Westminster terror suspect had received British passport
two weeks ago, friends say
Salih Khater is still being questioned by police after the alleged attack on Tuesday
Patrick Sawer, senior reporter Izzy Lyons
The Sudanese refugee being held on suspicion of terror offences after ploughing his Ford Fiesta into the Houses of Parliament had only received his British passport two weeks ago, it has emerged.
Friends of Salih Khater, who is still being questioned by counter terrorism police, say that he had finally been issued with the document eight years after first claiming asylum in the UK.
It is now being suggested that Khater was planning to use the opportunity to travel home and see family in Sudan for the first time since fleeing. Friends say he travelled to London on Monday night in order to attend the Sudanese embassy the next day to obtain a visa to return home.
They now fear he panicked and lost control of his silver Ford Fiesta after seeing an ambulance with blue flashing lights behind him in Parliament Square. In the wake of his arrest armed police have been deployed to two Birmingham mosques which were attacked with catapults.
Armed police surrounded the car after it crashed into security barriers outside the Houses of Parliament
Officers were called to the Masjid Qamarul Islam mosque on Fosbrooke Road, Small Heath, at around 10pm on Wednesday and the Al-Hijrah mosque on Hob Moor Road 20 minutes later.
Police are continuing to patrol the area to reassure worshippers and residents.
Anwar Mukhtar who runs a football team for Sudanese migrants and refugees in Birmingham, which Khater joined when he arrived in the Midlands, said: “Salih was a British citizen and received his British passport only two weeks ago, allowing him to travel in and out of the country for the first time since he arrived as a refugee.”
He told friends he missed home and was going to London to get his visa to go back to Sudan and wanted to travel there overnight so he could get to the embassy early and find a parking space. Mr Mukhtar said: "He missed his family and was looking forward to seeing them, so why would he then stage a terrorist attack? It makes no sense.
“I think he was driving there when saw the ambulance behind him and panicked and couldn’t control the vehicle.”
The basis for Khater being granted asylum in the UK remains unclear, but a picture of his journey from Sudan to Birmingham is emerging.
The 29-year-old, who injured three cyclists when he mounted a pedestrianised section of Parliament Square before ploughing into a security barrier outside the Palace of Westminster, fled Darfur with his family to escape the ethnic persecution which followed civil unrest between rebel groups and the government of Sudan.
The family, members of the Zaghawa Muslim tribe, fled to Wad Madani, a city in eastern Sudan, to escape the strife, but friends in Birmingham said they still faced persecution there. In around 2008 he left his homeland for Libya, where he worked on a farm for two years before travelling to Italy by boat and making his way through Europe to Britain.
Injured cyclists were seen laying on the ground after being mown down by the Ford Fiesta
Abubakr Ibrahim, a businessman and Sudanese community leader in Birmingham, said: “Salih wanted to leave Sudan because of the country’s economic problems. There is a desert in the country’s border with Libya. He walked all the way there and stayed in Libya for two years. Later he went to Italy on a boat and from there to France on train. From France also on train, to the UK."
Mr Mukhtar said: “He came with his little brother, Mohammed Khater. We know that his father died last year. I went to give him my condolences last year because his father and sister died. I read that his brother died, but it was his sister."
After settling in Birmingham Khater studied English and then a Science diploma at Birmingham’s South and City College. He then started an accountancy degree at Coventry University in September 2017 but failed his first year and was asked to leave in May this year.
Khater is understood to have been refusing to co-operate with police investigating the suspected attack.
He was arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism, under section 41 of the Terrorism Act (TACT) 2000, and detained under TACT. He was subsequently further arrested for attempted murder.
Mr Mukhtar said: "He had no reason to attack Britain. He never said anything bad about this country to me. He was happy about what he had been given here and he was trying to integrate himself into the country.”
He remains in custody at a south London police station and Scotland Yard said Westminster Magistrates' Court on Wednesday granted the force a warrant to detain him until Monday.
Terror drone plot FOILED:
Brit spies stop plan to bring down AIRLINER
SPIES have foiled a terror plot to bring down an airliner by crashing drones into a jet engine.
By Patrick Williams / Published 19th August 2018
SIMPLE BUT DEADLY: Terrorist plans to take down passenger planes with drones
The attack was designed to replicate a catastrophic bird strike on an engine.
It was one of dozens of schemes uncovered by British and US spooks. MI5 officers working with the CIA and friendly foreign intelligence agencies managed to disrupt the plot.
It is understood that the terrorist plan involved flying several high-powered drones directly into the flight path of an airliner as it was about to take off in the UK.
British spooks believe that a drone sucked into a jet engine would be fatal and cause the plane to crash shortly after take-off – potentially killing hundreds of innocent people.
