'Chapatti flour six' - alleged bombers on trial

[scubadiver]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6261899.stm

[Mark Gobell]

"The prosecutor told how six bombs were made using a mix of liquid hydrogen peroxide, chupatti flour, acetone and acid."

Can someone explain what Chupatti flour does in a hydrogen peroxide bomb please ?

[spiv]

In the infamous words of Homer Simpson "Dough!!"

Didn't see any flour used in the TATP bomb material made by the Isreal Institute of Technology, see the "Experimental Section" in the document by the American Chemical Society (JACS) entitled "Decomposition of Triacetone Triperoxide is an Entropic Explosion" on page 13 at http://www.technion.ac.il/~keinanj/pub/122.pdf

"Dough!"

Maybe they were hoping to kill us all with fairy cakes.

[Mark Gobell]

I've got it - flour bombs need a "raising agent" ?

Maybe this one was the work of an apprentice spook ?

[numeral]

Terror Trial: Live From The Court
Updated: 12:45, Monday January 15, 2007

Six men are facing trial over an alleged plot to blow up London Underground trains last summer.

Here is a transcript from the proceedings in Woolwich Crown Court this morning:

10.40am: Mr Sweeney, prosecuting, said: "The principal count on the indictment is Count 1, which alleges that all six defendants took part in a conspiracy to murder between January and July of 2005.

This case is concerned with an extremist Muslim plot, the ultimate objective of which was to carry out a number of murderous suicide bombings on the public transport system in London.

The day eventually chosen for those attacks was Thursday, 21st July 2005, just 14 days after the carnage of 7/7.

The prosecution allege that all six defendants were parties to that plot
It is our case that the role of the first five defendants, Ibrahim, Asiedu, Osman, Omar and Mohammed, included ultimately that of would-be suicide bombers.

The role of the sixth defendant, Mr Yahya, included at the least of it taking part in some of the essential preparations done in furtherance of the conspiracy, albeit that he left the country nearly six weeks before 21st July and had not returned by that date.

The six defendants in various combinations were well-known to each other before the summer of 2005.

At the time that we are principally concerned with four of the defendants were living in north London, one in south London and one in west London.

The four defendants living in north London were Ibrahim, Asiedu, Omar and Yahya. Omar's one bedroom council flat at 58 Curtis House, Ladders Wood Way, New Southgate, on the ninth floor. Omar had lived in that flat for some years and had friends who lift in another flat on the tenth floor . In the spring and early summer of 2005 Ibrahim, Asiedu and Yahya were also closely associated with Curtis House. Osman lived in south London in a ground-floor flat at 40 Blair House, just off Stockwell Road, not far from Stockwell Tube station.

10.50am: Mohammed lived in west London at flat 14 on the top floor of a small block of flats called block K on the Peabody estate in north Kensington.

The (explosives) used in furtherance of the conspiracy were eventually designed along the following lines: The main explosive charge was intended to consist of liquid hydrogen peroxide ... mixed in a ratio of about 70 to 30 with chapati flour. The flour being fuel that would burn and the hydrogen peroxide providing oxygen, so that when fired by a detonator the mixture would explode. The main explosive charge was to be placed in a 6.25-litre plastic tub with a lid.

Depending on just how full, this would give a weight of main explosive charge in the order of five to six kilograms or more.

11am: The detonator was the primary high explosive (undecipherable chemical), TATP for short. This not made commercially. It is too dangerous for that. However, it was intended to make it by mixing small quantities of liquid hydrogen peroxide at a strength of 20 to 30%, acetone which is used in nail varnish remover and acid.

It was intended to package the TATP by making a tube measuring about 10cm long by 1cm wide, using part of the front cover of an A4 pad or the like sealed at one end with masking tape.

11.10am: The TATP was then to be put into the tube. Given the dimensions of the tube, the amount of TATP was to be in the order of 5 grams per tube.

A modified screw in (undecipherable) itself screwed into a small bulb holder or baton holder was then to be inserted into the base of the tube and then sealed in position, again with masking tape.

