Posts Tagged ‘Counter-terrorism’

Female homicide bomber who, along with two others, killed 24 and injured 17 during a Shia Muslim festival in Baghdad in 2008

As JTAC, the UK Counter-terrorism body, raised its threat-level status to ‘Severe’ this week, amid UK and US intelligence sources warning of the possibility of the attackers being Yemen-trained women:

Al-Qaeda terror cells have trained a group of female suicide bombers to attack Western targets, US officials have warned. The women, who may have a “non Arab” appearance and be travelling on Western passports, have been prepared for their missions by the Yemeni group responsible for the operation to blow up an airliner over the United States on Christmas Day.

Details of the bombers emerged just hours after British spy chiefs raised the UK threat state to “severe” amid fears that al-Qaeda was planning a wave of attacks against western targets.

Terror experts within the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, a unit of MI5, now believe that an attack against the UK is “highly likely”. Read the rest of this entry »

Manchester Islamic terror plot: charges come after 15 months of investigations

Four British-Pakistani Muslims have been charged with Islamic terror offences following raids reported here last week (but you wouldn’t know any of these relevant facts if you were to read the Manchester Evening News, or the BBC report of the same story):

Israr Malik, 21, of Fallowfield, Greater Manchester, is charged with intending to commit acts of terrorism.

Matthew Newton, 27, of Stalybridge, Munir Farooqi, 52, of  Longsight, and Haris Farooqi, 26, of  Levenshulme, are accused of intending to assist others to commit acts of terrorism.

Officers from the North West Counter Terrorism Unit detained the men in what was described as a ‘low key operation’ following a 15-month investigation into a plot to commit ‘violent jihad’. Read the rest of this entry »