Apaches expected to patrol over London
BRITAIN’S fearsome Apache helicopters could assist in counter-terror operations in London under plans being discussed by military chiefs.
By MARCO GIANNANGELI
HIGH AND MIGHTY: An Apache helicopter over the capital during a 2015 Armed Forces tribute (Image: ALAMY )
The gunships, once flown by Prince Harry in Afghanistan, were chosen for their sophisticated long-range surveillance capabilities.
Police helicopters are fitted with cameras but must fly above the target to film in “line of sight”.
London also has half a million CCTV cameras, one of the highest numbers in the world. But CCTV offers poor quality images and is often unreliable for efficient tracking.
The Apache, by contrast, can monitor people and events up to five miles away, delivering high resolution images of faces and car registrations.
Its advanced capabilities were praised in Afghanistan where crew could monitor Taliban fighters preparing to attack UK forces from a position several miles away from the insurgents, alerting British commanders without the enemy knowing.
If plans go ahead, two Apache helicopters are expected to patrol regularly over London, scouring the city for unusual activity.
Based at Army Air Corps headquarters RAF Wattisham in Suffolk, the AH-64 aircraft will also be on standby to fly into the city when requested by the operations room at the Joint Terrorism Analysis Cell, and to investigate places identified as a terror-related Area of Interest.
Britain's youngest female terror plotter jailed for life after planning Isis-inspired attack on British Museum
A teenager who planned an Isis-inspired terror attack in London after being prevented from joining the terrorist group in Syria has been jailed for life.
Safaa Boular was just 16 when she started the plot, and she is the youngest woman to be convicted of attempting an atrocity in Britain.
She was jailed for a minimum of 13 years at the Old Bailey after a judge said she had been “old enough to make her own decisions” and still posed a high risk of harm to the public.
Boular had discussed using guns and grenades to attack potential targets including the British Museum with her online boyfriend, who was an Isis fighter from Coventry.
She originally hoped to marry Naweed Hussain in Raqqa but was prevented from travelling to the Isis stronghold by police, and became even more determined to carry out the atrocity after learning the 32-year-old been killed in an airstrike.
Judge Mark Dennis QC said there was no proof of claims by the defence that Boular, now 18, had been deradicalised and no longer considered herself a Muslim. “In my view there’s insufficient evidence to say at this stage this defendant is a truly transformed individual ... her views were deeply entrenched,” he told the court. However much she may have been influenced and drawn into her extremist mindset, it is apparent that she knew what she was doing and acted with open eyes.”
Safaa Boular, 18, plotted to launch a terror attack in Britain after being prevented from joining Isis in Syria (Metropolitan Police)
Boular denied two counts of preparing acts of terrorism, by expressing intent to carry out a suicide attack for Isis in Syria, and then by plotting an atrocity in Britain, but was convicted in June.
Judge Dennis said that it was only “circumstance outside her control” that have prevented the atrocities and said Boular was “deeply committed” to Isis ideology.
Prosecutors had called for Boular to be jailed for life with a minimum term of 15 years, telling the Old Bailey she would have committed an attack if she were able to acquire weapons.
But Joel Bennathan QC, for the defence, said the teenager had been “groomed and radicalised” by Hussain and others online and there was no real risk of her carrying out a terror attack because of stringent surveillance.
Boular’s plans were disrupted when she was charged with her earlier attempt to travel to Syria in April 2017, so she passed the torch to her older sister Rizlaine Boular.
She and their mother, Mina Dich, have already been jailed for plotting a knife attack in Westminster, which they discussed with Boular over the phone from prison in code as an Alice in Wonderland-themed “tea party”.
Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Dean Haydon, the senior national coordinator for counterterrorism policing, said: “All three women were filled with hate and toxic ideology and were determined to carry out a terrorist attack. Had they been successful, it could well have resulted in people being killed or seriously injured.
“But thanks to the work of the security services and counter terrorism police, their plans never came to fruition.”
Jailing Rizlaine Boular and Dich in June, Judge Dennis said the mother had played a “significant role” in radicalising both her daughters and bore a “heavy responsibility” for their actions.
Rizlaine Boular first tried to join Isis in Syria in October 2014 but was stopped by Turkish police and sent home, and two years later prosecutors said her younger sister had “developed an extremist mindset and commitment of her own”.
Naweed Hussain, a 32-year-old Isis fighter from Coventry, began a relationship with Safaa Boular when she was 16 and was later killed in an airstrike in Syria (Metropolitan Police)
Boular was stopped by police as she returned from a family holiday in Morocco in August 2016 and investigation of her phone showed she had been viewing Isis propaganda, social media posts by the group’s female members and training videos.
