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London plotters changed plans after July 7 attacks

The plotters of the July 21, 2005, London explosions changed tactics after seeing the impact of the July 7, 2005 suicide attacks on the government and the country, the alleged ringleader told a court on Monday.

Muktar Said Ibrahim, 29, who said he made the backpack devices that failed to go off on the London transport system nearly two years ago, told a jury his motive had been to protest Britain's role in the Iraq war.

He said the initial plan was to leave the explosive devices, made of hydrogen peroxide and chapati flour, unattended in a public place to cause disruption. He said he did not plan for them to explode.

But upon witnessing the effects of the July 7 attacks, he told his co-accused, Yassin Omar, that they were going to change their plans with days to go. He said he had not agreed with the July 7 attacks, which killed 52 innocent people, but saw the impact they had had and decided to adopt a new tactic.

"My aim was to cause maximum disruption, to cause maximum publicity and get maximum debate about the war in Iraq, so I thought this is the right time to put pressure on the government by making a fake suicide mission but without killing innocent people," he said.

His friend Omar agreed, and they recruited two other acquaintances, Hussain Osman and Ramzi Mohammed.

Ibrahim denied visiting Pakistan to attend a military training camp in late 2004, but said that he traveled to the country for a holiday. On his return in the spring of 2005 he began to formulate the plan to demonstrate against the "occupation" of Iraq and Afghanistan.

He read a letter on an Islamic Web site about an Iraqi woman who said she had been repeatedly raped by her captors at the Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad; it had further concentrated his mind on the need to take "positive action."

Initially, he had discussed using a firecracker or firework in the devices, but having seen a video on bomb-making on a Web site called Tajdeed he had the idea of making "fake" bombs using hydrogen peroxide, Ibrahim said.
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