Mohammad Sidique Khan was the oldest of the four homegrown suicide bombers and
believed to be the leader responsible for the 7 July 2005 London bombings, in
which bombs were detonated on three London Underground trains and one bus in
central London suicide attacks, killing 56 people including the attackers and
injured over 700. Khan bombed the Edgware Road train killing himself and
five other people. On 1 September 2005, a videotape emerged
featuring Khan. The videotape, shown by Al Jazeera Television, also shows Ayman
al-Zawahiri, who is the highest leader of al-Qaeda. The two men do not appear
together, and the British government says that Al Qaeda was not connected
with the bombing. The Home Office believes the tape was edited after the
suicide attacks and dismisses it as evidence of al-Qaeda's involvement. In
the film, Khan declares, "I and thousands like me have forsaken
everything for what we believe" and refers to his expectation that the media
would already have painted a picture of him in accordance with government
"spin". He goes on to say, "Your democratically elected governments
continually perpetrate atrocities against my people all over the world.
Your support makes you directly responsible. We are at war and I am a
soldier. Now you too will taste the reality of this situation."
Biography Born in St James's University Hospital,
Leeds, Khan grew up in Beeston but moved to Lees Holm in Dewsbury, near Leeds in
early 2005. His father, Tika Khan, a foundry worker, was born in Pakistan.
His mother is Mamida Begum. He received his secondary education at South Leeds
High School, formerly the Matthew Murray High School, which was also attended by
Hasib Hussain, the 7 July bus bomber. Khan went on to study at Leeds
Metropolitan University. In 1999 he came under the influence of
radical Muslim cleric Abdullah el-Faisal.
Khan worked at Hillside Primary School in Leeds as a "learning mentor" with the
children of immigrant families who had just arrived in Britain. Khan's
colleagues commented that he was a quiet individual who did not talk about his
religious or political beliefs. Khan was also involved in the
community-run Hamara Healthy Living Centre in Beeston, and worked at its
youth outreach project, the Hamara Youth Access Point. Staff at the centre have
confirmed that two of the London bombers, Shehzad Tanweer and Hasib
Hussain, frequented the HYAP. Khan used the outreach project as a recruitment
centre, according to a friend of his who spoke to The Guardian.
His mother-in-law, Farida Patel, is also involved in education and works as a
council liaison officer at a school in Dewsbury. In 1998 she was the first
Asian woman to be invited to a Buckingham Palace garden party, meeting
the Queen and other members of the royal family, in recognition for her work
amongst the Muslim community in Dewsbury, and again in 2004. She was
said to have been "devastated" by the actions of her son-in-law.
Mohammad Sidique Khan reportedly postponed the event from 6 July 2005
because he had to take his pregnant wife to the hospital.
London bombings On the morning of 7 July 2005, Khan
travelled by car with his three accomplices to Luton in Bedfordshire,
where the four men caught a train to London King's Cross railway station.
From there, Khan entered the London Underground and boarded a Circle Line
Tube train heading west, travelling four stops to Edgware Road, a heavily Arab
neighbourhood of London. The bomb detonated at 8.50 a.m., just as the
train was pulling out of Edgware Road station. Personal documents of Khan's
were found on the train. Intelligence assessments
Khan is alleged to have travelled regularly to Pakistan and Afghanistan to
attend military training camps, and is also believed to have spent time in
Israel. In 2001 Khan was alleged to have learned bomb-making at the Malakand
training camp in Pakistan. He is also alleged to have trained with Indonesian
terror group Jemaah Islamiyah and to be directly involved with the 2002 Bali
bombing. According to the Israeli newspaper
Maariv, Khan travelled to Israel on 19 February 2003, staying only one night
and leaving the next day. Maariv reports that he was suspected of having helped
to plan the 30 April 2003 suicide bombing of the Mike's Place bar in Tel
Aviv which killed three Israelis, carried out by two British citizens of
Pakistani descent. The Israeli government allegedly played down the
report. According to Ron Suskind's The One
Percent Doctrine, the NSA had been monitoring phone calls and emails
between Khan and several Islamic radicals from the United States and
England, including Ahmed Omar Abu Ali. Just prior to Khan's planned trip to the
US, NSA intercepted email exchanges between him and some of his associates
discussing a desire to "blow up synagogues on the East Coast". According
to Suskind, the CIA wanted to let Khan into the US so that the FBI could put
him under surveillance, but the FBI resisted on grounds that, as one FBI
case agent stated, "We just can't take the risk ... he goes up and blows up a
temple in Washington." US government officials put Khan on a no-fly list to
prevent him from entering the country. Suskind was critical of the decision,
which the author suggested tipped him off to the fact that he was known to US
authorities and might have caused him to be more cautious with his communication
to avoid further surveillance. British intelligence sources and
circumstantial evidence suggested that this theory may have resulted from a
confusion between two different Mohammed Khans, although it seems that Suskind
stood by his claim. According to David Leppard in The Sunday
Times, Khan was assessed by MI5 in 2004, after his name appeared during an
investigation into a plan to detonate a 600-lb truck bomb in London. MI5
concluded that Khan's link to the plotters was indirect, and he was not
placed under surveillance. MI5 was later criticised for failing to follow up
leads relating to Khan. The service responded to the criticisms. Channel 4
News published what it said were excerpts from the transcript of the
tape. US intelligence officials have said that
Khan was known to Mohammed Junaid Babar, who has pleaded guilty in the US to
providing material support to al-Qaeda. Babar, who told investigators that he
worked on a plan to blow up pubs, railway stations, and restaurants in the
UK, identified Khan as someone he had met in Pakistan.
On 18 July 2005, the Pakistani government released video footage of
Khan arriving at Karachi airport on 19 November 2004 with Shehzad Tanweer,
another of the London bombers, on Turkish Airlines flight TK 1056. Khan
and Tanweer stayed in Pakistan until 8 February 2005, then flew back to London
together. A third member of the London group, 18-year-old Hasib Hussain,
arrived in Karachi on 15 July 2004 from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on flight SV714.
See also Shehzad Tanweer, Aldgate train
Hasib Hussain, No. 30 bus Germaine Lindsay, Russell Square train
Notes External links
London bombers tied to Al Qaeda plot in Pakistan, by Brian Ross, ABC News, 14
July 2005 "Mentor to the young and vulnerable", by
Sandra Laville and Dilpazier Aslam, The Guardian, 14 July 2005
"London bomber video aired on TV", BBC News, last updated 2 September 2005,
8:29 GMT Full text of the segment of the tape
shown on Al-Jazeera, not necessarily the full text of the entire tape.