Kafeel Ahmed

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Kafeel Ahmed, aka Khalid Ahmed and Khaled Ahmad, (1 January 1979 – 2 August 2007)^[1] was an Indian Muslim born in Bangalore, India and raised in Saudi Arabia during his doctor parents' tenure there.^[2] He was an engineer who was studying for a PhD in computational fluid dynamics. He was often mistakenly referred to as a medical doctor.^[3] He was arrested in Great Britain in the aftermath of the 2007 Glasgow International Airport attack. He was held hospitalized at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary in a critical condition, after he suffered severe burns in the attack. He had suffered burns to 90% of his body, and was not expected to survive—he had already been revived twice as of July 4.^[4] The Sun reported Britain's National Health Service was paying over £5,000 a day to keep him alive, while security sources said this amount reaches £30,000 when security costs are included.

Mobile phone records have shown that, during his 2005-2007 stay in India, Ahmed had frequent communications with Malta, the UK, Finland, Saudi Arabia and Oman. ^[5] In May 2007, prior to departing to Britain from his native Bangalore, he entrusted his mother with a compact disk he said contained some important information on his "project." The disk has been handed over to police for analysis.^[6] Although the analysis is not yet complete, it had been revealed that the disk contained speeches by al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, propaganda against the United States and Britain^[7], some Jihad literature and the plight of the Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan and Chechnya. It transpired that Ahmed attentively followed campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine, and frequented Islamist chat rooms on the internet. Digital material found included graphic depictions of real-life occurrences of torture in Chechnya, hundreds of bomb design from the internet, and evidence that he used the Bangalore-based political platform, Discover Islam, for the purposes of recruitment.^[8]

Kafeel was the brother of Dr. Sabeel Ahmed, also arrested in the aftermath of the attack.^[2] A suicide note left behind indicates that the passenger of the vehicle, Bilal Abdullah, and himself, intended to die in the attack.^[9]

According to police sources, he was an engineer pursuing a Ph.D. in computational fluid dynamics at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, in the UK, on the topic of "Computational Approach to Ink-jet Printing of Tactile Maps." He would have earned a bachelor of mechanical engineering from India, and an M.Phil. degree in aeronautical engineering from Queen's University Belfast.^[10] He might have been in the UK as early as September 2003. He is believed to have organized a Chechnya Day Meeting in his native city of Bangalore, back in February 2006.^[11]

As an aeronautics engineer, Ahmed was able to secure employment, from December 2005, to August 2006, with Infotech, an Indian outsourcing company servicing clients such as Airbus and Boeing, before resigning abruptly.^[12] It could be possible that he had access to sensitive design information about various aviation companies.^[13]

He was a member of the Tablighi Jamaat missionary sect.^[14]

There are indications that Kafeel Ahmed and Bilal Abdullah were behind the 2007 London car bombs plot, and investigations are being carried out to unearth a possible involvement with the deadly 2005 Indian Institute of Science shooting, an attack with unknown suspects that are still at large.^[15] A Rediff news report reveals that Ahmed was planning on constructing a housing complex on the outskirts of Bangalore where Islamic Sharia law would be forcibly implemented on residents, despite India's secular constitution and separation of religion and state. In January this year, Kafeel had disrupted a meeting organised by a Bangalore-based organisation to discuss reform in Islam^{[citation needed]}. Prior to his terrorist attack in Glasgow, he had visited numerous Islamist websites, including that of the Jamaat al Dawa, the parent organization of Islamic terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba.^[16]

On 2 August 2007, Strathclyde Police reported that Ahmed had died in the Glasgow Royal Infirmary.^[3] His last rituals will be held in UK rather than in his hometown of Bangalore.