Al-Qaida 'secret language' decoded

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Belmarsh jail

LONDON – Top code-breakers at the Government Communications Headquarters in the United Kingdom have succeeded in breaking the secret language that has allowed imprisoned leaders of al-Qaida to keep in touch with other extremists in U.K. jails as well as 10,000 "sleeper agents" across the islands, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

The code had been devised by three of al-Qaida's most dangerous leaders held in Britain's high-security prisons. The code's mastermind has been identified by code-breakers as Abu Qatada, described by MI5 as "Osama bin Laden's right hand man in Europe." He is held in Long Lartin, the high-security jail in Worcestershire.

His acknowledged deputy is Abu Doha, named by the Security Service "as al-Qaida's main recruiter in Europe." Doha is held in Belmarsh jail in London's East End.

A third member of the code-makers is Abu Hamza, jailed in 2006 for inciting murder. He's also in Belmarsh prison fighting deportation to the U.S. He brought finesse to the code he helped to create, developing a way of transmitting it by tapping out the secret language on the prison's water pipes, investigators said.

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For six months, the code-breakers worked around the clock deciphering the code the three terrorists created.

Between them, the code-breakers speak all the dialects that form the basis for the code. Several of them have high-value skills in computer technology. The team worked closely with the U.S. National Security Agency and its station at Menwith Hill in the north of England. The identity of the code-breakers is so secret that not even their gender can be revealed.

"Like all good codes, the one they broke depended on substituting words, numbers or symbols for plain text. A single symbol could represent an idea or an entire message," said an intelligence source.

The code the terrorists devised consists of words chosen from no fewer than 20 dialects from Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Yemen and Sudan.

Inserted with the words – either before or after them – is local slang. The completed message is then buried in Islamic religious tracts.

The tracts are smuggled out of high security prisons like Belmarsh and Long Lartin. Protected by high curving walls and set in open fields in Worcestershire's Vale of Evesham, Long Lartin, a designated supermax prison, now holds some of the most dangerous of the 100 Islamic extremists in U.K. jails.

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