Birmingham is home to Al Qaida linked terror suspects

Feb 8 2009 by Ben Goldby, Sunday Mercury

Abu Al-Rahman Al-Faqih who was last seen in Birmingham in 2006.

Cops believe Al-Faqih, 41, played a role in a suicide bomb attack in Casablanca in 2003 which killed more than 40 people. He is a member of a banned extremist organisation, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), which is also allied to Al Qaida.

The three new Midland terror suspects have all had their assets frozen by the UN and were put on the Interpol watchlist days after a raid on an Islamic charity headquarters in Birmingham.

Sanabel Relief Agency, which was based in South Road, Sparkbrook, was raided by anti-terror police in February 2006 and has since been placed on a UN register of groups that allegedly fund Al Qaida and the Taliban.

Eight members of LIFG who were accused of supplying funding for terror groups through Sanabel Relief Agency were arrested during the country-wide police operation.

Khaled, Benhammedi and Ghuma are allegedly linked to the Sanabel Relief Agency and are also members of LIFG, founded in Libya in 1995 by former mujahidin militants who fought in Afghanistan against the Soviets.

LIFG members carried out a failed assassination attempt against Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi in 1996.

The group was banned by the Home Office in 2005, appears on the UN’s terror watchlist and is supported by Al Qaida’s second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Two Midland extremists have already been convicted of supplying money and documents to LIFG.

In 2007 forgery expert Khaled Abusalama, 36, from Smethwick, and financier Abdul Bourouag, 44, from Small Heath, were jailed for two years for being members of a banned terror group.

Anyone with information about Khaled, Benhammedi or Ghuma can contact Interpol via the www.interpol.int website.