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Plot by Islamic jihadists to hijack passenger jet investigated in connection with disappearance of Malaysian airliner

Mar 16, 2014 8:53 am By Robert Spencer

BadatFor those who don’t speak the Queen’s English, a “supergrass” is an informer. Saajid Badat said: “I gave one of my shoes to the Malaysians. I think it was to access the cockpit.” This was because of the possibility that the cockpit door could be locked. Badat recounted: “So I said, ‘How about I give you one of my bombs to open a cockpit door?’” Remember that just weeks ago, DHS issued a new warning about shoe bombs on airplanes.

“Malaysia Airline MH370: 9/11-style terror allegations resurface in case of lost plane,” by Robert Mendick, Robert Verkaik, Dean Nelson and Malcolm Moore in the Telegraph, March 15 (thanks to John):

Evidence of a plot by Malaysian Islamists to hijack a passenger jet in a 9/11-style attack is being investigated in connection with the disappearance of Flight MH370

An al-Qaeda supergrass told a court last week that four to five Malaysian men had been planning to take control of a plane, using a bomb hidden in a shoe to blow open the cockpit door.

Security experts said the evidence from a convicted British terrorist was “credible”. The supergrass said that he had met the Malaysian jihadists – one of whom was a pilot – in Afghanistan and given them a shoe bomb to use to take control of an aircraft.

A British security source said: “These spectaculars take a long time in the planning.”

The possibility of such a plot, hatched by the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers in New York, was bolstered by an admission by Najib Razak, Malaysia’s prime minister, that the Boeing 777’s communications systems had been deliberately switched off “by someone on the plane”.

In a series of dramatic developments yesterday, it emerged that:

– Flight MH370 had changed direction and altitude after communications devices had been deliberately disabled;

– The plane flew for up to seven hours after civilian radar lost touch with it;

– An unnamed official briefed that the plane had been hijacked although Mr Najib refused to confirm that was the case;

– The plane flew towards either Indonesia or to Kazakhstan after the transponder and messaging systems were disabled;

– Police searched the homes of both pilots for two hours over concerns one may have switched off the communications systems in a suicide bid;

– Chinese officials accused Malaysia of withholding information in a ratcheting up of diplomatic tensions between the two countries.

In evidence in a court case last Tuesday, Saajid Badat, a British-born Muslim from Gloucester, said that he had been instructed at a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan to give a shoe bomb to the Malaysians.

Giving evidence at the trial in New York of Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law, Badat said: “I gave one of my shoes to the Malaysians. I think it was to access the cockpit.”

Badat, who spoke via video link and is in hiding in the UK, said the Malaysian plot was being masterminded by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the principal architect of 9/11.

According to Badat, Mohammed kept a list of the world’s tallest buildings and crossed out New York’s Twin Towers after the September 11, 2001 attacks with hijacked airliners as “a joke to make us laugh”.

Badat told the court last week that he believed the Malaysians, including the pilot, were “ready to perform an act.”

During the meeting, the possibility was raised that the cockpit door might be locked. Badat told the court: “So I said, ‘How about I give you one of my bombs to open a cockpit door?’ ”

The disclosure that Malaysians were plotting a 9/11-style attack raises the prospect that both pilots were overpowered and the plane intended for use as a fuel-filled bomb. One possible target, if the scenario is correct, will have been the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, a symbol of Malaysia’s modernity and the world’s tallest buildings from 1998 until 2004.

Flight MH370 had been heading away from Kuala Lumpur over the South China Sea when it disappeared off civilian radar screens.

Satellites have tracked it returning towards land.

Badat, who was jailed for 13 years in 2005 for his part in a conspiracy with the “shoe bomber” Richard Reid to blow up a transatlantic jet, had given similar evidence in 2012.

In other words, his claims were first made long before the disappearance of Flight MH370.

In the earlier case, during the trial of Adis Medunjanin, an American who was later convicted of conspiring to blow up New York subways, Badat told prosecutors of the Malaysian shoe bomb plot.

Asked what he knew of the Malaysian group, he replied: “I learnt that they had a group, uh, ready to perform a similar hijacking to 9/11.”

