Britain discovers secret army

Britain discovers secret army
of well-trained jihadi terrorists
Intelligence services, police stunned by sweep
of schools, mosques in wake of foiled bomb plot

* A massive MI5 anti-terrorism operation discovers Britain's first Islamic "school for terror."

* Al-Qaida has supplied its estimated 2,000 sleeper agents in Britain with what MI5 Director Eliza Manningham-Buller tells Home Secretary John Reid is "the most sophisticated terror manual ever found in this country."

* MI5 is checking all Britain's universities and technical schools for Middle East students with a qualification in thermochemistry – the science that includes creating liquid explosives.

* MI6, Britain's secret intelligence service, has established that Continuity-IRA, the extreme Irish terror group, is providing Hezbollah and Iran's Revolutionary Guard with expertise on how to make ultra-sophisticated roadside bombs.

No matter how you slice it, London is daily looking more like "Londonistan." Or perhaps more precisely, as Peter Clarke, head of Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist squad puts it, Britain has become al-Qaida's European headquarters "housing a secret army of thousands of well-trained guerrilla fighters ready to kill in the name of religion."

The discovery of the school for terror reveals how extensive is al-Qaida's influence within Britain's Muslim community, reports Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

It follows the arrests across London and the Home Counties of 14 radical Muslim extremists. They include Abu Abdullah, who was born in Britain, but, just before he was detained, preached at a London mosque that he would "love to see our jihadists go to Iraq to kill British and American soldiers."

Abdullah had been a regular visitor to the Jemaah Islamiyah Faith School. The tall, Gothic building stands in 54 acres on the edge of a beautiful English village that has long been a brooding presence even in its days as a Roman Catholic seminary.

It was to the school that Abu Hamsa, the hook-handed extremist preacher, "brought young Muslims to be indoctrinated in jihad," confirmed a senior MI5 officer.

Hamsa is currently serving seven years for incitement to murder. After he finishes his sentence in the high-security jail Belmarsh in south London, he will be deported to the United States to face charges of inciting to murder American citizens in Yemen.

Meanwhile, the terror manual discovered by MI5 is said to provide unprecedented details on how to create liquid explosives far more powerful than those planned to be used to destroy 10 passenger planes over the Atlantic. The precise steps to produce the bombs are set out in chilling details on an al-Qaida DVD. On one part of the disc are instructions that mimic the style of a celebrity cookbook – only it is a recipe for unparalleled carnage, reports G2 Bulletin.

In Tel Aviv, Ehud Keinan, a world-ranking authority on liquid explosives and whose expertise is invaluable to Mossad, confirmed the details discovered on the al-Qaida DVD was of major importance in the fight against terrorism.

"It is very easy to produce such explosives once the know-how is explained," he said. "The raw materials are readily available in unlimited quantities in the High Street."

The DVD was discovered during the climax of an MI5 surveillance operation that had begun in Dublin and ended last month on the road to Chester. It was a busy month for MI5.

The search continues for Middle East students with expertise in thermochemistry. The hunt also extends, G2 Bulletin reports, to all firms in the chemical industry.

A senior intelligence officer confirmed MI5 fears a student has been recruited by al-Qaida to prepare the explosives at the center of the biggest terrorist alert in Britain.

Liquid oxygen explosives, or LOX, are considered to have been the weapon of choice for the alleged planned attacks on transatlantic planes.

One possibility being urgently investigated by scientists at Britain's chemical-biological defense establishment at Porton Down is that terrorists could have perfected not only hiding the explosive in fizzy drinks bottles, but placing it in perfume bottles or after-shave sprays.

"The pipe which allows the liquid to be dispersed through the spray nozzle acts as the timer," said a Porton Down source. "It would be activated by pressing the spray nozzle to cause an instant explosion."

He confirmed a perfume bottle sold in any High Street store could be filled with sufficient liquid explosive capable of blowing a sizable hole in the side of a jumbo jet.

"Inside the cabin the explosion would create an air vacuum, killing those in the vicinity by crushing their lungs," explained the source. "Other passengers would be sucked out of the hole. The impact of the explosion would also cause the aircraft to break up."

Known as "the Lockerbie Effect," the terrorist bomb that destroyed a PanAm flight over the Scottish town has been studied by explosive experts. They have concluded liquid explosive would achieve the same carnage.

Lastly, a link has been found between an IRA splinter group and Iran's Hezbollah terrorist organization. MI6 – supported by U.S. satellite surveillance and undercover agents in Iran from Israel's vaunted spy agency, Mossad – have tracked Irish bomb makers to three factories in the Lavizan surburb in northern Tehran.

Earlier this year, the six-man Continuity-IRA team traveled from Dublin to Frankfurt and onward to Damascus. From there they were brought in an Iranian military aircraft to Tehran, G2 Bulletin reports.

"Their arrival marked an axis of evil we most feared," said a senior MI6 officer. "This brings global terrorism to a new level."

In Washington, Alireza Jafarzadah, a former member of the Washington-based Iran Policy Committee, said the Tehran workshops where the six Irish bombers are working are "highly sophisticated." The Irish are primarily providing their expertise in how to make and disguise infrared triggering devices.

During the conflict in Northern Ireland, the success of roadside bombs left dozens of British soldiers dead or injured. The bombs were also used to topple buildings and bring terror to the streets of Belfast and other cities in the province.

More recently the black art of the bomb makers became an effective weapon for Hezbollah fighting Israeli armor. Adapted to be fired from anti-tank missiles, the bombs created fireballs when shot, often with unerring aim, at advancing Israeli tanks.

By the time a ceasefire finally came in the Middle East conflict, Hezbollah claimed it had "several hundred" more of the missiles stored in the Bekaa Valley.

The bombs are made from concave steel or copper plate. When fired they travel at 2,000 meters per second and can penetrate 10cm of armor at a distance of 100 meters.

British scientists have established the mines are precision-made weapons turned on a lathe by craftsmen trained in the manufacture of munitions.

These are attached to explosively formed projectiles, or EFPs. The weapons have pierced the armor of British and American tanks in Iraq and demolished Land Rovers in Afghanistan.