When questioned, the teenager admitted having a network of up to 400 online “friends” from Isis, including a relationship established on Twitter with female Isis recruiter Umm Isa Al-Amriki when she was 15.
After Boular told police she wanted to travel to Syria and marry Hussain, officers seized her passport and searched her family home but did not arrest her. But she and her sister were arrested just two days later after fleeing their home and being reported missing, but were released on bail.
Although Boular was repeatedly brought back in for questioning, she continued to contact Hussain using a secret phone hidden inside a cushion and was not detained until April 2017.
But spies had already intercepted Boular’s conversations on the encrypted messaging app Telegram by posing as Isis operatives, having monitored her since she was stopped at Stansted Airport. Phone records show Boular and Hussain “declared their love for each other” when she was just 16 after two months of online conversations.
They discussed “departing the world holding hands” wearing suicide belts and murdering Barack Obama, with Boular telling him: “I want Jannah [paradise after death] so bad.” The couple tried to marry on Skype in August 2016 but could not find anyone to perform the ceremony, but Boular’s family considered her a “widow” after his death.
Boular claimed during her trial that Hussain had groomed her, telling the jury she refused his three attempts to get her to attack the UK – over Christmas 2016, Valentine’s Day and around her birthday in March last year.
Rizlaine Boular, 22, took over her sister’s terror plot after she was arrested and charged (Metropolitan Police)
But prosecutors said that while Hussain – who attempted to recruit other British women online – “had undoubtedly done much to encourage Boular in these plans, the intention underlying those plans was always hers”.
“Her commitment to violence in the cause of Islamic extremism in general and Isis in particular was independent of him,” Duncan Atkinson QC told the Old Bailey.
After Boular learned Hussain had been killed in bombing on 4 April 2017 her “determination was strengthened” and she asked roleplayers for assistance in continuing their plan. “He mentioned something about the British Museum and the tokarev [pistol] and pineapple [grenade],” she told one spy. “He told me that he knew brothers in the UK who were close to him, who would have dropped these off for me.
“I’m not sure how and if I could get hold of these now ... Abu Usamah [Hussain] told me that all it takes was a car and a knife to get what I want to achieve.”
After Boular was detained for trying to travel to Syria on 12 April 2017, MI5 agents and counter-terror police also recorded conversations with her mother and sister that showed them taking on her bloody plans.
They discussed the continued plot in code as a “tea party” and in one telephone call, Rizlaine Boular said she knew “a few recipes for some amazing cakes” for a “proper like English tea party kind of thing”. Boular suggested an “Alice in Wonderland theme” telling her sister: “You can be the Mad Hatter ‘cause your hair’s crazy.” Dich responded: “That will be fun.”
Prosecutors said the conversations suggested the attack would have taken place on 27 April 2017, with Rizlaine Boular and her mother buying knives and driving around Westminster landmarks on a reconnaissance mission.
They were arrested on that evening, after surveillance showed Rizlaine Boular had been practicing knife attacks with her friend, and armed police shot her as she screamed “f*** you”.
Police uncovered a collection of Isis and al-Qaeda propaganda on devices belonging to the 22-year-old and her mother, including from jailed radical preacher Anjem Choudary.
The pair pleaded guilty to preparation of terrorist acts, while friend Khawla Barghouthi, 21, admitted failing to alert authorities to the plot. It was foiled on the day Taliban bomb-maker Khalid Ali was arrested while walking towards the Houses of Parliament with three knives to “deliver a message” in an unrelated attack.
Security services have been foiling terror plots at a rate of one a month since the Westminster attack in March 2017, and a record number of terror arrests are being made as the UK’s threat level remains at “severe”.
London mosque where children groomed for terrorism
appoints interim manager
It would be my preference that mosques used by terrorists to radicalize Muslims should be shut down and burnt down. But, of course, this is not possible in politically correct England. I hope, however, that this will be the second to last straw. That if there is any more radicalization activity of any sort in that mosque, that it will be closed and destroyed.
Adam Forrest
The Independent
The Charity Commission has appointed at interim manager at an east London mosque where children were trained by a man convicted of terrorism offences.
Emergency measures were deemed necessary after court evidence revealed
young people at the Ripple Road mosque in Barking were shown Isis videos by convicted extremist Umar Haque.
Boys at the mosque were said to ”traumatised” by the violent propaganda and role-playing training exercises.
Social services and police discovered Mr
Haque had attempted to radicalise 55 children between the ages of 11 and 14 at after-school classes.
Mr Haque was jailed for life with a minimum of 25 years at the Old Bailey in March this year.
