Alert over wanted al-Qaeda suspect who may be heading to Britain

An international alert has been issued warning that one of Britain’s most wanted al-Qaeda suspects has been trying to secure a passport and may be trying to return to Britain

Passport photographs of Ibrahim Adam, 23, who has been on the run for three years, have been discovered after British intelligence began unraveling one of the biggest terrorist networks discovered since September 11.

Security sources told the Daily Telegraph they believe Adam is currently in Pakistan but is trying to get a passport. They fear that he may be trying to travel to the West in order to plan attacks.

One source said: “There are concerns about his desire to return to Britain and engage in terrorist activity.”

Another said: “We have been aware of his involvement in terrorist circles. One of the possibilities we are looking at is that he wants to return to Britain, although he may be seeking to travel elsewhere.”

The photographs, which show Adam with four different hairstyles and clothing have been circulated to law enforcement agencies across the world as part of an international alert.

Adam, 23, is the younger brother of Anthony Garcia, one of the men arrested for plotting to blow up the Ministry of Sound night club or the Bluewater Shopping Centre with a fertiliser bomb in 2004.

Garcia, 27, who changed his name from Abdulrahman Adam, was convicted of conspiracy to cause explosions three weeks before his two brothers went on the run and is serving a minimum of 17 and a half years in jail.

Ibrahim disappeared along with his older brother Lamine, 29, in May 2007 despite being put under a control order that required them to check in with the local police on regular occasions.

Lamine, who had a job as a tube driver had allegedly wanted to carry out an attack on a nightclub in Britain.

Garcia attended an al-Qaeda training camp in Pakistan with other members of the fertiliser gang as well as two of the July 7 bombers.

While in Pakistan he wrote a letter to Ibrahim which was later found at the family home in Ilford, East London, telling him: “You have been gifted OK with the people you know but never think you are OK, always think you are nothing.

“Only when you believe this will you be able to sell your life….We will meet either in this life or the hereafter.

“Study hard in Islamic matters, don't let them know you have future plans, better that they think you are a fool than someone good."

The Adam brothers’ father, Elias, told the Daily Telegraph: “I am heartbroken. I am worried that I will never see them again. I just want them to come back home.”

The terrorist network was revealed following work by British and US intelligence services to uncover plots hatched by Rashid Rauf, a British al-Qaeda commander behind plans to blow up trans-Atlantic airliners in coordinated suicide bomb attacks using home made liquid bombs.

British and US intelligence services worked on a “painstaking” operation to identify Rauf’s contacts after he escaped from Pakistani custody at the end of 2007 and returned to the country’s lawless tribal areas.

The first cell, led by a woman called Malika el-Aroud, was arrested in Belgium in December 2008, accused of planning suicide attacks during a European summit in Brussels, although their targets were never positively identified.

The second involved the arrest of 12 Pakistani students in Manchester last April, thought to be targeting Easter shoppers.

The arrests were sparked by an intercepted email from Abid Naseer that referred to an impending “wedding,” thought to have been code for an attack.

In the US, Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan-born US citizen, and two former school friends were arrested after allegedly buying bomb making chemicals to blow up the New York subway.

A fourth cell, allegedly led by Mikael Davud, a 39-year-old Chinese Uighur with Norwegian citizenship, was arrested in Norway in July, accused of plotting to blow up unknown targets using July 7-style explosives.

Adam’s passport photographs were discovered in an apartment in Oslo after undercover Norwegian security service officers broke into the flat.

Members of all four cells were in Pakistan at the end of 2008 and there are fears that there could be other sleeper cells that remain unaccounted for.

The network was developed by Rauf, a British al-Qaeda commander thought to be involved in the July 7, July 21 and trans-Atlantic airlines plots.

Rauf was killed by a missile from an unmanned drone in November 2008 but the cells were still able to return to the West.

He was working alongside Saleh al-Somali, al-Qaeda’s head of external operations who was also killed by a US drone last December, and with a third senior figure in al-Qaeda, Adnan el-Shukrijumah, who remains at large.

All the groups except the Belgian cell communicated with a more junior commander, who calls himself Sohaib, Ahmad or Zahid and is now in Pakistani custody, according to security sources.

It remains unclear what his real name is or if he will ever be brought before a Pakistani court.