9.11보다 참혹할 뻔했던 테러 공모

 

                                                         여객기 동시 테러 계획 주범 3인(旅客機同時 計画主犯格３人に有罪評決　英国)　 

 항공기내 액체 반입 제한 조치의 계기가 됐던 2006년 8월 영국발 미국행 항공기 동시다발 테러 음모가 백일하에 드러났다.

   범인들은 최소 7대의 비행기를 폭파시켜 1천500명의 무고한 인명을 살상하려 공모했던 것으로 나타나 자칫 2001년 발생했던 9.11 테러 보다 끔찍한 테러로 기록될 뻔했다.

   7일 가디언 등 영국 언론들에 따르면 이날 법원에서 항공기 폭파 기도 혐의가 인정된 압둘라 아메드 알리(28)와 아사드 사르와르(29)는 파키스탄-아프가니스탄 국경에 있는 피난 캠프에 구호품을 전달하는 일을 했다.

   이들은 피난 캠프의 비참한 상황에 충격을 받았고 반미.반영 감정에 휩싸여 세계를 바라보는 시각이 급진적으로 바뀌어갔다.

   주모자인 알리는 이라크 전쟁에 반대하는 대규모 시위에도 뛰어들었고 영국에 대한 공격이 필요하다는 급진적 이슬람주의자가 됐다.

   이런 움직임은 테러에 잔뜩 신경을 곤두세우고 있던 영국 정보당국에 포착됐고 그는 곧 `요주의' 대상으로 떠올랐다.

   영국 국내정보국(MI5) 요원은 두차례에 걸쳐 알리의 동창인 아라파트 칸에게 접근해 테러 관련 정보를 넘겨줄 것을 요청했다가 거절당하기도 했다.

   대테러 당국은 이후 알리가 2006년 파키스탄 난민캠프에서 영국으로 돌아오는 길에 그의 수하물을 비밀리에 검사했다.

   물에 타 마시는 오렌지 분말과 다량의 배터리가 발견됐고 수사관들은 뭔가 이상했지만 뚜렷한 혐의를 두기에는 증거가 더 필요했다.

   몇주 뒤 런던 경찰과 MI5는 수백명의 요원과 감시 카메라 등을 동원해 영국에서 전개했던 작전 가운데 가장 큰 감시 작전에 돌입했다.

   이 때 알리는 파키스탄의 지하드 비밀조직에 암호화된 이메일을 보내고 있었다.

   사르와르는 상점을 돌며 일상생활에 필요한 물품과는 상관없는 `치명적인' 품목들을 부지런히 모으고 있었다.

   살상에 악용될 수 있는 합법적인 화학물질인 과산화수소도 들어있었다.

   MI5 요원들이 런던 동부지역에 있던 알리의 아파트에 몰래 들어갔을 때 그들은 마치 폭탄 제조공장 같은 모습에 입을 다물 수가 없었다.

   수사관들은 그러나 이해하기 힘들 정도로 작은 폭탄이 널려 있는 모습에 좀 더 확실한 증거가 나올 때까지 기다려야 했다.

   대테러 당국은 초소형 카메라와 마아크로폰을 이용해 용의자들의 일거수 일투족을 뒤따랐고 인터넷 카페에서 2시간 동안 항공기 운항스케줄을 검색하던 알리의 행적을 낱낱이 파악하며 실마리를 풀어갔다.

   이들은 모든 증거들을 종합해 `배터리와 음료수병 등의 부품을 모아 만든 폭탄으로도 비행기 동체에 구멍을 내기에는 충분하다'는 결론을 내고 용의자들을 급습했다.

   그러나 재판 과정은 순탄하지 않았다.

   수사 당국은 용의자들에게 음료수병으로 위장한 액체 폭탄을 만들어 항공기를 폭파하려한 혐의를 적용했으나 배심원단은 지난해 이들에 대해 살인 공모 혐의만 적용했다.

   배심원단은 목표물이 비행기였다는 것을 확신하기에는 증거가 부족하다고 결론냈다.

   수사 당국은 재심을 요청했고 배심원단은 추가 증거들을 검토한 끝에 7일 이들이 액체 폭탄을 이용해 여행객들을 테러대상으로 삼았다는 점을 인정해 유죄를 선고했다.