He was found to have planned gun and car bomb attacks designed to strike 30 high-profile targets in the capital - including Big Ben, the Queen’s Guard and Westfield shopping centre.
Haque also taught pupils at the fee-paying independent Lantern of Knowledge School in Leyton, where
he admitted playing Isis propaganda videos.
The Charity Commission began investigating the Essex Islamic Academy charity running the mosque in October 2017. A statutory inquiry was announced in March after Mr Haque was convicted of preparing terrorist acts while employed there.
Jonathan Burchfield of law firm Stone King was installed as manager at the charity on Thursday. He said only that he and his team “appreciate the confidence” shown in them.
The commission’s investigation is still considering how Mr Haque was able to carry out his attempted radicalisation at the mosque and what others at the charity knew about his activities.
Mr Burchfield will review the charity’s financial controls and policies, but the trustees will still look after the day-to-day running of the charity.
Michelle Russell, director of investigations, monitoring, and enforcement at the Charity Commission said Mr Haque’s crimes as “horrendous” and likely had a “devastating effect” on young people at the mosque.
She said: “This is one of the worst cases we have seen with children, as young as 11, being exposed to harm through attempted radicalisation and terrorist material by this man.”
As horrible as that is, Palestinians are doing the same thing to elementary school kids, and no-one but Israel is complaining. Go figure!
Derbyshire woman arrested amid terror funding raid
A woman from Derbyshire has been arrested on suspicion of terrorist funding offences.
Detectives from the Metropolitan Police's National Terrorism Financial Investigation Unit raided an address in Derbyshire on Tuesday.
They
arrested a 35-year-old woman on suspicion of being concerned in an arrangement to fund terrorism.
She was taken to a police station in London, questioned and then released on bail.
No more details of the suspect or the location of the raid were released.
Officers said the address was searched and inquiries were continuing.
Hamas Tweets Support for UK Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn
by John Rossomando
UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn outside his London home. Photo: Reuters/Toby Melville.
On Sunday, Hamas posted words of support for British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn has been under fire for his support of Palestinian terrorist groups.
“We Salute Jeremy Corbyn’s supportive positions to the Palestinians, but the issue of him as prime minister is an internal British issue and we respect the choice of the British people,” Hamas said in a Twitter post.
This was not surprising, given Corbyn’s interactions with Palestinian terrorists over the years, many of which have been reported by British media outlets in recent weeks. For example,
Corbyn attended a 2012 conference with Husam Badran, the leader of Hamas’ military wing in the northern West Bank, who plotted numerous suicide bombings during the Second Intifada. Former Hamas Politburo chief Khaled Meshaal also attended the conference, as did Abdul Aziz Omar, who received several life sentences for his role preparing suicide vests. Omar and Badra were freed as part of a deal that led to the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
Corbyn also praised the 2012 release of Hamas terrorists on Iranian TV. Two years earlier, he compared Israel’s blockade of Gaza with the Nazi blockade of Leningrad during World War II.
Corbyn also shared a stage in 2014 with Maher al-Taher, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). A month later, the PFLP murdered a British rabbi in a synagogue.
Corbyn spoke at a 2002 London rally alongside PFLP leader and plane hijacking pioneer Leila Khaled. The two also appeared together again in 2011 at a conference held in Lebanon, organized by former UK Member of Parliament George Galloway, who has fundraised for Hamas.
Additionally, Corbyn attended a wreath-laying ceremony in Tunisia at the graves of the terrorists responsible for the 1972 Munich massacre of Israeli athletes. Back in 2016, Corbyn had to apologize for having referred to Hamas and Hezbollah as his “friends.”
Corbyn’s links with Palestinian terrorists could dampen his dreams of succeeding Prime Minister Theresa May, according to British terrorism researcher Kyle Orton, though he also expressed doubts.
“In political terms, these revelations have had the effect of rallying [Corbyn’s] core support around him and, paradoxically, the sheer number of horrific facts coming to light has shielded Corbyn by inducing fatigue. It is quite likely some damage has been done to Corbyn, perhaps enough to prevent him winning the next election, but he will make it to the next election as Labour leader,” Orton stated.
Tells you a lot about the Labour Party and its current attitude toward Israel. God help the UK if Corbyn should become Prime Minister. I know, Israel will need more help should that happen, but Israel will survive; I'm not sure the UK can survive a wave of antisemitism.
Australian Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison (C) will become the country's next prime minister after winning a
Bishop was eliminated in the first round of voting, leading to a head-to-head contest in which Morrison defeated Dutton by a 45-40 vote.
Dutton, a populist who has campaigned on border protection, had also attempted unseat the prime minister earlier in the week.
