At the risk of sounding redundant, meet the London dentist who was also a terrorist.
London dentist Sohail Qureshi told the police he was just off to celebrate the Muslim festival of Eid with his family in Pakistan…
But instead of dental floss and fluoride, Qureshi, 30, tried to board a plane at Heathrow Airport with $18,000 in cash, a night vision scope, two metal batons, terror handbooks, extremist material, military information on CDs and medical supplies.
Security services didn’t buy Qureshi’s vacation story and ended his trip before it could start.
Describing his “vacation” in an e-mail, Qureshi wrote, “Pray that I kill many, brother. Revenge, revenge, revenge.” On an extremist Web forum, he added, “I am not going for good as far as I know, it is only a 14- to 20-day operation, if it’s in Pak, Afg or Waz.”
The Islamic extremist was in fact on his way to fight for the Taliban against American and British troops.
In court, he boasted he had been sent to the U.K. by Al Qaeda for terrorist fundraising. He posted a farewell letter anonymously on an Islamist website bragging about raising thousands of pounds from sympathizers in the U.K. for the cause because “bullets cost money.”
“The Dentist” set off on his “vacation” with keepsake snapshots of himself holding an M-16 rifle and an AK-47, both thought to be have been taken in Pakistan when he attended a terrorist training camp. Scotland Yard released e-mails revealing that “The Dentist” had trained at an Al Qaeda camp in Pakistan in 1996 and was the “emir” of another camp in 1998.
In my Dec. 31, 2007 column, the concern was raised that Samina Malik, the so-called “Lyrical Terrorist,” was a perfectly placed terror insider at one of the world’s largest airports. She wrote poems about beheadings, poison bullets and martyrdom, posting them to “attract men.” As it turns out, Qureshi may have been one of her suitors.
Police had the dentist under surveillance when he contacted Malik to ask about security at the airport. Recent testimony revealed that the dangerous duo was in e-mail contact.
Just before his arrest, Qureshi asked Malik, “What is the system like at work? Is the checking still very harsh or have things calmed down a bit?”
Work for the “Lyrical Terrorist” was a magazine shop on the flight side of Heathrow airport. As Qureshi’s airport insider, Malik received a suspended jail sentence in November.
Evidently, “The Dentist” fancied himself an extremist scribe as well. During his arrest, cops found a chapter from an autobiographical book he had written called “My Father the Bombmaker,” as well as some “motivational Islamist material” stored on a CD.
Arrested in October 2006, he has become the first person to be convicted under tough new U.K. anti-terror laws and was given 4-and-a-half years.
He could, however, be out of jail within a year, free to concoct further family “vacations.”
What is it with British dentists?
