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MI5 'missed chance to hit jackpot and foil 7/7 plot’

MI5 and the police were concerned that associates of the fertiliser bombers were planning attacks 17 months before the July 7 bombings, it has emerged.

The security service had bugged fertiliser bomb plot ringleader Omar Khyam boasting he had four terrorist cells, any of which could carry out an attack, the July 7 inquest heard yesterday.

Mohammed Sidique Khan, the leader of the London bombers, had been seen meeting with up with members of the fertiliser bomb plot on four occasions but the sightings were not properly followed up before he launched his attacks in July 2005.

It was claimed MI5 should have picked up Sidique Khan and had missed a “jackpot” opportunity after he flew to Pakistan to take part in an al-Qaeda training camp.

Two days before the fertiliser gang was arrested in March 2004, senior police officers met with MI5 to discuss the conspiracy and admitted there could be a “second plot of which we had no visibility,” the inquest heard.

Khyam had been bugged on February 20 2004 talking to a Canadian bomb expert called Mohammed Momin Khawaja who had just flown into Britain....
Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)