BBC - Bomb suspect 'part of network'

Mr Reid (right) is believed to have served time in jail The FBI believes the man suspected of trying to blow up a passenger plane with explosives hidden in his shoes on Saturday had an accomplice, US media reports say.

The Boston Globe newspaper said it had received information from the FBI suggesting that the suspect identified as Richard Reid - who was carrying a UK passport - was acting as part of a wider network.

Meanwhile in the UK, The Times newspaper said Mr Reid could be linked to Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, after it traced him to a London mosque also attended by a man charged with the 11 September attacks.

The leader of the Brixton mosque, in south London, told the newspaper that Mr Reid was incapable of acting alone.

He is reported to have converted to Islam in prison, where he served time for a string of convictions such as street muggings.

Richard Reid, whose identity is still being questioned and investigated, is now in custody and has been ordered to appear in a Boston court on Friday.

He is alleged to have tried to detonate explosives packed in the heels of his shoes on an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami on Saturday, before being overpowered by passengers and crew.

Mystery man

"Because of the complexity of concocting such an explosive, FBI technicians believe that Reid must have had an accomplice," the Boston Globe said, quoting an unnamed Massachusetts official.

An FBI spokesman in Washington said that establishing whether the suspect acted alone was one of the main focuses of the investigation.

There are also questions about the man's identity.

French police sources in Paris said that Mr Reid also identified himself as Tariq Raja, born in 1973 in Sri Lanka, and as Abdel Rahim, a name reflecting a conversion to Islam.

Sri Lankan foreign ministry officials said there was no evidence to suggest he was a citizen of that country.

The British Consul-General in Boston, George Ferguson, told AP news agency there was no reason to believe Mr Reid's UK passport was not legitimate.

"His passport says he was born in the UK, in England," he said.

According to the report in The Times, he was born in 1973 in Bromley, south-east London. His mother is English and his father Jamaican.

Shoe checks

The BBC's Tim Franks says Mr Reid will appear on Friday for a "probable cause" hearing - to establish if there are sufficient grounds to hold him.

The court has appointed a lawyer for him.

If convicted as charged so far, he faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The FBI is expected to file more charges against him.

French authorities are trying to establish how the passenger managed to get on board, given the heightened security put in place after 11 September.

Security has been stepped up at both France's Charles de Gaulle airport - where the flight originated - and Boston's Logan airport, to which it was diverted after Mr Reid was overpowered.

Passengers are now required to take off their shoes and put them through X-ray machines.

-- Anonymous, December 26, 2001

Answers

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/360/nation/Bomb_suspect_has_possible _terror_link+.shtml

Bomb suspect has possible terror link

Reid, Moussaoui tied to same mosque

By Michele Kurtz, Globe Correspondent and Scott S. Greenberger Globe Staff, 12/26/2001

ONDON - The man who allegedly tried to blow up American Airlines Flight 63 by detonating explosives in his sneakers worshiped at the same south London mosque as the man US authorities have charged as ''the 20th hijacker'' in the Sept. 11 attacks, The Times of London reported today.

The possible connection between Richard Colvin Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui, the suspected conspirator who was indicted two weeks ago in Washington, may link Reid to Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network.

Mosque leader AbdulHaqq Baker, an outspoken critic of terrorism and bin Laden, told the Times that Muslim extremists have targeted the mosque's worshipers for recruitment. Like many at the mosque, Reid, 28, was a young convert to Islam. It is not clear whether Reid and Moussaoui, 33, ever met.

US and British officials were not available to comment on the report, which was posted on the newspaper's Web site late last night.

Moussaoui, a Frenchman of Moroccan descent whose clumsy interest in flying jetliners alarmed American flight instructors and aroused the suspicions of US authorities, has been in federal custody since Aug. 17, when he was arrested in Minnesota on immigration violations.

The leader of the Brixton Mosque told the London newspaper that Reid was incapable of acting alone and speculated that he might have been on a test mission for a new terrorist technique when he apparently tried to detonate plastic explosives hidden in his suede basketball shoes. He was overpowered by passengers and crew.

Reid remained under suicide watch at the Plymouth House of Corrections in Massachusetts yesterday.

''No way could he do this on his own,'' Baker, the chairman of the mosque, told the Times. ''He doesn't have the capacity to think: `I'm going to get these explosives, I know where to get these explosives from, I'll put them in my shoe.'''

''He was a testing ground. If he had succeeded, they would know this is a mechanism that works,'' he added. ''If the plane had exploded, there would have been very little trace of how that happened.''

Reid's mother is English and his father is Jamaican, according to the Times. Baker said Reid arrived at the mosque as a worshiper several years ago. A petty criminal, he is believed to have converted to Islam while in prison and taken the name Abdel Rahim.

Most of the worshipers at the Brixton Mosque are young converts, said Baker. The mosque has condemned terrorism and bin Laden, but Baker said worshipers there have been recruited by radical Islamists. Extremists used to hand out pamphlets after prayers, he said, but now they use more subtle methods.

The Times reported that Abu Qatada, known as bin Laden's European representative, has recruited there. A third worshiper at the mosque, Shahid Butt, was jailed in Yemen for joining a group of British Muslims who plotted to attack the British consulate and a church.

Scotland Yard has been questioning Baker in connection with the FBI's investigations into Reid and the Sept. 11 attacks.

Baker said Reid was ''an amiable, happy-go-lucky individual'' who wore fashionable Western clothes when he first came to the mosque, but that he had changed radically by the time he stopped coming.