At some point two wires, each in the order of 80 centimetres long, were to be attached to the two holes in the bulb holder designed for that purpose and the tube and its content inserted through a hole made in the bottom of the 6.25-litre container and sealed in place. Again, using masking tape.

The modification to the bulb in the bottom of the detonator consisted of making a small hole in the glass of the bulb adjacent to the metal rim of the bulb and inserting a small amount of TATP into the glass dome of the bulb, so that it would be in contact with or very close to the wire of the bulb.

It was intended that the far ends of the 80cm or so wires would be bet and attached to the leg wires of a 9-volt battery snap connector. The idea being that when the two connectors on the snap connector were brought into contact with the two terminals of a 9-volt battery, the current would pass along the long wires to the wires of the bulb in which the TATP was, the wires would heat up causing the TATP within the glass of the bulb to explode and thus the remainder of the TATP in the detonator tube which would in turn set off the main charge.

We will see in a moment why the wires were in the order of 80 centimetres long.

11.20am: Shrapnel was also added to the outside of the 6.25-litre plastic container by using plastic adhesive tape and tissue paper to stick large quantities of screws, tax, washers or nuts to it in the order of 80 such items per bomb.

The purpose of shrapnel is of course to increase fragmentation when the bomb explodes and thus to maximise the possibility of injury, fatal or otherwise, to those who were in the vicinity.

After all those words, let me show you what it added up to. This is a replica. A container, inside which is the main charge, inside which, shown in the replica, is the detonator.

From the bottom long leg wires, much longer than this, coming through to a battery snap connector and taped all round the outside shrapnel in the form of screws, washers, and so forth.

You will be able to see all that much closer up as the evidence progresses.

11:30am: There are indications from a list and equipment found at Curtis House that it was intended from an early stage that there would be a total of six such bombs, albeit that only five were in the event to be deployed on 21st July.

Obviously these bombs could not be carried on to the public transport system without being hidden from view.

It was therefore intended to carry each bomb on to the system hidden in a rucksack carried on the back of the would-be bomber.

The rucksack was to be modified by making a slit in the back of it through which the long wires from the bulb holder and the snap connector were to be fed.

These were then to be fed through a slit or slits in the back of the bomber's clothing and from there to a convenient place inside or under the bomber's bring the snap connector into contact with the 9-volt battery and set off the bomb.

Thus, the would-be bomber would appear to be simply someone carrying a rucksack on their back.

There would be no sign of a wire to the bomb in the rucksack and, therefore, the would-be bomber would be able to set off the bomb without any of his victims having any forewarning or any chance to stop him at all.

Ladies and gentlemen, there can be no doubt that in broad improvised explosive device terms the design that I have been describing is a functional one.

Since the events in July 2005 scientists from the forensic explosives laboratory in Kent have conducted a number of experiments in connection with this case.

(Undecipherable)

On every occasion this mixture has exploded. Whether using as the detonator in descending order of power the military explosive PE4 and ordinary commercial detonator or TATP itself.

11:40am: The firings using TATP as the detonator for safety reasons involved only about 450 grams each time of the main charge, less than a tenth of the amount used in the actual bombs.

In most of the test firings the main charge was placed inside a relatively thick metal tube.

In the last of them, in order to ensure that confinement in the thick metal tube was not itself (undecipherable) the explosion, a wider thin plastic tube was used.

These firings were, filmed in slow motion, if you now look at the screen that is available to you.

Before we start playing the motion of the film, the thick steal tube is right in front of you with all sorts of wires coming from it, which the scientists used to measure the explosion.

11:50am: Now let us see what happened in relation to the plastic container. Again, detonator on the right, plastic container on the left.

With that reality in mind as we proceed, the defendants needed to purchase the raw materials to make the bombs. The raw materials included the plastic containers, liquid hydrogen peroxide, flour, acetone, acid, bulbs and bulb holders, wire, snap connectors and 9-volt batteries.

Liquid hydrogen peroxide presented a problem to the conspirators, particularly in relation to the main charge where a concentration of 70% was required.

Hydrogen peroxide is typically used in the hairdressing trade where hydrogen peroxide cream is preferred but liquid is still also used.

