region in Pakistan in October 2005. They are believed to have been under the command of an Al Qaeda veteran suspected of training some of the Britons accused of the alleged plot to blow up passenger planes flying to the US from Heathrow airport in the summer.
The intensive manhunt for the “English brothers” was revealed to The Times as the alleged British mastermind of the Heathrow plot spoke for the first time as he appeared yesterday in a court in Pakistan on separate charges. Outside court, he vehemently denied any role in plans to bomb up to ten transatlantic flights. Rashid Rauf, 25, from Birmingham, had not been seen in public since his arrest in August by Pakistani intelligence chiefs, who claimed that he was the key figure in the foiled operation. Talking to The Times inside a crowded court in Rawalpindi, Mr Rauf, who was manacled hand and foot, said of the accusations: “The charges are all fabricated. It is an injustice, there is no evidence against me.”
A tall, lean figure with a long unruly beard and his head covered by an embroidered shawl, Mr Rauf smiled when asked if he fears being returned to Britain to stand trial. Senior officials in Pakistan have told The Times that diplomatic efforts are under way to transfer Mr Rauf to Britain, where detectives want to question him about the alleged Heathrow plot and possible links to the 7/7 London suicide bombers.
Police are keen to learn whether he met two of the 7/7 bombers, Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, who are known to have visited Pakistan shortly before they and two other British Muslims blew up three Underground trains and a bus, killing 52 people in London in July 2005.
The alert over the whereabouts of the “English brothers” came as Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, cautioned about “an unparalleled and growing threat of attack”. He said that the terrorist threat was “far graver” than any posed during the Second World War, the Cold War or IRA campaigns. Sir Ian, speaking on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4, said that he had no specific intelligence about an imminent attack but the threat was “ever present”.
Intelligence sources in Pakistan said that the men are reported to have joined Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan in attacks on NATO troops. The sources told The Times that the “brothers” were given religious indoctrination as well as lessons on how to assemble suicide bomb vests and improvised explosives devices. The sources are reported to have been escorted to the Al Qaeda camp by Adam Gadahn, a Californian indicted by US authorities as an Al Qaeda terrorist, who introduced the “brothers” to their tutors.