A UK health service doctor who was convicted yesterday of plotting massive car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow had been on an MI5 watchlist before he launched the campaign.
Bilal Abdulla (29), due to be sentenced today for a series of plots including a failed attack on Glasgow airport last June, may have been on the list for 13 months. Last night, Whitehall officials said MI5 held "tracers" on Abdulla that included information which proved helpful to the police once he was identified as one of the bombers. However, the officials insisted there was no evidence available to them at the time which showed he was plotting a terrorist attack.
"Tracers" are fragments of information which may include details of potentially suspicious travel patterns. They do not by themselves indicate evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the people concerned.
Abdulla, who was born in the UK but grew up in Iraq, had travelled between the two countries several times in the years leading up to the attacks, most recently in May 2006, when, the prosecution in the trial claimed, he had joined insurgents fighting US-led forces in his homeland.
A document recovered from his laptop following the attacks included a statement addressed to an Iraqi insurgent group described as the Soldiers of the Islamic States of Iraq. It read: "God knows that the days I spent with you were the best and most rewarding days of my life."
Prosecutors said this proved Abdulla had been actively involved in the insurgency when he returned in 2006. Abdulla denied the charge, saying he did not write the document and the group had not existed before he left Iraq to take up a job as a doctor in the UK.
Whitehall officials said although Abdulla was on the MI5 watchlist, there was nothing to suggest he was plotting an attack or had connections with other people who were. - (Guardian)