   영국 검찰은 "계획이 실행에 옮겨졌을 경우 2001년 미국에서 발생한 9.11 테러보다도 훨씬 큰 1천 500명의 인명 피해가 발생했을 것"이라며 혀를 내둘렀다.

   ofcourse@yna.co.kr

 

Jet plot 'vindicates' UK security

(L to R) Tanvir Hussain, Abdulla Ahmed Ali and Assad Sarwar were found guilty The "courage" of British authorities in persisting with the prosecution of the airline bomb plotters has been praised. The verdicts were a vindication of Britain's intelligence efforts, former security minister Tony McNulty said. On Monday, Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 28, Tanvir Hussain, 28, and Assad Sarwar, 29, were convicted of conspiring to activate bombs disguised as drinks. The convictions followed two trials and an operation which cost more than £35m and strained UK-US relations at times. The arrests in August 2006 caused chaos to international aviation and prompted the current restrictions on liquids. Wave of attacks Security officials on both sides of the Atlantic believe the men wanted to kill thousands in the air and possibly more on the ground in a wave of attacks causing more devastation - and political fall-out - than the 11 September attacks. It has emerged that the MI5 surveillance on the terror cell was being followed at the very top of American politics. UK intelligence officers believed the plot - the biggest terror investigation in the UK - was directed by al-Qaeda figures in Pakistan. The BBC understands that the key contact for the plotters was a British man, Rashid Rauf, now thought to be dead. He was arrested in Pakistan in 2006, the BBC has been told, following a meeting at the White House chaired by President George Bush. The president and his advisors were said to be so concerned about the threat to America they encouraged the Pakistanis to arrest Rauf. This has been denied by former advisors to President Bush. The move caused intense annoyance to the British authorities running the surveillance operation of the suspects, as it meant they had to bring the operation forward in a hurry. The Guardian newspaper said former US homeland security chief Michael Chertoff confirmed that the US administration had been on such a heightened state of alert about the plot that it turned back a plane in mid-air two days before the arrests of the plane plotters in the UK. Scotland Yard's Counter Terrorism Command had what they say was "good coverage" of the suspects on that date and were waiting for more definite evidence before acting. At the time of his arrest, plot ringleader Ahmed Ali had identified seven US and Canada-bound flights to blow up over the Atlantic within a two-and-a-half-hour period. Mr McNulty told the BBC: "There were many straight after these arrests who were saying 'oh, it's just another attack on the Muslim communities, it's just another plot that will be seen to be not quite what the authorities are saying'." The convictions were, he went on, "a real vindication of a lot of effort by a lot of people, security services, police, and equally the Crown Prosecution Service for having the courage to go back when the juries who were hung last time and say 'look, hold on, we think there is something here, we need to go further'." Former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who was leader at the time of the arrests, said the convictions were a tribute to "the professionalism, commitment and courage" of the police and security services. Writing in the Sun newspaper he said: "These dedicated men and women work tirelessly behind the scenes, whose names we will often never know, unable to get the full, public credit they deserve. "I know we are all safer because of their work." Four other men were found not guilty of involvement in the suicide bomb plot.   Abdulla Ahmed Ali, Tanvir Hussain and Assad Sarwar were arrested in August 2006. They were each accused of two charges of conspiracy to murder using home-made explosives. All three were found guilty in an earlier trial of conspiracy to murder involving liquid bombs - but that jury could not decide whether their plans extended to detonating the devices on planes. Now a second jury has decided that such a terror plot did exist.     The prosecution alleged that the three ringleaders planned to explode home-made bombs disguised as soft drinks on seven trans-Atlantic flights from London's Heathrow airport. 1. 1415 UA931 LHR-SAN FRANCISCO (United Airlines) 2. 1500 AC849 LHR-TORONTO (Air Canada) 3. 1515 AC865 LHR-MONTREAL (Air Canada) 4. 1540 UA959 LHR-CHICAGO (United Airlines) 5. 1620 UA925 LHR-WASHINGTON (United Airlines) 6. 1635 AA131 LHR-NEW YORK (American Airlines) 7. 1650 AA91 LHR-CHICAGO (American Airlines)   During their investigation police found equipment that could have been used to make bombs in King's Wood, High Wycombe, and in Forest Road, east London. Assad Sarwar, the quartermaster, bought a suitcase to store bomb parts in the woods near to his home. There, he hid bottles of hydrogen peroxide, also known as hair bleach. This chemical was the key ingredient for the home-made bombs. At the bomb factory in east London, the ringleaders experimented with the design of their devices which were to be disguised as soft drink bottles. The small bombs would then be smuggled in hand luggage through airport security   The theory of bomb construction is detailed above, but precise details shown to jurors have been omitted.

