London, July 14
The London police today claimed to have identified Mohammad Sidique Khan as the mastermind behind the 7/7 suicide attacks. Khan, a 30-year-old teacher of Pakistani origin at a Beeston school, is also thought to be the one who triggered the bomb at the Edgware Road Underground station.The Times reported that security sources believed that Khan had also been involved in previous terrorist operations and had links with Al-Qaeda followers in the US. They also believed that he met the other bombers in Leeds and identified targets on the Tube.
Security chiefs said he was also likely to have taught the other bombers how to trigger their rucksack bombs at the same time.
The British-born man reportedly arrived at a port last month and is understood to have left the country the day before four suicide bombers killed around 52 persons, in what is being described as first suicide bomb attacks in the country.
According to the paper, Khan, father of a 14-month-old daughter, taught the children of immigrant families who had just arrived in Britain. His colleagues described him as soft spoken, endlessly patient, and immensely popular with children treating him as their friend.
The police had identified three bombers yesterday as Hasib Hussain (19), Shehzad Tanweer (22), and Mohammed Saddique Khan (30), all from West Yorkshire in northern England.
Detectives are trying to establish who may have attended the meetings and if they were part of the terrorist cell that planned the London bombings which killed 52 persons.
Fiaz’s brother, Naveed, has been identified locally as the man being questioned by anti-terrorist branch detectives at Paddington Green police station, the report said.
His home, near the former family house, became the seventh property in West Yorkshire to be sealed off in the widening operation.
According to the report, Naveed (29), whose wife is expecting their fourth child, handed himself in to the police voluntarily for questioning.
— ANI, PTI
