Falls Church Jihad Update from the TimesOnline, with thanks to Sr. Soph:
BRITISH agents are operating in the United States to trace links with Islamic extremists from England who recruit Muslims to fight for terrorist groups abroad.
The British-led investigation has played a part in identifying a number of US-based terrorists and helped the authorities in Washington to break up an al-Qaeda cell operating in Falls Church, Virginia.
The agents are particularly keen to discover if the visitors included Mohammad Sidique Khan, leader of the July 7 suicide bombers, who is alleged to have travelled to America’s East Coast to meet fellow militants and stage a series of attacks on synagogues.
Khan was considered such a threat that he was banned from returning to America two years before the attack on London, according to a book written by a US intelligence specialist….
Neither the FBI nor police would comment on the investigations into Khan’s alleged visits to the US in 2002, but, in Falls Church yesterday, residents blamed “foreign agitators” for encouraging young men from the city”s Muslim community to join extremist groups linked to al-Qaeda.
In the Falls Plaza shopping mall, most preferred to chat about their historic city”s latest civic award for its floral displays and not its reputation as the jihad capital of America.
Over the past few months, 11 men who regularly attended the same Islamic Centre in Falls Church have been convicted of terrorism charges. Seven reportedly went to training camps in Pakistan, including one used by Khan.
Their trials exposed a network stretching from this placid commuter belt serving the US capital ten miles away, passing through British cities and on to jihadi camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan.