BRITAIN
Bomb plotters sentenced to life
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Abdul al-Hadi al-Iraqi AP PHOTO
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Five al-Qaida-linked British men were sentenced to life in prison April 30 over a planned bombing spree against targets including a nightclub and power plants -- a plot which exposed links between the cell and bombers who attacked London's transit system in 2005.
Surveillance teams tracking the plotters picked up two of the subway attackers over a year before they killed 52 commuters on July 7, 2005, but officials failed to piece together intelligence in time to halt the blasts.
Though agents slipped a tracking device on transit bombing ringleader Mohammed Siddique Khan's car and heard him pledge to carry out violence against non-Muslims during bugged conversations, Britain's MI5 spy agency halted surveillance -- deciding he was not a priority.
Security officers claim Khan, accomplice Shehzad Tanweer and fertilizer plot chief Omar Khyam trained together at militia camps in Pakistan and met Abdul al-Hadi al-Iraqi, an al-Qaida operative now held at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay.
The Japan Times Weekly: May 5, 2007 (C) All rights reserved
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