British Security Service MI5 is looking for up to 40 British born al-Qaeda fighters who it suspects were sent home to the United Kingdom in order to carry out terror attacks.
UK newspaper The Times reported that the suspects are all British-born Muslims who joined al-Qaeda and were trained in their camps in Afghanistan. They were trained at two camps outside Kandahar in the use of automatic weapons and explosives, as well as techniques to hijack and blow up aircraft. Authorities in the United Kingdom are concerned that the al-Qaeda fighters may have been infiltrated back into the West in order to carry out further terror attacks.
British intelligence officers made the discovery while searching through al-Qaeda documents captured in Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda kept very orderly and detailed records on the recruits and their training, and also wrote down their nationality so that foreign volunteers could be sent to on international operations without arousing suspicion.
The intelligence officers were surprised by the numbers of British volunteers who had joined al-Qaeda and arrived in Afghanistan for training. A security source told The Times: “The numbers are greater than we first thought and this investigation is still in its early stages so that figure must grow… The question is where are these people now and what names are they using.” (www.albawaba.com)
