Trio guilty over terror documents

Three men have been found guilty of possessing or making documents promoting terrorism.
The defendants included Hammaad Munshi, 18, from Dewsbury, West Yorkshire -thought to be the youngest person to be convicted under the Terrorism Act.

He was 16 when police found a guide to making napalm on his computer, Blackfriars Crown Court heard.
Aabid Khan said to be a "key player" in radicalisation via the internet and Sultan Muhammad were also convicted.

Khan, 23, from Bradford, West Yorkshire, was found guilty of possessing articles for a purpose connected with terrorism but cleared of a similar charge.
Muhammad, 23, from Manningham, West Yorkshire - Khan's cousin - was convicted of three similar charges and one of making a record of information likely to be useful in terrorism.
Munshi was found guilty of making a record of information but cleared of a possession offence.
A fourth defendant, Ahmed Sulieman, 30, from south London, was cleared of three possession charges after telling the jury the files found belonged to somebody else.

Khan and Muhammad will be sentenced on Tuesday.

Munshi, who had been on bail throughout the trial, was remanded in custody until 19 September when he will be sentenced at the Old Bailey after the preparation of a pre-sentence report.
'Dangerous individuals'
Khan was arrested at Manchester Airport on 6 June 2006 as he arrived back from a trip to Pakistan.
Prosecutor Simon Denison said DVDs and computer files were seized and showed Khan had a "deep commitment to and involvement in violent jihad".

This included "inciting others to take part in it and arranging for himself and others to attend military training in Pakistan in preparation for going to fight and, inevitably, to kill".
Further raids followed in West Yorkshire, leading to the detention of Khan's co-accused.
Mr Denison said the men had been "motivated by their common cause" and had amassed computers, CDs and books that "were the necessary tools of their trade, possessed to be used in furtherance of that violent cause".

Munshi was said to be just 15 when recruited by Khan.
The court heard the teenager spent hours surfing jihadist internet sites, speaking to Khan, and distributing material to others.
He did not not give evidence in his defence, but his barrister suggested the case showed "curiosity" as opposed to any kind of malicious intent.
After the convictions, Det Chf Supt John Parkinson, head of Leeds Counter Terrorism Unit, said: "Let there be no doubt, these are dangerous individuals.

"These men were not simply in possession of material which expressed extremist views. They were also in possession of material that was operationally useful to anyone wishing to carry out an act of violence or terrorism."
He added: "While these men may not have been actively planning acts of terrorism themselves, they sought to incite others for terrorist purposes, promoting al-Qaeda ideology and training programmes."

Aabid Khan and his global jihad

Aabid Khan's conviction marks the latest chapter in a series of raids and arrests across three continents. Four trials have already led to convictions in three countries - and the investigations continue.

Armed police closed in on an apartment on a rutted road in a village on the edge of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo.
As they burst in, they subdued a group of men they had been observing. One of the group had an armed "suicide belt" of explosives.
These arrests in March 2005 were a major breakthrough in an investigation that would reveal how international jihadists were operating through the internet - from North America and Europe through to South Asia.

The searches in Bosnia uncovered a so-called "martyrdom" video explaining in English how the men were fighting on behalf of oppressed Muslims around the world.
Materials included the mobile phone belonging to the ringleader, who had travelled from Scandinavia hoping to carry out attacks on Nato targets.
But just as importantly, detectives established the phone had been in contact with a number registered to an address in the UK.

When officers from the Metropolitan Police kicked in the door of a modest flat in west London, they had no idea they were about to arrest one of the then most significant figures among a growing network of cyber-terrorists.
The occupant was a young Moroccan, Younes Tsouli, who had used the internet to build links to al-Qaeda leaders in Iraq and a wider network around the world.
Robert Mueller, the Director of the FBI has described Tsouli as an example of how "the web is terrorism's new frontier, offering both persuasive information, but also practical instruction".
Tsouli's encrypted hard drive was a treasure trove of evidence which led detectives to other suspected extremists across the world.

These men had been using password-protected internet forums to exchange views on jihad - but they did not realise they had also left themselves exposed to infiltration by intelligence officers.
Activities observed
Within a couple of months of Tsouli's arrest, West Yorkshire Police officers began observing the activities of Bradford man Aabid Khan. He had worked on one of Tsouli's key websites, At Tibyan.

Meanwhile, in North America, police and spies began watching another group they linked to this online network. Like Tsouli and Khan, many of them were very young.
The targets they are alleged to have discussed attacking - the global positioning system and the Canadian Parliament - often seemed fanciful.
Khan allegedly talked online to some of them about setting up a mini-Sharia state in a remote part of Scotland.
Nevertheless, his naivety was combined with a deadly seriousness and burgeoning connections to militant groups in Asia.

Global arrests

Gradually, once evidence had been gathered of various alleged plots, the authorities moved to arrest those they had placed under surveillance.

Younis Tsouli described himself online as Terrorist 007 Cyber jihadist

Two men from the United States were among those picked up in March and April 2006.
They are alleged to have emailed Tsouli and Khan reconnaissance footage they filmed of targets in Washington DC. Khan is then believed to have met one of the men in Pakistan to arrange terrorism training.
Scottish police arrested a student, Mohammed Atif Siddique, as he was about to board a flight to Pakistan to join up with Khan. Analysis of internet chat between him and Khan suggested the latter was grooming and radicalising the former.

Then in June 2006 Toronto witnessed the dramatic arrests of 17 men. The group had been infiltrated by two police informants and was accused of planning attacks on Canadian targets. The alleged leader was a friend of Aabid Khan's. The men deny terrorism charges in an ongoing case.
Days later Khan flew back to Britain from Pakistan. Despite knowing about the arrests in Toronto, he entered the country with a mass of incriminating material.
Officers from West Yorkshire Police had been tipped off by the security service that Khan was coming into the country.
When they searched his luggage they were astonished to find evidence that dramatically illustrated his involvement in Islamist extremism and his dedication to the cause of the global jihad.

As he was cautioned, he asked officers: "Will my Dad get to know?"
When detectives said they needed to swab his hands as he was suspected of handling explosives, he started to shake violently.

"I've been handling fireworks in Pakistan," he said.