'Spooky' website calls doctors to jihad

'Spooky' website calls doctors to jihad

A group of 45 Muslim doctors threatened to use car bombs and rocket grenades in terrorist attacks in the United States during discussions on an extremist internet chat site, it has emerged.

Anti-terrorist police found details of the discussions on a jihadi site run by one of a three-strong “cyber-terrorist” gang.

They were discovered at the home of Younis Tsouli, 23, Woolwich Crown Court in south east London heard.

One message, thought to have been sent on February 12 2005, read: 'We are 45 doctors and we are determined to undertake jihad and take the battle inside America.

“The first target which will be penetrated by nine brothers is the naval base which gives shelter to the ship Kennedy.”

This is thought to have been a reference to the USS John F Kennedy, which is often at Mayport Naval Base in Jacksonville, Florida.

The message discussed targets at the base, adding: 'These are clubs for naked women which are opposite the First and Third units.”

It also referred to using six Chevrolet GT vehicles and three fishing boats and blowing up petrol tanks with rocket propelled grenades.

Tsouli replied to the message by saying “He needs the recipe for making car bombs,” and a “recipe” was supplied by one contributor, including gas cylinders as one ingredient.

Investigators have found no link between the Tsouli chat room and the group of doctors and medics currently in custody over attempted car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow.

However, sources said it was “definitely spooky” that the use of doctors for terrorist purposes was being discussed in jihadi terrorist circles up to three years ago.

Part of the inquiry into the London and Glasgow incidents will focus on whether al-Qa’eda has recruited doctors or other medical professionals because they are less likely to attract suspicion and can move easily around the western world.

The three “cyber terrorists” - a British national and two who had been given the right to live in the UK - are facing lengthy jail sentences after admitting using the internet to spread al-Qa’eda propaganda inciting Muslims to violent holy war and murder non-believers.

They had close links with al-Qa’eda in Iraq and believed they had to fight jihad against a global conspiracy by kuffars, or non-believers, to wipe out Islam.

They were also linked to an extremist in Bosnia, who was jailed after police seized guns, explosives and videos espousing anti-western hatred, and to others in Sweden.

The three are the first defendants in Britain to be convicted of inciting terrorist murder on the internet.

Other cases, such as Abu Hamza, have involved incitement in speeches or at public meetings. Instead, the three waged cyber-jihad on websites run from their bedrooms.

Tsouli promoted the ideology of Osama bin Laden via email and radical websites using the cyber name 'Irhaby007’ - which means 'Terrorist 007’ in Arabic.

He said in one message he was “very happy” about the July 7 bombings in London in 2005.

Tsouli, Tariq Al-Daour, a biochemistry student, and Waseem Mughal, a law student, were all intelligent, computer-literate young men who spent a year pumping out violent propaganda.

They created chat forums to direct willing fighters to Iraq and discuss murderous bomb attacks around the world. Films of hostages and beheadings were found by police.

They included footage of the British hostage, Ken Bigley, pleading for his life and two Americans, Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl, being killed.

Al-Daour, 21, of Bayswater, west London, who was born in the United Arab Emirates, today admitted inciting another person to commit and act of terrorism wholly or partly outside the United Kingdom which would, if committed in England and Wales, constitute murder.

Moroccan-born Tsouli, 23, of Shepherd’s Bush, west London, and British-born Mughal, 24, of Chatham, Kent, admitted the same charge on Monday. They are due to be sentenced tomorrow.

They also admitted conspiring together and with others to defraud banks, credit card companies and charge card companies.

Material on their computers, if printed out, would stand tens of thousands of feet high.

Al-Daour had CDs containing instructions for making explosives and poisons, including a recipe for creating a rotten meat toxin which, in its pure form, is “the most toxic substance known to man”, the court was told.

A leaflet on how to use a rocket-propelled grenade, and pages from “The Book of Jihad”, as well a video about the September 11 terror attacks.

Police found instructions on causing an explosion with “rocket propellant’’ and constructing a car bomb, and a video film about a “Martyrdom Operations Vest’’ - a reference to a suicide bomb vest. In one on-line conversation, when Al-Daour was asked what he would do with £1 million, he replied: “Sponsor terrorist attacks, become the new Osama.”

In another conversation, he said suicide bombings were permissible but he did not like them unless they killed many people because “a Muslim life is worth more than that”.

The three men outwardly appeared to be leading normal lives, studying and living with their parents.

Tsouli had come to the UK with his family from Morocco in 2001 and his father worked for the Moroccan tourist board. He was given indefinite leave to stay in August 2005 - two months before his arrest.

Mughal, a British citizen born in this country, had a degree in Biochemistry from Leicester University and was studying for his Masters.

Al-Daour, born in the UAE to Palestinian parents, was granted British citizenship in May 2005 and had applied to start a law degree.