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The Gas Limos Project ( October 2006, London, UK) Revisited

Posted by Gabrielle Cusumano on Saturday, June 30, 2007 4:57:32 PM
"Dhiren Barot’s key plan, which he called the Gas Limos Project, was to commit mass murder by packing three limousines with propane gas cylinders and explosives and detonating the giant bombs in underground car parks beneath crowded buildings. "

 
From The Times
October 13, 2006

'Dirty bomb' mastermind plotted wave of atrocities across Britain

By Sean O’Neill
  • A HINDU convert to Islam admitted yesterday to plotting to build a radioactive “dirty bomb” and carry out a series of attacks in Britain.

    Dhiren Barot’s key plan, which he called the Gas Limos Project, was to commit mass murder by packing three limousines with propane gas cylinders and explosives and detonating the giant bombs in underground car parks beneath crowded buildings.

    He intended to follow those attacks with a “synchronised” dirty bomb explosion designed to contaminate hundreds of people with radiation sickness and cause nationwide panic.

    Barot, 34, from Willesden, northwest London, also admitted to planning a wave of “no warning” attacks against buildings in the United States, including the headquarters of the World Bank and the New York Stock Exchange.

    He wanted “to kill as many innocent people as possible”, Woolwich Crown Court was told.

    His guilty plea and limited details of his case can be reported only after a joint application by The Times and the BBC to relax reporting restrictions.

    The conviction of Barot, the mastermind of a major conspiracy, is regarded by police and the security services as one of their most significant successes in the fight against Islamist terrorism.

    There was intensive security around the courthouse in southeast London, with armed police inside and outside the building. Everyone entering had to pass through two search points where they and their bags were checked and X-rayed.

    Barot was arrested during a series of anti-terrorist raids in August 2004 and has been held in custody since then at Belmarsh high-security prison.

    Wearing a brown cardigan and open-necked black shirt, Barot appeared relaxed and confident in the dock, taking his own notes of the proceedings on a laptop computer.

    He stood to enter a plea to the first count on an indictment containing 23 charges.

    The clerk of the court read the charge, alleging his involvement in a conspiracy to commit murder conducted between January 2000 and his arrest in August 2004, to which Barot plead guilty.

    Edmund Lawson, QC, for the prosecution, informed Mr Justice Butterfield, the trial judge, of the details of the plea.

    Mr Lawson said that Barot had admitted planning terrorist murders in the US and Britain.

    Many of Barot’s plans for attacks in Britain were written down in notebooks. In one he outlined a “Rough Presentation for Gas Limos Project” which, he wrote, was “the main cornerstone [main target] of a series of planned attacks”.

    Mr Lawson said: “The principal planned attack involved packing three limousines with gas cylinders and explosives then detonating the devices in underground car parks.”

    There were to be three other attacks which, he wrote, would be “synchronized, concurrent [back-to-back]” with the limousine bombs.

    The most important of these was his “Radiation (Dirty Bomb) Project”. Mr Lawson said: “That project was designed to achieve a number of further and collateral objectives such as to cause injury, fear, terror and chaos.”

    Evidence from experts concluded that the dirty bomb would not have caused death but, if constructed to Barot’s plan, would have spread enough radioactive material to make 500 people sick.

    The intention was to create “fear, panic and social disruption”.

    Mr Lawson said the Crown had accepted that the investigation had not found any evidence that Barot had obtained money to finance his plot nor acquired any bombmaking materials or vehicles.

    Mr Lawson said: “The parts of the conspiracy relating to the United States are contained in plans found by the police on computers after his arrest.

    “Those were plans for attacks on the International Monetary Fund and World Bank headquarters in Washington, the New York Stock Exchange and the Citigroup headquarters in New York and the Prudential building in Newark.

    “They were plans to carry out explosions at all those premises with no warning, plainly designed to kill as many innocent people as possible.”

    The judge directed that 12 other charges against Barot — one of conspiracy to commit public nuisance, seven of making a record of information for terrorist purposes and four of possessing a record of information for terrorist purposes — be left on file.

    Mr Lawson said that by admitting his own guilt Barot, who will be sentenced at a later date, “makes no admission with regard to the involvement of any of his seven co-defendants in the conspiracy”.

    They will stand trial next year and deny all allegations against them.

