Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
the planning stages. The Crevice operatives wanted to attack the United Kingdom
because it was a strong supporter of the United States and had not yet been hit
by jihadis.
3
The objective of the mission was not only to bring the jihad to the
United Kingdom but to unite international jihadist planners with local individuals
to execute the mission. Omar Khayyam, the cell's leader, was raised in the town of
Crawley, south of London, in a relatively secular household. In 1998 he joined the
radical Islamic group Al Muhajiroun. Khayyam was first noticed by law enforce-
ment after he defrauded bankers and builders' merchants upward of
£
13,000,
which he sent to the jihadists in Pakistan. By February 2004, Khayyam was
under surveillance. The surveillance of Khayyam allowed MI5 personnel, United
Kingdom's counterintelligence and security agency, to record 3500 hours of audio
conversations that detailed a variety of potential attack scenarios.
4
Surveillance also
allowed authorities to capture a web chat between Khayyam and Salahuddin Amin
discussing fertilizer, an ingredient in a homemade explosive device, which tipped
them of that the plot was underway. By the end of March 2004, Khayyam had
booked a flight with his brother Shujah Mahmood to Pakistan for April 6 and
withdrew more than
£
10,000 from his bank account. Also, the manager of the
space Khayyam and his men were using to store the fertilizer had recently attended
a briefing given by Scotland Yard detailing how self-storage units had been used in
the past. The manager provided the names of Khayyam and Anthony Garcia, who
were already under surveillance for terrorist financing.5
5
Surveillance was enhanced
and security cameras were set up both outside the storage unit and outside the
Langely Green Mosque in Crawley. Recording devices were placed in the homes
and cars of many of the operatives. On March 30, 750 officers brought Operation
Crevice to an end by raiding 28 locations throughout England before an attack
could be executed.
The 2004 Madrid Train Bombings
Moroccan Amer el-Azizi, one of the masterminds of the 2004 Madrid attacks,
worked with seasoned operatives such as Tunisian Sarhane Ben Abdeljamid Fakhet,
Allekema Lamari, Egyptian Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed, and Jamal Zougam,
among others, to carry out the attacks. This cell is of interest in that the cell had a
local infrastructure in place to execute the bombings locally, targeting the rail sys-
tem as it was a huge soft target. The timing was possibly chosen to influence the gen-
eral elections, although that is disputed by the fact that other devices were found in
the safe house to be used well after the elections were decided.
Target Selection
Targets of potential operations are chosen based on the objective, as well as taking
into account the iconic nature of a target, the critical nature of the infrastructure