Liquid bomb plot: What happened

By Dominic Casciani BBC News It was an unprecedented surveillance operation involving hundreds of police officers, and a plot that prosecutors said was unparalleled in its terrible ambition. But it has taken two prosecutions to prove beyond reasonable doubt that a plot which changed the nature of air travel was genuine. Now, the British men behind a plan to launch suicide bomb attacks on a succession of transatlantic airliners are facing a life in jail. Almost 18 months ago, prosecutors first told a jury of an ingenious plan to create liquid bombs disguised as soft drink bottles. It was this plot that in August 2006 brought chaos to international aviation as liquids were almost entirely banned from hand luggage on planes. And those restrictions, and the huge costs they cause, remain in place today. But while the first jury at Woolwich Crown Court convicted the three ringleaders of conspiracy to murder, it stopped short of concluding their targets were planes. OPERATION OVERT IN NUMBERS 26,000 exhibits collected 102 property searches 80 computers and other devices seized 226 seized from inside internet cafes 15,000 CDs 500 Floppy disks 14,000 Gigs of data Countries visited: Japan (because of the type of batteries they had), Pakistan, South Africa, Mauritius and Belgium. Source: Met Police Now, after a lengthy retrial, a second jury has found the three men accused guilty of targeting ordinary travellers. A jigsaw of extraordinary evidence had finally come together to justify the massive delays at airports and moments of high political tension between governments tracking terror plots around the world. The race to bring to justice Abdulla Ahmed Ali, Assad Sarwar and Tanvir Hussain took place over a matter of weeks. But the story of what the police came to call Operation Overt began in the aftermath of al-Qaeda's 9/11 attacks on America. As US forces poured into Afghanistan, the decades-old refugee crisis worsened. The Islamic Medical Association, a charity shop in Clapton, east London, raised money and collected equipment to send to refugee camps on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. AHMED ALI'S TRAVELS Feb 2003: Pakistan refugee work Jan 2004: Pilgrimage to Mecca Aug 2004: Pakistan refugee work (In Pakistan at the same time as the 7/7 and 21/7 ringleaders) Jan 2005: Returns to UK June 2005: Back to Pakistan May 2006: Final visit on family business Ali and Sarwar went to deliver aid to the refugee camps - and their experiences radically altered their world view. Abdulla Ahmed Ali, the ringleader of the group, was shocked by the appalling conditions. His anger was compounded by the failure of the 2003 mass protest against the Iraq war. The anger felt by men like Ahmed Ali turned him against the UK and America and he turned to radical Islamists who were increasingly calling for attacks on Britain. As the security services watched some of the people moving in these circles, Ahmed Ali became an object of interest. MI5 officers twice approached Arafat Khan - Ahmed Ali's old school friend and one of the co-accused found not guilty of the plot. Officers told Khan that they needed help working out who was a danger in east London. He refused to become an "asset". Baggage opened But when Ahmed Ali himself returned from Pakistan in June 2006, investigators were sufficiently interested in him to secretly open his baggage before it got through to the arrivals hall. Soft drink powder formed part of explosive mix Inside they found an unusual powdered soft drink, Tang, and a large number of batteries. The find was out of the ordinary - and officers decided they needed to know more. In the coming weeks, the Metropolitan Police and MI5 mounted a surveillance operation that would grow into the largest ever conducted in the UK. By the time of the arrests, 220 more police officers had been drafted in from other forces. During this time Ahmed Ali and Assad Sarwar, his deputy based in High Wycombe, Bucks, were sending e-mails to Pakistan. These coded messages only became clear after the arrests; they were thinly veiled communications to their jihadist contacts. The orders came back to push ahead with the project - or "presentation" as Ahmed Ali described it. They needed to look for willing volunteers and watch out for surveillance. The e-mails were not available to the prosecution in the first trial - but became a critical part of the story second time around. Sarwar, convicted at Woolwich Crown Court as the "quartermaster" of the plot, was watched busily buying items that did not fit with his daily needs - and which had a potentially deadly context. Shopping trips: Sarwar bought suitcase to store bomb parts in woods His e-mails talked about acquiring Calvin Klein aftershave for a business opportunity - but instead he was buying hydrogen peroxide, a legitimate chemical that can be turned to a deadly use. The quantities of aftershave he referred to bore a striking similarity to the quantities of chemicals he amassed. When MI5 secretly broke into the east London flat being used by Ahmed Ali, they were alarmed by what they saw. It appeared to be a bomb factory - but a very strange one. On 3 August, MI5's tiny camera and microphone recorded Ahmed Ali and co-accused Tanvir Hussain, also convicted, constructing odd devices out of drink bottles. If these were bombs, why were they so small? The security services started picking up the clues. Some of the men were heard reviewing numbers, and talking of "18 or 19". Did that mean 19 devices, 19 targets or perhaps 19 conspirators? Then a surveillance team watched Ahmed Ali in an internet cafe, researching flight timetables for two hours. Jigsaw pieces It all came together. The bombs did not need to be big - they just needed to be made from small parts - and powerful enough to rip a hole in an airliner's fuselage.

The effect of a liquid explosive on an aircraft fuselage

In 2001 Richard Reid tried to bring down a jet with a small explosive device in his shoe.

Counter-terrorism chiefs had been expecting jihadists to use small bombs again - and they had also not ruled out a mass mid-air attack after one such plot was stopped in Asia in 1995. Ahmed Ali's scheme appeared to cover both possibilities.

Since 2001, there have been a series of extremely dangerous plots in the UK - and the Operation Overt convictions are a major milestone in these huge trials. The plot is believed by intelligence sources to have been directed by Al-Qaeda.

Why did all these men turn to violence?

The reason can be found in their own words, writings and martyrdom videos; a simple and seething anger over British and American foreign policy, and an overwhelming belief that Muslims were its helpless victims.

Now, following two very difficult trials, these men all face life sentences.