Asked if he helped them, he said: “I provided them with one of my shoes because both had been, uh, both had explosives inserted into them.”

Prof Anthony Glees, director of the University of Buckingham’s Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies, said the prospect of an Islamist plot offered one explanation for why the Malaysian authorities “have not been telling us the whole truth”.

Prof Glees said: “I believed this was a hijacking as soon as we were told that the plane had altered its flight path.

“Evidence that it turned back to Malaysia means that this could easily have been a Malaysian Islamist plot to turn the plane into a 9/11-style bomb to fly it into a building in Kuala Lumpur.

“Now we know there is evidence of a Malaysian terror cell with ambitions to carry out such an attack and so this makes it even more credible.”

Prof Glees added: “Islamist terrorists in Malaysia present the country with a really serious political problem. The global repercussions of another 9/11 attack, including grounded aircraft and stock markets crashes, is something no government would want to face.”

James Healy-Pratt, head of aviation at Stuarts Law solicitors, said the lack of information from Malaysian authorities was in stark contrast to the reaction of French officials when an Air France plane – whose black box was not recovered for two years – crashed in the Atlantic in 2009. The lack of information suggested Malaysian authorities may have something to hide.

Mr Healy-Pratt, who represented 50 families in the Air France crash, said: “Compared to Air France there has been very little information given out. Serious questions need to be asked about how this has taken a week to get so little information. If it is terrorism that will have an effect on the Malaysian stock market and local economy.”

Last May, two Malaysian men were arrested for links to al-Qaeda and charged with joining the Tanzim al-Qaeda Malaysia group. In a separate incident two other men from Malaysia were held in Lebanon as they allegedly tried to cross into Syria to join Islamist extremists fighting the Assad regime.

In 2001 Yazid Sufaat, a biochemist and former army captain, was imprisoned for seven years under internal security laws on suspicion of being part of the Jemaah Islamiah network, the terrorist organisation behind a series of bombings in south east Asia including the Bali nightclub massacre in which 202 people were killed in 2002.

Yazid, who was released in 2008, was also suspected of providing lodging for two of the 9/11 hijackers. Malaysian sources, however, insisted Islamic terrorism carried out by Malaysian jihadists is unlikely since the country has only a tiny number of Muslim fundamentalists.

But after a week of wildly fluctuating theories, the admission by Malaysia’s prime minister yesterday that the plane had been deliberately re-routed and flown for hours with communication systems switched off to disguise its flight path provided the most significant clues yet as to what might have happened. Mr Najib stopped short of confirming Flight MH370 had been hijacked.

Mr Najib said in a press conference: “Based on new satellite information, we can say with a high degree of certainty that the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System was disabled just before the aircraft reached the east coast of Peninsular Malaysiapeninsular Malaysia. Shortly afterwards, near the border between Malaysian and Vietnamese air traffic control, the aircraft’s transponder was switched off. From this point onwards, the Royal Malaysian Air Force primary radar showed that an aircraft which was believed – but not confirmed – to be MH370 did indeed turn back. It then flew in a westerly direction back over Peninsular Malaysia before turning northwest.”

The new information appears to rule out previous theories that the plane suffered a sudden mid-air explosion, catastrophic equipment or structural failure, or a crash into the South China Sea.

As a result, the search in the South China Sea was called off and operations concentrated instead on two huge corridors –- one to the north of Malaysia and stretching as far as Kazakhstan and the other to the west across the Indian ocean to Indonesia.

Prior to the press conference, a senior Malaysian military official told one news agency that investigators now believed the plane was commandeered by a “skilled, competent and current pilot” who knew how to avoid radar.

Terrorism was originally suspected as a possible motive when it emerged that two Iranian men, travelling on stolen European passports, had managed to board the aircraft. They were ruled out as refugees trying to reach Europe via China.

All passengers will now be scrutinised again while the focus was also thrown on the plane’s two pilots – Capt Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, and his First Officer, Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27. Mr Fariq broke post 9/11 security rules by allowing two female passengers into the cockpit on a previous flight.

Witnesses said the two men’s houses were visited by police for two hours yesterday in the hunt for clues. Foreign intelligence agencies are now expected to assist in sifting through the passenger lists to identify suspects.

