Two Muslim brothers who dubbed themselves the “Blackburn Resistance” and filmed each other crawling through the undergrowth in a Lancashire park have been jailed for terrorism offences. The men were said to have gathered a stockpile of weapons as they studied guerilla warfare ahead of a possible mission to Iraq or Afghanistan.
Abbas Iqbal, 24, a former butcher, was sentenced to two years in jail for dissemination of terrorist material and one year for preparation for acts of terrorism. His brother Ilyas, 23, a shop security guard, was sentenced to 18 months for possession of a document likely to be useful for terrorism. He had attended the College of Islamic Guidance and Knowledge in Blackburn, where shoe bomber Sajid Badat was also a student.
A third man Muhammed Ali Ahmad, 26, a white convert born Paul Cryer who worked part-time in a chemist shop, was cleared of preparing an act of terrorism.
The park training video was contained on a mobile phone storage card belonging to Abbas Iqbal that was found in his suitcase when he was arrested at Manchester Airport in August 2008 on his way to northern Europe where he was to work as an Islamic teacher. Along with his brother, he was said to have put together a “promotional collage” in the style of al-Qaeda to encourage others to commit acts of terrorism.
The film showed Ilyas Iqbal and Muhammed Ahmad dressed in camouflage clothing, 'leopard crawling' across the middle of Corporation Park in Blackburn, in broad daylight. It included chanting and a voice stating: "They are fighting against oppression, they are The Blackburn Resistance.”
Video clips of the men dressed in camouflage clothing and firing weapons while shouting "Allahu Akbar" [god is great] in the backyard of the Iqbal family home in Blackburn were also found on the storage card.
In the living room of the house police found a stockpile of armoury in a weapons cabinet including numerous air rifles, knives, machetes, a sword, a crossbow, various ammunition, books on weaponry and handwritten notes on "Attack planning" and "Urban combat",
A video cassette contained footage of Abbas demonstrating fighting moves in a garden and indoors pulling a large knife from his robes, making a stabbing and flashing motion and saying: "Size of that if you want to cut somebody. Then tear them open."
A desktop computer in the living room contained video footage showing speakers calling for holy war, images of Osama Bin-Laden and children holding guns and clips of three beheadings of prisoners and solders being shot in the back of the head.
Ilyas Iqbal had told the jury he had developed a keen interest in military history from early childhood after watching the Arnold Schwarzenegger film Predator and his brother said he had seen the film 600 times.
I didn’t think the line “If it bleeds I can kill it” was in the Koran. Or am I getting muddled up with Terminator?
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