While [1] Muslim Council of Britain members try to secure the release of Ken Bigley in Iraq on the grounds that Islam forbids targeting non-combatants, some of their coreligionists back home were plotting to set off a dirty bomb that would probably have killed a non-combatant or two, either in Britain or the USA. From the [2] Times Online, :

ANTI-TERRORIST police have arrested four men suspected of trying to buy material for a radiological “dirty” bomb. Three men were arrested at a hotel in north London, while a fourth was arrested at his home nearby.

It has been reported that the men — one of whom was from Goa, India, another from Somalia and a third from Mozambique — were middlemen acting for a Saudi Arabian.

The men were arrested on Friday after a tip-off from reporters at the News of the World. The suspects claimed to the reporters that their client was willing to pay £300,000 for a kilogram of radioactive “red mercury”.

“It’ll be for use here in the UK or the USA,” the reporters were told.