Faces of fear: the men who brought terror to Scotland

Torcuil Crichton examines the motivation of the doctor and the engineering student behind the attacks.

BILAL ABDULLA

There is little doubt that Abdulla wanted to die a martyr in the carnage and mayhem of a suicide attack on Glasgow Airport.

He had already spent 455 minutes, more than seven hours, crafting his last will - altering it on 39 occasions.

Police found a draft on his laptop in the Jeep Cherokee which was driven into the terminal building, alongside the gas canisters and petrol cans which he had planned to use to kill and maim passengers inside.

It contained a simple message to his British victims: "These people can only be awoken by the sound of booby traps and the Mujahideen hailing God is great'."

Abdulla's most striking feature, which he shared with his co-accused, is that he is an intelligent, articulate young man whose chosen vocation was medicine. The 29-year-old worked as a diabetes specialist at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley before going home to assemble bombs at his home in nearby Houston.

His guilt was not in doubt but he denied the charges against him and claimed he wanted to make a spectacular protest without harming people. The nails packed into the bombs left outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub suggested otherwise.

Iraqi Abdulla was born in Britain to a liberal, middle-class Sunni Muslim family with a long tradition in medicine and regarded Britain as his second home.

As an elite student in Iraq, he came to the UK to pursue medicine, but was forced to leave after failing to secure funding to complete a medical degree. He even tried to join the British Army.

Frustrated, he returned to Iraq and was radicalised, he claimed, by the insurgency that followed the US and British invasion in 2003. Police believe Abdulla may have fought coalition troops after joining a band of Mujihadeen fighters in 2006.

One senior investigating officer said: "He witnessed both Gulf Wars and he lost a lot of friends and relatives during the conflict. He blamed the Shia, aided by the UK and the Americans for the situation in Iraq."

The July 7, 2005, bombers, who killed 52 people on the London transport system, left posthumous messages also citing the Iraq war as the trigger for their vengeful anger on the British public. Abdulla used the same defence in the dock of Woolwich Crown Court.

In an emotional and passionate evidence, he portrayed himself as someone brutalised by the lifelong experiences of war in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, first during the Iranian war and then in two successive conflicts with the US. He said he was "furious and angry" at what was happening in Iraq but his anger was directed at the UK Government rather than the public. "I wanted the public to taste what is going on, what the decisions of their democratically elected murderers were on my people," he said.

Many Iraqis welcomed the US invasion, but the occupation quickly turned sour and sectarian. Soon he began supporting the insurgents. "I looked high upon those fighting the invaders," he said, but he denied he felt animosity towards Britons, only their government.

He claimed he expected to go to Glasgow Airport to flee through France and Turkey and was taken by surprise when his friend, Kafeel Ahmed, turned the Jeep towards the terminal doors. He fought furiously, breaking the leg of one of those who tackled him. But he brought a chilling message to the well of the court as he described what had made him want to bomb Glasgow and London: "War brings only war. If you want peace bring peace, if you want love, bring love."

KAFEEL AHMED

Ahmed, the driver of the Green Jeep, died from severe burns four weeks after the bombing of Glasgow Airport. A PhD engineering student from India, he appears to have been the quartermaster and bomb-maker.

His mother said his experiences growing up as a member of the minority Muslim community in India had shaped his views.

"He has seen many things in his childhood," she said in a TV interview. "We used to read much and more about Bosnia. That was also in his mind, most probably. So he had seen right from his childhood. Muslims were suppressed everywhere."

The bombers had met in Cambridge where Ahmed's tutor described him as having a "top drawer" intellect. After graduating, Ahmed returned to India. He arrived in the UK in May 2007 to do the "shopping" and conduct experiments while Abdulla continued to work at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, helping him at weekends. The pair shopped around DIY stores, purchasing small quantities so as not to attract attention, and using Autotrader magazine to buy a string of cars that they would turn into mobile bombs.

When police broke into the house the two had rented in Houston, Renfrewshire, they effectively opened the door on a bomb factory.

The pair visited London together, examining potential targets. They had planned, according to Abdulla, to hit London on the day Gordon Brown took office, Wednesday June 27, but the bombs were not ready. The next day the cars were driven in convoy from Glasgow to London, with duvets, a hi-fi and lampshades covering the bomb equipment to make it look as though they were moving house.

After the Tiger Tiger bombs failed, the pair escaped by rickshaw and then by car back to their Scottish base. Early on Saturday morning, driving the green Jeep, Ahmed and Abdulla drove to the banks of Loch Lomond before heading to Glasgow Airport to bring terrorism to Scotland.

"They were highly intelligent, self-motivated, individuals with specific grievances that they wanted to publicise," said one senior investigating officer, "but their lack of expertise was their undoing."

Ahmed emerged from the burning vehicle ablaze from head to foot and defied several attempts to topple him. He kicked and punched those who sought to fight the fire. CS gas eventually brought him to the ground. He was extinguished, subdued, handcuffed and arrested.

Ahmed too had written a will, describing Britain as the "devil's place"..

Ahmed sent his statement to brother Sabeel, 26, and his family in India, but Abdulla addressed his statement to "Osama bin Laden the soldiers of Islam in the country of two rivers (Iraq) and brothers of Jihad in Europe, America and everywhere".

He wrote: "He who starts (hostilities) first is the one to blame, let the transgressors be daunted by the same hurtful deeds they have been carrying out themselves. Their soldiers kill the young and old. They do not discriminate between men and women. So why should we?"