Jeep bomber told kin he was on 'large scale' project

New Delhi: As investigations continue, more details are emerging on Kafeel Ahmed, the Indian national involved in the attempted attack at Glasgow airport. Kafeel - the elder brother of one of the other suspects, Sabeel Ahmed - was driving the flaming jeep which crashed into Glasgow airport.

According to sources, in his last conversation with his family, Kafeel claimed to be working on a large scale confidential project, apparently on global warming.

He had also told them that he would be inaccessible, even on phone and Internet, for about a week. He reiterated this when he called up home from Iceland on June 30.

Kafeel had also claimed that the work on his project would begin in the UK.

He also told his family that an earlier presentation had failed and asked them to pray for him.

Investigators are trying to decipher the meaning of these words. The suspect by 'confidential project', may have been referring to the terror plot. And 'failed presentation' could be interpreted to mean a foiled attack, say sources.

As of now, the investigators claim to be puzzled by the slapdash nature of the plot, which triggered a top security alert but claimed no victims and left behind a series of clues.

"My impression is that the Glasgow attackers only had a Plan A, and not a Plan B," Sergeant Torquil Campbell, a policeman who tackled one of the airport attackers, was quoted by news agency Reuters as saying. "The plan was to explode their vehicle and that they would go up with it."

The British tabloid newspaper, the Mirror reported that four of the suspects met in the university town of Cambridge in 2005, suggesting the group might have been formed then.

A security source said investigators still had an open mind on the question of whether the suspects met, and become radicalised, before or after they arrived in Britain.

Police, however, would not confirm a CNN report that they had found a suicide note in the wreckage of the jeep. Nonetheless, they have admitted to seizing the computers which were used to plot the bombings.

The police department is also suspecting the involvement of al-Qaeda's Iraqi arm in the plot. They have hinted that there are indications that al-Qaeda's inner circle knew of the attempted bombings before hand.

Meanwhile, anxious over a possible anti-Muslim backlash, British Muslims will on Friday take out newspaper advertisements condemning the recent attempted bomb attacks.

(With inputs from agencies)