The pilot and co-pilot because are regarded as the most likely to have the specialist aviation expertise to locate and switch off radar, satellite and other transponders to remove the aircraft from the ‘grid’ before changing its direction….

That last sentence is a good example of mainstream media editing standards today.

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Comments

  1. Veracious_one says

    Mar 16, 2014 at 10:01 am

    let me guess…security screening stations at Malaysian airports are staffed by Muslims….

    • MS says

      Mar 16, 2014 at 11:29 am

      UnfortunAtely even in European countries that’s true

    • Bigticket says

      Mar 16, 2014 at 12:44 pm

      Was there at Kuala Lumpur for 7 hours on the way to and 7 hours on the way back from Phuket over Christmas.

      Veracious_one nailed it!

      Muslim ‘security’ throughout the Islamic state of Malaysia of course. Talk about the foxes guarding the chickens or what. And it’s the same the world over.

  2. mortimer says

    Mar 16, 2014 at 10:29 am

    So Malaysia is embarrassed about its incompetence and its authorities are covering up what they know. No doubt, it’s a political fiasco. Are they covering up the fact that it’s an Islamic terrorist group? Are they trying to suppress information so copycat operations don’t follow?

    Malaysia which has been caught up in the currents of Salafism is now reaping the whirlwind of jihadism.

    • The Soil Worker says

      Mar 16, 2014 at 10:49 am

      Malaysia has been caught with its pants down and its jihadist hardware dangling between its legs.

    • Jeanne says

      Mar 16, 2014 at 4:58 pm

      Malaysian incompetence can join Kenyan ( shopping mall ) incompetence and Pakistani incompetence, funny that.

    • veggiedog says

      Mar 16, 2014 at 5:26 pm

      Is this embarrassment of just the fallout of PC? Do they have PC in Malaysia? Are Islamic nations not allowed to point a finger at what might be an act of terrorism? Whatever it is it just plain sucks.

    • Brian C. Hoff says

      Mar 16, 2014 at 5:36 pm

      India doesnot run it military radia state on the east side of India around the Islands. None of the military in any of the South East nations have than good military rador system.

  3. Richard James says

    Mar 16, 2014 at 11:15 am

    We’ve endured a week of the MSM and our Governments publicly turning a blind eye to the obvious over the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines MH370.

    In all cases that even vaguely suggest the possibility of terrorism, our default position should be “cherchez les Musulmans”.

  4. David says

    Mar 16, 2014 at 11:24 am

    Actually, a grass is an informer. A supergrass is an informer who gives lot of information or information about a very important plot.

  5. Ayatrollah says

    Mar 16, 2014 at 12:17 pm

    How hateful to suggest Islam was the motive. I think it can be traced back to economics. Maybe the pious brothers flying the plane were unhappy with their heath care. If they would focus on thAt it would be better.

    • Islamisdeath says

      Mar 16, 2014 at 1:55 pm

      Finally a sensible post! LOL!,

  6. veggiedog says

    Mar 16, 2014 at 12:41 pm

    So now finally the pilot and co-pilot are suspect. Now where is the plane? How will it be used? The NY Times had an article today to report that the pilot and co-pilot are now suspect, also that the cabins pressure may have been played with to knock the passengers out. But that is where they stopped. Malaysia may be embarrassed but the Chinese are pissed.

  7. Islamisdeath says

    Mar 16, 2014 at 1:47 pm

    My local newspaper headline says Malaysia has now upgraded this to a criminal investigation. They believe the pilot may have used the plane to commit suicide!! Really? A criminal investigation into a suicide! OMG! Yeah suicide as in he’s a muslim lets kill a bunch of people and go f a bunch virgins! OMG the lengths they will go to hide the truth about the threat we face from satans addled minions!

    • Brian C. Hoff says

      Mar 16, 2014 at 5:40 pm

      Some death under odd certainly are investrate as than suide under criminal law.

      • gravenimage says

        Mar 16, 2014 at 11:03 pm

        “Brian C. Hoff” wrote:

        Some death (sic) under odd certainly (sic) are investrate (sic) as than (sic) suide (sic) under criminal law.
        ………………………..