The strongest liquid hydrogen peroxide that is typically available to the trade is at a strength of 18%.

It is relatively little used because it is strongly acidic and would normally need to be diluted before use.

Though in little demand, at the time we are concerned with, 18% was available to the public from hair dressing suppliers, typically in 1 litre bottles and also in 4-litre containers.

For the conspirators to succeed, they were going to have to purchase in large quantities hydrogen peroxide and then boil it or heat it down to much smaller but stronger quantities in order eventually to reach 70% per cent strength in enough quantity for use in the main charges of the bombs.

Mobile telephone cell site evidence, CCTV evidence and other evidence shows that from March to 21st July, the defendants in various combinations were in frequent contact and had a number of meetings in furtherance of the conspiracy, albeit remembering that Yahya left in June.

11:55am: Not only was the bomb factory at 58 Curtis House lived in by Omar. But the mobile telephone cell site evidence also shows that, between April and July of 2005, both he, Ibrahim, Asiedu and Yahya, until his departure, were closely connected with that address during that period.

After the event, the police found documents at Curtis House setting out what was required for the bombs.

The purchasing for the bombs began in late April or early May of 2005. Those involved in it included Asiedu, Yahya and Ibrahim.

As to the hydrogen peroxide, three suppliers in north London, in Finchley, Tottenham and Finsbury Park, were visited and under the false cover story that the purchases were for the purpose of stripping wallpaper or for bleaching wood.

A total of 443 litres of 18% hydrogen peroxide was purchased from these suppliers in the period from 28th April to 5th July. In all a total of 284 bottles, which were either 1 litre or 4-litre in size.

The bottles were taken to Curtis House where two saucepans and a frying pan were used to boil or heat up the hydrogen peroxide on the electric cooker in the kitchen in order to concentrate it.

Scientific evidence shows that the cooker was indeed used for that purpose.

In each case the TATP detonator fired but the main charge failed to explode.

We shall see why a little later.

Taking them in the order in which they appear to have set off their bombs, Ramzi Mohamed was wearing a distinctive New York top, the words "New York" across his chest. No doubt connected with the events on 9/11.

Having arrived at Stockwell, he and Ibrahim went on to the northern line. Mohammed allowed Ibrahim to catch another train first which was going towards the city and then some minutes later himself caught a train in the same direction.

The next stop was the Oval. In the tunnel en route Mohammed turned so that his rucksack was facing a mother with her child in a pushchair and then detonated causing panic, fear and confusion, even though the main charge had failed to go off.

There can be no doubt that Mohammed was the Oval bomber. He is shown on CCTV footage going to Stockwell station and in the station, inside the train when he fired his bomb and during his escape in the confusion once the train had pulled into Oval station.


After his had left Oval station, CCTV footage shows him going on foot in the direction of Brixton and then around in a circle in some side streets during the course of which he abandoned his New York top and the battery and snap connector that he had used to fire the bomb.

In addition to the CCTV footage, he left his fingerprint in the carriage where he detonated the bomb, his DNA was found on a shirt that was in the rucksack with the bomb and DNA consistent with his was also found on the abandoned New York top and the battery and wires.

He has also been identified by witnesses as the bomber.

Omar, after arrival at Stockwell, boarded a Victoria line train going north.

As the train approached Warren Street he detonated his bomb, again with the same effect, only the detonator fired.

Again, this caused panic and confusion amongst others on the train.

There can be no doubt that Omar was the Warren Street bomber.

He is shown on CCTV footage going to Stockwell station and in the station, he is shown escaping in the confusion at Warren Street.

In addition, his DNA was found on the rucksack containing the Warren Street bomb.

After getting away from Warren Street, he went north on foot and tried to enlist the assistance of a number of people to get away, none of whom knew about the bombing. He failed but then disappeared.

Osman made his way on foot to Westbourne Park station. As I mentioned earlier, he boarded a Hammersmith and City Line train going from Paddington towards Hammersmith.

As the train was ? Shepherd's Bush, he detonated did his bomb.

Again, only the detonator fired but with same effect on his fellow passengers.

