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Reports Say
"Shoe Bomber" Did Not Act Alone
WASHINGTON, Dec 26 (News Agencies) - U.S.-held al-Qaeda prisoners in Afghanistan have said that the "shoe bomber," who allegedly tried to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight trained in their camps, NBC reported Wednesday.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the London mosque where the man worshiped said Wednesday he "definitely" did not act alone.
"His character, and how he was as an individual, he was one who was often led," said Abdul Haqq Baker, the chairman of the Brixton mosque told NBC from London. "That is one thing we are certain of - he definitely was not acting alone."
The man, identified by a British passport as Richard Colvin Reid, 28, and by Baker as Abdel Rahim, was subdued by passengers and crew aboard an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami Saturday after being caught by a flight attendant while trying to set his shoes on fire.
Preliminary examinations of his black suede sneakers have revealed they were equipped with sophisticated explosive devices that could have detonated had he lit them with a butane lighter instead of a sulfur match, a Massachusetts state official told a local newspaper Tuesday on condition of anonymity.
"The way the whole thing was thwarted and bungled was a symptom of his naiveté," Baker said of Reid, whom he said he knew "relatively well" as he spent a lot of time at the mosque upon his release from prison.
"We are confident here he was not acting alone," Baker reiterated.
Meanwhile, members of the al-Qaeda network held prisoner by U.S. troops in Afghanistan have identified Reid as having trained in the group's camps.
U.S. intelligence agents interrogating the prisoners showed them pictures of Richard Colvin Reid. Some of the prisoners recognized him as having been in al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, the network said, citing unnamed intelligence sources.
But Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said he had not heard that Reid's picture had been shown to detainees.
Reid, born in south London in 1973 to a Jamaican father and British mother, was identified after the FBI sent his fingerprints to British police,
The Times of London reported. He has served time in a number of prisons for a string of convictions for street crimes, including muggings.
The Times said that Reid could be linked to Osama bin Laden after learning the would-be bomber worshiped at the Brixton mosque, which was also attended by one of the suspected conspirators in the September 11 attacks on the U.S.
Baker said though Reid, or Rahim, may not have had much overlap at the Brixton mosque with the dates Zacharias Moussaoui - the first suspect to be charged in the United States in connection with the September 11 attacks, currently in U.S. federal custody - prayed there, it is likely the two spent time at the same "external study circles."
Stricter Muslims in the area, whom Baker said were not welcome at the Brixton mosque where he said a more "assimilatable" brand of Islam is taught, ran those study groups.
"Some of the weaker characters, the more impressionable ones, go elsewhere... looking for a more exciting brand [of religion] to follow," Baker said. "Unfortunately, this is what happened to Mister Reid, or Abdul Rahim as we know him."
Reid is currently in U.S. federal custody. He was ordered held without bail at a court appearance Monday and is to appear again Friday where additional charges are likely to be filed against him.
Reid's mother Lesley told The Times she had been to the mosque looking for her son several months ago after he went to Pakistan and stopped communicating with his family.
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