        “DefenderofIslam”, you moral idiot!

        Islamisdeath’s point is that this was the planned murder of 239 souls—the passengers and crew of Flight 370; and even more if he had intended to drive the plane into the Petronas Towers or some other landmark—not a “suicide” in the usual sense at all, but a “Martyr operation” as your filthy coreligionists see it.

        If this poor fellow were just feeling despondent he wouldn’t decide to take out all the people he was tasked with as a pilot to keep safe.

  8. Jeanne says

    Mar 16, 2014 at 4:54 pm

    Badat who is in hiding in the UK …..

    Is this the same Badat who was jailed for 13 years in 2005?

    Presumably he got time off for good behaviour.

  9. gravenimage says

    Mar 16, 2014 at 11:16 pm

    I don’t in *any way* want to be flippant with such a serious story, but I believe I see what the main problem is here.

    There are the Iranians with the stolen passports, the shifty Uigher, the very Islamically religious pilot who had already violated terrorism safety rules, and now these Jihadist plotters with a shoe bomb half a world away in Britain and Afghanistan. Toss in educated speculation that the airliner may have been bound for Indonesia or Kazakhstan after its course change, and things get really complicated…

    This is like one of those old-fashioned murder mysteries where it turns out that everyone on the old spooky estate at the time of the murder has a terribly shady past and nursed a deep hatred of the victim…

    When it comes to waging violent Jihad, Dar-al-Islam just has too damn many suspects…

    • Mazo says

      Mar 17, 2014 at 2:10 pm

      The alleged “shifty” Uyghur, who was a member of the Chinese Communist Party and in Malaysia on a delegation of artists sent by the Chinese government, and the two Iranian asylum seekers, one of them who wanted to join his now grieving mother in Germany.

      http://www.gpb.org/news/2014/03/15/the-passengers-on-malaysia-airlines-flight-370

      Show some respect to the dead.

    • Mazo says

      Mar 17, 2014 at 2:21 pm

      As for the “religious”pilot, you deliberately avoided looking at the context in which his family said he was religious, and the context of him violating safety rules.

      His family said he was religious in response to the news reports which showed that he invited several women (not his relatives) into the cockpit of his plane when they were not authorized to be there. (That was the safety violation) They are emphasizing his religious morals because people are insinuating he may have been up to something with those women in the cockpit. His family is trying to say that he isn’t a playboy.

      He doesn’t have a beard and if he was really religious (practicing), he likely wouldn’t take this job since he would most likely miss praying time with all the flights he makes.

      • gravenimage says

        Mar 18, 2014 at 11:04 pm

        Mazo wrote:

        Show some respect to the dead.
        ……………………………..

        This is rich, coming from a regular apologist for Muslim savagery.

        If—as seems increasingly likely—the 239 souls on flight 370 were sacrificed to Islamic Jihad, will Mazo offer so much as a word of criticism? I really doubt it.

        Instead, he would have you believe that the real problem is flippant Infidels.

        More:

        As for the “religious”pilot, you deliberately avoided looking at the context in which his family said he was religious
        ……………………………..

        I’m aware of this—they seemed more offended by the assertion that he was partying with Infidel hoochies than anything else.

        Of course, we know that these two things are *hardly* mutually exclusive.

        And his co-pilot, Captain Shah, has ties to “Islamists” and can be seen here sporting a “Democracy is Dead” shirt:

        http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/03/democracy-is-dead-pilot-of-missing-malaysian-airliner-was-fanatical-supporter-of-muslim-brotherhood-linked-politician

        He is a fervent supporter of Anwar Ibrahim, who is anti-American and antisemitic. Ibrahim has claimed that Jews are manipulating the Malaysian government on behalf of the United States.

        Right now, both Shah and his co-pilot Hamid are under police investigation.

  10. theBuckWheat says

    Mar 18, 2014 at 9:23 am

    There is a basic problem in any plot to hijack an aircraft of this size for later use. There are only so many runways in its flight range that can sustain its landing weight let alone its takeoff weight. There are even fewer runways in a location where the landing and storing of this particular airplane could be kept a secret from the world.

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