When the train eventually pulled into Shepherd's Bush, he climbed out of one of the windows between the carriages and jumped down on to the track.

He then jumped down into the back garden of a house adjacent to the tracks, injuring himself in the process, dumped the long wires from the bomb in the back garden, climbed through an open window in the back of the house and out through the front door, dumped the top that he was wearing and ran off north, chased by a member of the public from whom he got away.

Having got away, he then sought to contact his partner from a public phone to help him, then caught a bus south to want, worth where there were further attempts to contact his partner from a public phone, resulting eventually in his being taken to Brighton to hide. There can be no doubt that Osman was the Shepherd's Bush bomber.

CCTV footage shows him at Westbourne Park where he boarded the train, escaping from the train at Shepherd's Bush, fleeing on foot and on his bus journey south to Wandsworth.

12.05pm: The prosecution case is that this was no hoax. We say that against the background that the evidence will show, amongst other things, that at the least of it Ibrahim, Omar, Osman and Yahya all held extremist views.

Ibrahim, Omar and Yahya had all spoken about carrying out jihad at both 58 Curtis house, with which Ibrahim, Asiedu, Omar and Yahya are associated, and at 40 Blair House, Osman's home address.

The police found, amongst a mass of religious material, extremist Muslim material, including home-made films featuring images of beheadings and other terrorist atrocities, including 9/11, which provide powerful evidence for the contention that these defendants were intending to kill in order to further their aims.

Ibrahim had been trained for jihad in the Sudan in 2003 and had gone to Pakistan in December of 2004 in order to take part in jihad or to train for it.

The evidence shows that events in this conspiracy began in earnest not long after Ibrahim had returned from Pakistan in mid-March 2005.

There is a clear inference from the evidence that a suicide video was made at Mohammed's address.

There is no doubt that Mohammed himself wrote a suicide note, the draft of it was found in pieces when he was arrested and the perfected version with his fingerprints on it was found at the home of a friend of his.

12.15pm: Of course if, as we allege, they believed that the whole plan was going to go off, there was no need for any such plan.

There was no sensible reason to strengthen the hydrogen peroxide at all, let alone to a concentration of 70%, unless it was to make the bomb explode.

The scientific evidence will show that what the defendants actually made was hydrogen peroxide at a strength of only about 58% or a little stronger, mixed in a ratio of about 70 to 30 with chapati flour, 70 to 30 being in flagged the ideal theoretical ratio of peroxide to flour for the purpose of causing an explosion.

In scientific tests with 58% strength peroxide, this mixture failed to explode. However, when the tests were carried out with peroxide in the mixture in the region of 70%, the figure to which the defendants A expired, as I said earlier, the main charge exploded each time.

Earlier we looked at footage of a 450-gram charge exploding. 5 pill gram charges were also the subject of experiments in a quarry, as you can see for obvious safety reasons.

Again, very, very high-speed footage was shot. Let us see what an explosion of 5 kilograms using an ordinary commercial detonator looks like in very, very, very slow motion. (Film played) you can see the shockwave going away from the bomb on the screen.


You can see bits flying off caught in slow motion. It is going so slowly, it takes its time but you can now see that metal plate with the wooden surround in front of the bomb starting to be affected by it.

Now, imagine that on a tube train or on a bus.

Whether it was problems with manufacture at Curtis House, with decomposition of the mixtures, with the hot weather on 21st July affecting the chemicals or the like, we say that the failure of these bombs to explode owed nothing to the intention of these defendants.

Rather it was simply the good fortune of the travelling public that day that they were spared.

[numeral]

This afternoon’s transcript:


Terror Trial: Live From The Court

Last Edited: Monday, 15 Jan 2007, 7:00 AM MST
Created: Monday, 15 Jan 2007, 6:30 AM MST
01/15/2007 --
Six men are facing trial over an alleged plot to blow up London Underground trains last summer.

Here is a transcript from the proceedings in Woolwich Crown Court this afternoon (see our transcript of this morning's proceedings by clicking here):

1pm: Nigel Sweeney QC, prosecuting, said: "Ibrahim, as I said earlier, having arrived at Stockwell tube station at around the same time as Mohammed and Omar, went ahead of Mohammed on the Northern Line and caught a train going towards the City.

