Brit convicted of being al Qaeda mastermind

Independent:

A Muslim man from Manchester yesterday became the first ever Briton to be convicted of directing terrorism.

Rangzieb Ahmed, 33, travelled to Dubai from Pakistan as part of a three-man al-Qa'ida cell in December 2005 and was set to fly out to South Africa as part of a "major activity". But the plans went awry when his boss, Hamza Rabia – al-Qa'ida's suspected former third-in-command – was killed by an air strike in Pakistan. Ahmed was apparently considered so important within the organisation that he then summoned another British man, Habib Ahmed, 29, to the Middle East to carry incriminating diaries containing details of top al-Qa'ida operatives that were written in invisible ink. Among the details in the diaries – which were described in court during the 11-week trial as a terrorist's contact book – were those of Hamza Rabia, Mamoun Darkazanli, a suspected terrorist financier linked to the 2004 Madrid bombings, and Khalid Habib, a noted guerrilla fighter. (Emphasis added.)

Counter-terrorism officers from Greater Manchester Police were already monitoring the two men and bugged their hotel room in Dubai, where they made several coded references to al-Qa'ida.

Habib Ahmed, a taxi driver from Cheetham Hill, north Manchester, was convicted of one count of professing to belong to al-Qa'ida but was cleared of attending a terrorist training camp. His wife, Mehreen Haji, 28, was cleared of two counts of arranging funding for the purposes of terrorism.

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The bold italics portion is interesting because it demonstrates how our campaign of delivering Hellfire in Pakistan and Afghanistan is preventing terrorist attacks around the world. It is strange that the Independent did not make that the lead.