MARTYRDOM videos found by police investigating the alleged airline terrorist plot contain chilling statements made by young men who are apparently willing to die as suicide bombers.
Seven videos are believed to have been found by officers who conducted 69 search operations after raids across Britain earlier this month.
In one of the films, recorded shortly before a spate of arrests on August 10, a man is seen talking to the camera and stating: “As you bomb, you will be bombed; as you kill, you will be killed.”
The would-be martyr said he hoped that Allah would be “pleased with us and accept our deed”. He continued, reading from a script, citing verses from the Koran and listing his reasons for “action that I am going to undertake”.
His main motivation was the foreign policy of the United States and “their accomplices, the UK and the Jews”.
In another search, police found a last will and testament that concluded: “What should I worry when I die a Muslim in the manner in which I am to die? I go to my death for the sake of my maker, whom if wishes can bless limbs torn away.”
The latest information about police discoveries, revealed in The New York Times, suggests that detectives have amassed a huge haul of evidence about the conspiracy to blow up transatlantic airliners in mid-flight.
Among the possessions seized was a computer memory stick on which were stored details of airline routes and timetables.
No evidence has been found, however, that any of the suspects had made reservations or booked flight tickets.
The picture being built up by revelations from official sources is one of a plan which was not imminent but was at an advanced stage of preparation.
Five days after the initial raids, a search of woodland in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, uncovered a suitcase filled with chemicals that could have been used in the manufacture of high explosive.
Other discoveries include evidence of international money transfers and bombmaking equipment, including gloves, scales, batteries and a disposable camera that may have been modified to smuggle chemicals on board an aircraft.
Extremist literature and propaganda films were also recovered.
Many of the reported discoveries tally with information made public by Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, head of the Anti-Terrorist Branch.
One security official told The Times: “We carried out surveillance for a long time and the one thing that struck us was how many people seemed to be willing to lose their lives. That surprised us but it also made us doubt whether they would ever be able to carry it out.”
It is understood that investigators would have liked to have been allowed to continue surveillance for a longer period before moving. But the arrests were triggered by the detention in Pakistan of Rashid Rauf, 25, from Birmingham.