He got out at Bank and caught a number 26 bus going east. He sat on the top deck at the back.

As the bus reached the junction of Shoreditch High Street and Hackney road at shortly after 1.00 pm, he detonated his bomb.

Again, only the detonator fired and he managed to get away.

Mobile phone cell site evidence suggests that by then he had the phone normally used by Mohammed and received a call on it whilst south of the incident some minutes later.

As with the other three, there can be no doubt that Ibrahim was the bus bomber.

CCTV footage shows him at Stockwell, at Bank waiting for the bus, on the bus and getting away from the bus. His DNA was found on the battery from the bomb and on a shirt found near the bomb on the bus. He too has also been identified by witnesses. What of Asiedu, the would be fifth bomber?

The last time I mentioned him he was waiting with Osman in the vicinity of ... for the call from thos who went south.

1.10pm: The prosecution case is that Asiedu lost his nerve at the last moment and instead of firing his bomb on the public transport system, once he had split up with Osman and gone in the opposite direction, he made his way to Little Wormwood Scrubs and dumped his bomb in a wooded area.

It was there that the bomb and the battery some distance apart were found two days later and made safe.

The prosecution allege that there can be no doubt that Asiedu was responsible for that device. CCTV evidence shows that to be the case. By way of addition, Osman's DNA was also found on that bomb.

Obviously a massive police investigation began with leads provided by the CCTV footage and in Osman's case his own gym membership card in the rucksack.

He was registered at the gym at Andreas in Stockwell, but it was not the address that he was living at by July 2005 at Blair House.

There is evidence to show that there was a hasty attempt to clear out the bomb factory that night and the following day.

The evidence suggests that Ibrahim, Asiedu and Omar were all involved in that attempt.

On Friday, 22nd July, the next day, pictures of the bombers were published in the media.

That same day the caretaker at Curtis House noticed that an unusually large amount of rubbish had been put into the area of the communal bins.

When he investigated further, he found large numbers of empty hydrogen peroxide bottles. He called the police. Others at Curtis House noticed the resemblance between some of the bombers and those who used 58 or 65 Curtis house.

In the early hours of 25th July the police moved in on Curtis House, but there was no one in at number 58.

Searches at number 58 in the bins and in number 65 revealed that number 58 had been the bomb factory.

What of the defendants? Asiedu's picture had not been published. He had lost his nerve. He tried to give the outward appearance of a man carrying on his life as normal, albeit that after the night of the 21st or the 22nd he stayed elsewhere than Curtis House.

Of course he knew precisely who the bombers were, but could not afford to say so as to do so would be likely to lead to his own involvement being revealed.

Instead he simply sought to pretend to those to whom he spoke and who knew Ibrahim and/or Omar that he, Asiedu, was not sure from the published pictures if they were two of the bombers.

Against the background that others had gone to the police and spoken of Asiedu's attempt to help them to "find Omar", Asiedu too went to the police in this case on Tuesday, 26th July, but he did not go to tell the truth.

Instead he went trying to keep up the general pretence of being involved to no more than the extent of happening to know Omar and Ibrahim and having happened to live at number 58.

1.20pm: He was interviewed over a number of days. The transcripts of the interviews run to over 1,000 pages.

Put shortly, he lied on an epic scale, but was eventually undone by the weight of the evidence that reveals the true scale of his involvement.

As to the others, taking them in the order that they were arrested, in addition to playing a part in the events at Curtis House after the bombings, Mr Omar, who is the fourth down of the defendants as you look at them, disguised as a woman wearing a burka fled to Birmingham by coach on Friday, 22nd July.

CCTV and mobile phone evidence shows him and his fiance at a ... coach station that afternoon and him at Birmingham coach station that evening disguised in the burka.

He was arrested at a house in Birmingham by armed police officers on Wednesday, 27th July. He was found fully clothed, standing in a bath wearing a rucksack on his back.

It seems that Ibrahim and Mohammed hid out at Mohammed's flat. They were arrested there on Friday, 29th July.

