July 7 plot accused tell of times with Taliban

[TonyGosling]

July 7 plot accused tell of times with Taliban
* Rachel Williams
* The Guardian,
* Wednesday May 21 2008
This article appeared in the Guardian on Wednesday May 21 2008 on p7 of the UK news section. It was last updated at 00:46 on May 21 2008.
A British Muslim accused of helping the July 7 bombers plot their attacks on London told a court yesterday how he and ringleader Mohammed Sidique Khan spent time at a Taliban camp in Afghanistan as part of a jihad training trip.
Taking the stand for the first time, Waheed Ali, 25, denied participating in the attacks but admitted travelling with Khan on a "gallivant" in the summer of 2001, shortly before the September 11 attacks, and after attending a camp on the Kashmir border where they learned to shoot Kalashnikovs.
They hoped to go to the frontline near Bagram airbase where the Taliban were fighting the Northern Alliance, but were deemed too inexperienced to fight and stayed at a camp about a mile behind the frontline, where they became so ill with diarrhoea that they were put on drips for three or four days............
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/may/21/july7.uksecurity

[xmasdale]

[astro3]

Waheed Ali stressed to the court that Jihad training was perfecty ethical for a Muslim, and was entirely the opposite of 'terrorism.' The Pakistani camps were primarily focussed on the struggle for Kashmiri independence he explained. He and Khan learnt to how to handle a Kalashnikov and fired at a tree. The jihad training was concerned to liberate Muslim countries from foreign oppression. There was a culture within Muslims of the Leeds-Beeston area whereby funds were raised for this 'jihad' because a lot of them had connections with the Kashmiri region.

He and Khan returned to such a camp, Khan in November 2004 with Tanweer, and he a month or so later, but it wasn't so good that time and he was disappointed not to see Khan very much out there.