MI5 missed chance to ‘hit jackpot’ and identify 7/7 bomber

MI5 could have “hit the jackpot” of learning the 7/7 ringleader Mohammed Sidique Khan was a committed jihadist simply by trawling through a list of airline passengers, the inquests into the bombings have heard.

Two months before the July 2005 attacks, which killed 52 innocent victims, an intuitive Security Service officer flagged up information that could have identified a British man who received terrorist training in Pakistan as Khan.

But a top MI5 spy, identified only as Witness G, told the hearing yesterday it would have been “unusual” to follow up the lead because a key informant, al-Qaida supergrass Mohammed Junaid Babar, had already failed to recognise Khan from a surveillance picture.

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Babar had informed MI5 in April 2004 that two men from West Yorkshire called “Ibrahim” and “Zubair” had travelled to a terrorist training camp in Pakistan the previous year.

Babar was shown pictures of Khan and another of the four 7/7 suicide bombers, Shehzad Tanweer, in August 2004 but failed to identify either of them. It was only confirmed after the attacks that “Ibrahim” was Khan.

Investigators discovered “Ibrahim” had breakfast at Islamabad airport in Pakistan in July 2003 with Jawad Akbar, a member of an extremist terror group which plotted to kill hundreds with a giant fertiliser bomb.

Patrick O’Connor QC, for the victims’ families, suggested MI5 would have “hit the jackpot” and found Khan’s name if they had checked the passenger list for Akbar’s flight to the UK.

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The inquests have heard that counter-terrorism officers watched, followed and photographed Khan, 30, and Tanweer, 22, from Leeds, meeting the fertiliser bomb plotters 17 months before they blew themselves up on London’s public transport network.

The two other suicide bombers were Habib Hussain, 18, from Leeds, and Jermaine Lindsay, 19, originally from Huddersfield.

The inquests are due to resume today.