The evidence, in particular CCTV footage, shows that, on Saturday, 23rd July, he (Osman) travelled from Brighton to London by train and then stayed at the flat of a friend in Vauxhall until Tuesday, 26th July, when he caught a train from Waterloo to Paris using the UK passport of one of his brothers.

He was arrested in Rome on Friday, 29th July.

1.30pm: Two other individuals who you will hear of in his regard, if you turn on to page 25 and indeed we have blown up on the screen another brother who also lived in the Stockwell area and who went by the name, as you can see on the passport, of Abdul (undecipherable), this being the passport that Mr Osman used to escape the country to Rome.

Likewise, in so far as people associated with Mr Osman are concerned, you will also hear about another man called Ishmail Abdurahman who lived at 61 Newport Street in the Vauxhall area ... Newport Street also playing a part in Mr Osman's departure from the country in due course course.

In December 2003, Osman joined the South Bank Club in Vauxhall, giving an address in .... the Stockwell/Brixton area.

He was given a membership card with a photograph on it. That is a replica of it on the screen. Later he was joined on that membership by another man called Abedi Omar and, as you may remember, Osman's actual membership card was later to play a part in the events of 21st July because he had it with him, albeit in pieces, in the rucksack with the bomb.

1.40pm: As to Ramzi Mohammed, in 2005 he was living ... in north Kensington. You will see that adjacent to it (the property) are Little Wormwood Scrubs, where the second defendant dumped his bomb, and another address, 11D Chesterton Road, close by, which I will come on to in a moment.

In so far as Mr Mohamed is concerned, he has lived in the United Kingdom since the late 1990s. He had two young sons who feature in his suicide note who lived with their mother in south London.

The fact that the majority of the defendants were all known to each other well before the events of July 2005 is well demonstrated by the fact that between 30th April 2004 and 3rd May 2004 a Bank Holiday weekend, five of them, Ibrahim, Osman, Omar, Mohammed and Yahya, were all with others on a camping trip in the north of the Lake District, a camping list for this trip was later found by the police along with camping gear in a cupboard at Curtis House.

The trip was, as you can see from the computer screen, to a farm in Cumbia in the north of the Lake District.

On the last day of the trip, Monday, 3rd May of 2004, police officers were deployed on surveillance in the vicinity of the farm.

They observed a group of about 20 or more, including one or two youngsters. The officers watched as the group packed up their tents and their other equipment. At times they were addressed by someone who appeared to be their leader and they also lined up in what appeared to be Islamic prayer.

By mid-afternoon the group had loaded their belongings into various vehicles and departed.

The officers took a number of photographs.

If in your exhibits-bundle, back to divider 1, from page 2 onwards you can see some general photographs up to page 5 which give you something of an idea of the group.

What the purpose of that trip was, even with a youngster or two present, you may wish to consider in due course.

What signs are there in the evidence that you are going to hear of radicalisation and extremist beliefs in these defendants?

Stephen Bentley, the old school friend of Yahya, recalls that when they reached about 18/19 they became heavily involved in Islamic teachings and started attending Friday prayers.

Sometime after that Stephen Bentley and the fourth old school friend Matthew Dixon also became interested in Islam.

According to Bentley, they went to a number of mosques with Omar and Yahya, including the for instance (undecipherable) mosque, to hear the preacher Abu Hamza.

Both Omar and Yahya obtained books from the Finsbury Park mosque.

Omar for his part appeared to admire the Taliban for creating a true Islamic state, but up to the time that Stephen Bentley last saw him in 2002, Omar never talked to Bentley in terms about either Jihad or (undecipherable).

Omar, as I have mentioned already, was also an attendee at the Finchley mosque. In about February 2005 the Imam at the mosque gave a sermon saying that suicide bombing was against Islamic law.
After the sermon Omar approached the Imam indicating clearly that he disagreed with that proposition.

Indeed, he told the Imam not to mislead people, although two weeks later he, Omar, apologised.

On 12th October 2004 Ibrahim was arrested for a public order offence whilst distributing Islamic literature in Oxford Street.

In the autumn of 2004 Yahya offered accommodation to a fellow student of Arab extraction at the London Metropolitan University.

