-Caveat Lector-
From
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2001570019-2001603347,00.html
}}}>Begin
SATURDAY DECEMBER 29 2001
Al-Qaeda trained more than 40 Britons
BY DANIEL MCGRORY
MI5 has found disturbing new evidence in Afghanistan of how up to 40
Britons were recently given terrorist training at al-Qaeda camps and
who it fears have been sent home to carry out new atrocities.
Details of their names and passport numbers have been given to police
so they can urgently trace the men who, like Richard Reid before his
arrest in America, may be sheltering in safe houses in Britain and
major European cities.
Their documents, discovered by US and British agents in recent days
in Kandahar and Jalalabad, appear to prove that far more British-born
Muslims volunteered to be trained in sabotage and bomb-making
techniques at al-Qaed
a camps than had previously been thought.
Until now estimates of how many Britons went to Afghanistan came after unsubstantiated
boasts by militant Muslim groups who had a vested interested in exaggerating the
numbers.
But in a painstaking search of files and interrogation of prisoners, intelligence
teams sent to Afghanistan have found biographical details of several British
volunteers as well as the particular skills they acquired duri
ng their training.
One security source said last night: �The numbers are greater than we first thought
and this investigation is still in its early stages so that figure must grow.
�The question is where are these people now and what names are they using.�
Al-Qaeda was scrupulous in keeping records of its recruits, particularly regarding
their nationality so that it could place volunteers where they were best suited.
While Western intelligence agencies are having to sift through piles of documents left
by fleeing al-Qaeda and Taleban units, they have been told that priority must be given
to finding other sleepers like Richard Reid.
The 28-year-old Londoner made a second, brief appearance in a Boston court yesterday
where an FBI agent, Margaret Cronin, testified that tests on his shoes showed they did
contain enough plastic explosive to blow a hole i
n the fuselage of American Airlines Flight 63 if Mr Reid had managed to detonate it.
The magistrate ordered that he should be held without bail while the FBI continues its
investigations.
It was Mr Reid�s mission that has heightened fears that Islamic terrorists have
embarked on a new series of violent outrages.
The difficulty in tracing the terrorists is that the records found inside Afghanistan
show how among the techniques the British and other recruits were given was how to
operate in sleeper cells and how to await their inst
ructions.
The authorities admit they still do not know who was sheltering Mr Reid, and giving
him the money to pay for his extensive airline trips and the substantial amount of
cash he was carrying when he was arrested after the Am
erican Airlines flight from Paris to Miami was forced to land at Boston�s Logan
airport.
The authorities are also still trying to confirm suspicions that while Mr Reid was in
Pakistan in August, he did visit an al-Qaeda camp in neighbouring Afghanistan.
In the time he spent in Amsterdam and Paris preparing for his mission there is no
record of him using a credit card, nor of registering at a hotel in his own name which
suggests he was sheltered by his terrorist handlers.
The 19 hijackers involved in the September 11 attacks never attempted to cover their
identities when paying bills or booking hotel rooms and flight tickets. The only time
Mr Reid appears to have used his real name is when
flying.
The Britons whose details have been found are all believed to have been trained at two
camps outside Kandahar.
As well as being taught how to handle automatic weapons, the evidence found by the CIA
and MI5 shows there were classes in dealing with various explosives and techniques to
hijack and blow up aircraft.
Both the British and American governments stressed the need for its intelligence
services to get to al-Qaeda�s records before they could be destroyed or looted so that
they can properly assess the terrorist threat the net
work still poses.
The British recruits were mainly of Pakistani origin, though some
have an Arab family background, but all are reported to have been
born in the UK. Some of those who were trained are likely to have
stayed to fight alongside the Taleban. They could therefore have been
killed in US bombing raids.
Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd.
End<{{{
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