Links to global terror network

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co....terror_network

12/18/2008

CONVICTED terrorists Rangzieb Ahmed and Habib Ahmed are linked to a number of high-profile figures in the international network of radical Islamism.

They are:

Hamza Rabia - Suspected no 3 of al Qaida who was the controller of the unknown terrorist mission abroad which Rangzieb Ahmed was leading on the ground.

He was understood to be responsible for al Qaida core organisations which involved up to 20 trusted operators. Rabia is thought to have stepped into the shoes of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who confessed to the US authorities that he masterminded the 9/11 attacks.

Otherwise known as Haji Nawab, he was blown up in an explosion in the Pakistani tribal area of North Waziristan on December 1 2005 - thought to be have been caused by a US Predator drone missile.

His name and phone number are in the invisible ink diaries.

Mamoun Darkazanli - More commonly known as Ilyas Spanish, the Syrian is said to be a financier for Jihadist operations including the 2004 Madrid bombings which killed 191 people.

He was arrested in Germany in 2004 on an extradition warrant, which was later regarded as invalid, and then released in July 2005.

Darkazanli appeared in a 1999 wedding video with two of the three 9/11 terrorists who had lived in Hamburg, Germany.

His current whereabouts are unknown.

His name appeared in a handwritten note of taxi driver Habib Ahmed which was ripped from one of the invisible ink diaries.

Khalid Habib - A noted guerrilla fighter who fought for Islamic causes in a number of places including Chechnya, Iraq and Afghanistan. Said to have been al Qaida's commander of south-east Afghanistan.

Habib was widely reported to have been killed in a US Predator drone missile strike on a house in the Pakistani tribal area of Bajaur on January 13, 2006.

He was on America's most wanted list of terrorists and was regarded as one of the top six most important members of the al Qaida core.

His name appeared in a handwritten note of Habib Ahmed which was ripped from one of the invisible ink diaries.

Yassin Omar - Convicted of conspiracy to murder over the attempted bombings in London on July 21 2005.

He was one of four suicide bombers who plotted to cause mayhem in the capital exactly two weeks after 7/7 with lethal hydrogen peroxide and chapatti flour explosives.

A self-professed Taliban supporter, Omar regularly listened to the preachings of radical Muslim preacher Abu Hamza.

Omar set off an explosive device as the tube train he was travelling on pulled into Warren Street station but it caused no damage, except to himself.

CCTV footage captured him leaving the city the following day dressed as a woman wearing a burka.

A mobile attributed to him called Rangzieb Ahmed in March 2005 - just four months before the attempted bombings in London.

Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh - The murderer of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl who was kidnapped in Pakistan in 2002.

He was arrested and sentenced to death for the killing later that year but is still awaiting an appeal against his conviction

It is alleged that he wired 100,000 to 9/11 terrorist Mohammed Atta, prior to his suicide hijack mission.


In 1996 he sent a significant amount of money to Rangzieb, a fellow member of the proscribed terrorist group Harakat-ul-Mujahideen. Rangzieb was in custody in India at the time after he illegally crossed the Kashmir border.

Abdul Rahman - Convicted of a terrorism offence at Manchester Crown Court on November 21 2007.

Pakistani student Rahman, 25, acted as a recruiting sergeant for British Muslims to join the "Holy War" and was arrested with a "call to arms" letter from a fighter in Afghanistan.

He arrived in the UK in September 2004 on a student visa but the day after enrolling at university in Dundee he quit his course, travelling to Manchester where he fell in with a group of radical young men. Lived in Heywood Street, Cheetham Hill - two streets away from Habib Ahmed's address in Elmfield Street.

Rahman led others on two trips to the Lake District around the Great Langdale area where they filmed each other in training and referred to themselves as "suicide bombers" as they crawled across snowy hillsides.

Last year he was jailed for six years following his guilty plea to possessing articles for a purpose connected with terrorism. The judge recommended his deportation after he served his sentence .

His mobile phone number was handwritten in one of the diaries.

Aslam Awan - A wanted terrorist suspect who is believed to be hiding out in the North West Frontier province of Pakistan.

Awan was an associate of Abdul Rahman and is said to have jointly committed the offence he was convicted of last year.

Like Rahman, the 25-year-old Pakistani citizen came to the UK on a student visa.

He later went to Afghanistan to join the Taliban in fighting the coalition forces and allegedly sent a "call to arms" letter to his friend Rahman.

Awan is now excluded from entering the UK.

His mobile phone number was handwritten in one of the diaries.

Mohammed Zillur Rahman - A wanted terrorist suspect who travelled from China with Rangzieb Ahmed to Dubai in December 2005. Rangzieb later met up with taxi driver Habib.

He is alleged to have been part of the terror cell with Rangzieb who were planning to fly on to South Africa as part of an unknown foreign mission.

Zillur Rahman flew to Johannesburg two days after setting foot in Dubai and then jetted into the UK two days after that. Went on to have meetings with Rangzieb at restaurants in Manchester and Bradford before he left the country.

Omar Bakri - The former leader of radical Islamic group al-Muhajiroun who was barred from Britain in August 2005 after the then-Home Secretary Charles Clarke ruled his presence was "not conducive to the public good".

Bakri commented in October 2006 he had no plans to return to the UK and was now enjoying living in Lebanon "much much more".

He is believed to hold dual Syrian and Lebanese nationality and was given political asylum to remain in the UK in the 1980s.

Bakri founded the now-disbanded al-Muhajiroun, which was based in Tottenham, north London, and earned the nickname the "Tottenham Ayatollah".

He had previously led another radical Islamist group, Hizb ut-Tahrir, in the UK but fell out with them in 1996 and formed al-Muhajiroun.

He presided over the wedding of Habib Ahmed and Mehreen Haji in Manchester in June 2001.

Abu Hamza - Controversial Muslim cleric who was jailed for seven years in 2006 after he was convicted of inciting murder and race hate.

Poster flyer dated October 6 2002 was recovered from the police search of Habib Ahmed's home in Cheetham Hill.

The leaflet advertised the event, entitled Jihad in Manchester and which featured a graphic image of a sub-machine gun. It listed the former Finsbury Park preacher as one of the speakers.

Abdul Rashid Ghazi - A Muslim cleric who lived most of his life as a moderate and very pious Muslim cleric until events in the late 1990s seemed to have radicalised him.

He was the son of Maulana Abdullah, who established the renowned Red Mosque in Islamabad, where Rashid Ghazi died in fighting in July 2007.

Rashid Ghazi was accused by the Pakistani security authorities of maintaining close links to al Qaida and was accused of plotting to kill former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf.

Rangzieb called his phone in December 2005. Phone number appears in the diaries.

Maulana Shah Abdullah Aziz - A member of Pakistan's radical United Action Front party, which is part of the Jamaat-e-Islami pro-Taliban movement.

His name and number appears in the diaries.

Shah Mehboob Elahi - Brother of Maulana Shah Abdullah Aziz, who is a member of the governing council of the Jamaat-e-Islami movement.

He was widely reported to have stated President Musharraf's safety could not be guaranteed on a visit to his home state.

His name and phone number are in the invisible ink diaries.