That student will be a prosecution witness before you in due course.

For good reason, which you will not hold against the defendants at all, I am not going to refer to him by name at this stage.

==========
Through Yahya the witness was offered accommodation at Ibrahim's address at 32 Farley Road in Dalston, which we saw before, right-hand side of the plan, and the witness stayed there for a time that autumn 2004.

Omar would often come round to the address and so the witness got to know him too.

In due course, at some point he also got to know Asiedu who he knew as Ishmael as well. To the witness Ibrahim appeared to be in charge of Omar and indeed of others who came to his flat.

For his part, Ibrahim said that he had done military training at a camp in the Sudan and that he had fired rocket-propelled grenades.

Ibrahim's medical records indeed tend to confirm that he did indeed visit Sudan in 2003.

The witness says that both Ibrahim and Omar were attendees at the Finsbury Park mosque where Abu Hamza preached.

According to the witness, they had many tapes of his preachings and those of another radical preacher ? and that Ibrahim and Omar listened to them often.

When the witness tried to point out the error of their ways, they would disagree.

Both Ibrahim and Omar had extremist views against the UK and America and would often discuss Jihad in Iraq, Afghanistan and Chechnya.

Both men, Ibrahim and Omar, seemed keen and willing to go off there to fight, including fighting the British and American troops in Iraq, although they did not talk about pursuing Jihad in this country.

The witness believed from what he was told that Ibrahim, Omar, Asiedu and Yahya had been on a camping trip with others to Scotland in the summer of 2004.

The witness understood that this was to get fit for Jihad and he himself had not gone.

When those who went came back, they all enthused about the training. Ibrahim often asked the witness about taking Omar and Yahya to training camps in the Yemen so that they could learn to use military weapons.

The witness refused. Omar often talked to the witness about Jihad and Ibrahim said that it was his dream to carry it out.

Yahya too stated that he wanted to commit Jihad.

In the late autumn of 2004 Ibrahim told the witness that he was going to al Hajj, the religious festival in Saudi Arabia with two others and then on with the two others to fight Jihad.

The witness thought that this meant going to Iraq to fight the British and the Americans.

There was discussion about Omar and Yahya going with Ibrahim, but they said that they could not via injury sustained camping in Scotland.

Ibrahim also invited the witness, but the witness declined.

? when the defendants' addresses were eventually searched, quantities of religious material were found at a number of them.

That material falls into three basic categories: (i) material capable of demonstrating the defendants held strong Muslim beliefs; (ii) material capable of demonstrating that the defendants were sympathetic to Jihad beliefs,that they held anti-Western views and that they were actively concerned with the political arguments surrounding the plight of Muslims around the world, for example Palestine, Iraq and Chechnya; (iii) material capable of suggesting that the defendants were supportive of the notion of al Qaeda and the creation of a Muslim state; that they supported the views of Osama bin Laden, that they were sympathetic towards acts of extremist Islamic terrorism and that they held extreme Jihad belief.

I am going to concentrate on the third category of that material.

[Wokeman]

Monday January 15, 07:04 PM

Six men have gone on trial accused of an "extremist Muslim plot" to carry out a series of murderous suicide bombings on London's public transport system. Five of them armed themselves with devices made from a lethal chemical mixture which included chapatti flour.

They were packed with makeshift shrapnel to increase the "carnage" they would cause on July 21, 2005, prosecutor Nigel Sweeney QC told the jury at Woolwich Crown Court.

When the bombs failed to explode, one fled London disguised as a Muslim woman in a burka.

Opening the case for the Crown, Mr Sweeney told the jury the plot was hatched before the July 7 attacks.

He said: "This case is concerned with an extremist Muslim plot, the ultimate objective of which was to carry out a number of murderous suicide bombings on the public transport system in London.

The men all deny charges of conspiracy to murder and cause explosions likely to endanger life.

They are Muktar Said Ibrahim, 28, from Stoke Newington, north London; Ramzi Mohammed, 25, from North Kensington, west London; Yassin Omar, 26, from New Southgate, north London; Hussain Osman, 28, of no fixed address; Manfo Kwaku Asiedu, 33, of no fixed address; and Adel Yahya, 24, of Tottenham.