    The Brits that plotted to wreak death and carnage

    Five men who hoped to kill thousands with a fertiliser bomb were described as ruthless misfits who betrayed their country

    Background

    All credit to THE TIMES ONLINE at:

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article599982.ece

    • ______________________________________________________________________________________


    Dhiren Barot

    Al-Qaeda Terrorist Operations Planner

    Detained

    Dhiren Barot

    Details
    Importance Medium
    Location of Detention United Kingdom
    Capturing Authority British police
    Date of Capture Aug. 3, 20045
    Location of Capture United Kingdom
    Affiliation Al-Qaeda1
    Role Terrorist Operations Planner1
    Supervisor Khalid Shaikh Mohammed1
    Nationality British3
    Nationality Indian
    Alias(es) Abu Esa al-Britani, Esa al Britani2, Abu Issa al Britani2, Esa al-Hindi2, Issa al-Hindi2, Issa al Britani1
    Rough Age 35
    Date of Birth 19723
    Gender Male
    History Attended training camp in postwar Afghanistan (1990-2001)
    Charged with Conspiracy to use Weapons of Mass Destructions Against Persons in the United States; Conspiracy to Provide Material Support to Terrorists; several others2
    Charging authority United States
    In connection with US financial buildings on orange alert
    Charges issued 2005
    Case status Pending
    Charged with Conspiracy to Commit Mass Murder3,5
    Charging authority United Kingdom
    In connection with US financial buildings on orange alert
    Charges issued Aug. 17, 2004
    Case status Convicted3
    Convictions Conspiracy to Committ Mass Murder3
    Sentence Life imprisonment
    Case resolved Nov. 7, 2006
     
     
    Narrative and Notes
     
    Reliable
  • Also wanted in Yemen.
  • Born Hindu; converted to Islam.
  • In 1999, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed sent him to Hambali in Malaysia for training.
  • In late 2000 and early 2001, KSM sent him to New York to case "Jewish" and economic targets. The plan was not connected to the 9-11 plot.
  • KSM and other detainees acknowledged the surveillance in 2004, prompting a U.S. terror alert that was later criticized because it was several years after the casing had taken place. Barot was detained after the alert was underway.
  • In the United Kingdom, he also plotted to pack limosines with gas cylinders and detonate them in underground parking garages.
  • He also considered employing a dirty bomb, according to prosecutors. He pleaded guilty on Oct. 12, 2006, and was sentenced to life in prison on Nov. 7, 2006.
  • According to London Metropolitan Police:
  • "He wrote detailed documents for attacks in both countries, which were found on computer hard drives following his arrest in August 2004. Handwritten notes referring to chemical mixtures were also recovered.
  • In a written plan titled the Gas Limos Project, which was recovered from a laptop during a counterterrorist operation in Gujurat, Barot wrote about the chaos and pandemonium a bomb exploding on a tube train travelling under the Thames could cause.
  • He wrote: . . . 'imagine the chaos that would be caused if a powerful explosion were to rip through here and actually rupture the river itself. This would cause pandemonium, what with the explosions, flooding, drowning, etc that would occur/result.'
  • Other elements of the 'Gas Limos Project' were recovered in the UK following his arrest in August 2004. It had been completed in the aftermath of the Madrid bombings and proposed a series of co-ordinated attacks to be launched in this country.
  • Various methods of attack, including packing limousines with explosives and driving them into underground car parks, arson and aeroplanes flown into buildings, were considered in it.
  • Detailed plans including organisation structures and business histories of some of Barot's American targets - Citigroup, Prudential, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the New York Stock Exhange - were among other documents found on computers."1,3,4
    •  
    Possible
  • According to Hambali, Barot provided him with two addresses, one in the United States, possibly California, and another in South Africa as potential contacts. Hambali claims to have never contacted the and forgotten them.1
    •  
     
    Sources
    1 The 9-11 Commission Report. July 22, 2004. Chapter 5.1.
    2 United States vs. Dhiren Barot, et. al., indictment.
    3 Lawless, Jill. 'Brit pleads guilty in plot to bomb U.S. sites.' The Associated Press: Oct. 13, 2006.
    4 U.K. Metropolitan police press release, 'Terrorist jailed for life for conspiracy to murder in the UK and US.' Nov. 12, 2006.
    5 Mintz, John and Kamran Khan. "Britain charges 8 in alleged terror plot." The Washington Post: Aug. 18, 2004.
    Photo: U.K. Metropolitan Police
    All credit to: original context on the page: www.globalsecurity.org/.../dhiren_barot.htm
    and
    http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/profiles/images/dhiren_barot_1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/profiles/dhiren_barot.htm&h=240&w=180&sz=8&hl=en&start=5&um=1&tbnid=QE9H7eG2j25qeM:&tbnh=110&tbnw=83&prev=/images%3Fq%3DDhiren%2BBarot%2Band%2Bthe%2BGas%2BLimos%2BProject.%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den
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