''By the time he left, he was clearly arguing for this fight with the non-Muslims and this warped understanding of jihad,'' Baker said. ''Some of my colleagues remember clearly the heated discussions they had with him saying this belief in jihad is wrong.''

Baker said Moussaoui underwent a similar transformation.

''He kept asking us: `Do you know where there is jihad which I can fight?' He would try and speak to other unsuspecting youths about his view. We would try and stop him.''

Law enforcement officials in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Globe several days ago that investigators had not uncovered any evidence linking Reid to the Qaeda network or other terrorist groups. A spokeswoman with the US Department of Justice, reached late yesterday, said she had not heard about the information reported in the Times and could not comment on it.

Yesterday, before the Times article was published, a Scotland Yard spokesman would not confirm Reid's criminal past, saying British authorities believe that Reid is a British citizen, but that ''it may be that he has no history of living in Britain at all.''

Authorities have credited flight attendants and passengers on the Paris-to-Miami flight with averting a disaster. Alerted by the smell of smoke, a flight attendant confronted Reid when she saw him attempting to touch a lit match to one of his shoes. After a struggle, the flight crew and several passengers subdued the 6-foot-4 Reid by injecting him with a sedative from the plane's emergency kit and strapping him to his seat with belts.

A preliminary examination of Reid's black suede basketball sneakers found 4 or 5 ounces of explosive material packed in each one, as well as a rope-like material known as detonator cord. The sneakers were hollowed out slightly on the inside to accommodate the explosives, with each one marked by drill holes from which a detonator cord emerged, according to a Massachusetts official who spoke to the Globe on condition of anonymity.

Reid had been scheduled to make the Paris-Miami trip Friday, but was detained by French police because he had no luggage and had paid cash for his round-trip journey, which was scheduled to include St. Johns, Antigua.

Reid was questioned for so long that he missed his flight, and spent the night at the Hotel Copthorne, a four-star hotel near the Charles de Gaulle Airport, at American Airlines' expense. Someone who answered the phone at the hotel yesterday declined to comment.

Tim Banes, a spokesman for the US Marshal's Service, said yesterday that Reid is segregated from other prisoners at the Plymouth House of Corrections and under constant surveillance. He is let out for an hour each day to exercise.

Reid is scheduled for a status hearing on Friday when a federal judge will set his bail, Banes said.

-- Anonymous, December 26, 2001

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/360/world/Shoe_bomb_suspect_is_Briton_ wh:.shtml

Shoe-bomb suspect is Briton who converted to Islam in prison: report

By Jill Lawless, Associated Press, 12/26/2001 05:46

LONDON (AP) The man who allegedly tried to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight with explosives hidden in his shoes was a British petty criminal who converted to Islam while in jail, a British newspaper reported Wednesday.

The Times of London said the man, who has been identified as 28-year- old Richard C. Reid, attended the same south London mosque as Zacarias Moussaoui, the Frenchman charged with conspiracy in connection with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

Abdul Haqq Baker, chairman of Brixton Mosque, told the newspaper he remembered Reid as ''an amiable, happy-go-lucky individual, always wanting to get involved in things and helping.''

During an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami on Saturday, Reid allegedly tried to touch a lit match to a fuse protruding from one of his shoes. Two flight attendants and several passengers grabbed him and used belts to strap him into his seat, and two doctors sedated him with drugs from an airplane medical kit.

The Boeing 767, carrying 197 people, was diverted to Boston with an escort of two fighter jets.

Investigators are still attempting to confirm the suspect's identity. Richard C. Reid is the name listed on a British passport issued Dec. 7 by the British embassy in Belgium, but after the man's arrest Saturday French officials initially said they thought he was from Sri Lanka and named Tariq Raja. U.S. investigators said they thought his mother was Jamaican. Officials said he also went by the name Abdel Rahim.

On Tuesday, Sri Lanka's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the man was not a Sri Lankan national and French border police said they believed he was British.

George Fergusson, consul general at the British Consulate in Boston, also said Tuesday that Reid's British passport appeared to be valid.

The Times said Reid was born in Bromley, southeast London, in 1973 to an English mother and a Jamaican father and had served several jail sentences for street crimes such as mugging.

The newspaper did not offer sources for its information on Reid's criminal record, or say when he attended the mosque. Baker, the mosque leader, told the British Broadcasting Corp. Wednesday that Reid had come to the mosque after leaving prison, asking to learn the tenets of Islam.

Baker said Reid at first seemed a normal, street-wise London youth, but he developed extreme views.

''By the time he left he was clearly arguing for his fight with the non-Muslims and this warped understanding of jihad,'' Baker said, according to The Times.

Baker also said he doubted Reid could have devised the shoe-bombing plot on his own.

A report Tuesday in France's La Provence newspaper, citing police and intelligence sources, said Reid had belonged to an Islamic movement called Tabliq but left because he said it was ''not radical enough'' for him.

Reid has been charged with intimidation or assault of a flight crew and could face 20 years in prison. He is being held in jail under suicide watch pending a psychological examination.

The FBI has said more charges are likely.

Investigators have not identified the type of explosive material found in devices in Reid's sneakers, but say preliminary FBI tests determined the devices were functional.

-- Anonymous, December 26, 2001

You do have to worry about how many of these idiots there are and who among them will get lucky. Since this experiment failed spectacularly, thanks to vigilant flight staff and helpful passengers, I think we might look for suicide bombers on London's Oxford Street. (There are no metal detectors in the big department stores far as I know.) We might get some here too--I'd suspect Times Square on New Year's Eve or any other place where thousands of people will gather. And, of course, we might not get anything.

-- Anonymous, December 26, 2001