Mr Sweeney said the role of Ibrahim, Asiedu, Osman, Omar and Mohammed was ultimately "that of would-be suicide bombers".

Yahya took part "in some of the essential preparation done in furtherance of the conspiracy, albeit that he left the country nearly six weeks before July 21 and had not returned by that date".

Mr Sweeney showed a replica bomb to the jury and said that although six had been made, only five were deployed.

He said there could be "no doubt" that the design for the explosive devices was "functional".

[scubadiver]

You beat me to it.

Dough!

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/15012007/140/bombs-made-chapatti-flour.html

[rodin]

Chapati flour! WALOC! Are they testing us to guage the extent of our gullibility?

[Wokeman]

As they say in south London, "You're having a laugh, aren't you?"

[Wokeman]

Also, we have to ask why this essential ingredient, chapatti flour, had not been previously found in devices captured in the nick of time, and before they were able to unleash their terrible power.

[rodin]

[Dogsmilk]

Does anyone know if chapatti flour is particularly relevant? How about regular flour? My other half likes to do a bit of baking and I'm worried my kitchen may literally be a bomb waiting to go off.

[numeral]

The prosecution claim that 30% flour mixed with 70% of a 70% solution of hydrogen peroxide will explode if suitably detonated, say by a TATP detonator.

They say the reason why the bombs did not explode was that the concentration of the solution of hydrogen peroxide was too low, only 58% rather than 70%.

[wepmob2000]

[Mark Gobell]

Can we get an opinion on this from Nafeez Ahmed's contact Lieutenant-Colonel (ret.) Nigel Wylde ?

[Mark Gobell]

11am: The detonator was the primary high explosive (undecipherable chemical), TATP for short. This not made commercially. It is too dangerous for that.

Yet on 10.8 we are told they intended mixing and making this highly dangerous substance in aircraft toilets ?

[Bushwacker]

[Mark Gobell]

The point claimed in the meeju is that the Chappati flour is used to provide oxygen to the TATP ignition.

Does anyone know how to verify this ?

Any chemists / physicists about ?

[paul wright]

Not me, but is clear that to have any incendiary qualities flour has to be more or less an aerosol, dispersed in the air in a confined space.
What seems to be described is much the same as putting a banger (different kind of explosive to be sure) in a bag of flour, an explosion of dust resembling the smoke bombs described by some witnesses at the time
To claim that milled wheat has any oxygenating properties in itself is obviously rubbish

[Patrick Brown]

Interesting how so many people on the forum like to have an opinion but very rrly back it up with any evidence!

[Patrick Brown]

Just watched the news and they're all pleading not guilty.

[Sinclair]

I believe that 5 of the 6 have pleaded Not Guilty, & a 6th (Yahya) has not entered a plea.

Hussein Osman also said this:

[rodin]

[Patrick Brown]

Err what's your point?

[Patrick Brown]

[Mark Gobell]

Good find Rodin thanks.

http://www.j-n-v.org/London_Blasts/L_B_rapid_rebuttal_050731.htm

Differing versions of one man's "reported" statements. No surprise there then.

Sky News: The jury has today been shown "dramatic" CCTV footage of the men on tube trains detonating their devices.

So, why no CCTV from two weeks earlier then ?

[Mark Gobell]

Prosecuting the case is Nigel Sweeney QC, known by a certain Mr Shayler it seems.

Looking at his CV, I don't fancy their chances much:

http://www.6kbw.com/member_full.php?hdnMemberID=30

Mind you he was leading the prosecution in the fake ricin "plot" too - some insight into his tactics here once suspicions were raised about "evidence" and "confessions" being secured under torture.

http://www.williambowles.info/spysrus/ricin_plot.html

[Mark Gobell]

This gem from Nigel Sweeney QC, yesterday:

Taking them in the order in which they appear to have set off their bombs, Ramzi Mohamed was wearing a distinctive New York top, the words "New York" across his chest. No doubt connected with the events on 9/11.

Priceless.

[Sinclair]