Al-Qaeda: 'Those who cure you will kill you'

An Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq boasted before last week's failed bombings in London and Glasgow that his group was planning to attack British targets and that "those who cure you will kill you," The Times newspaper revealed Wednesday.

The warning was delivered to Canon Andrew White, a senior British cleric working in Baghdad.

Canon White told The Times that he had passed the general warning, but not the specific words, to a senior official at the Foreign Office in London in mid-April.

A Foreign Office spokesman said last night that it was forwarding the actual words to the Metropolitan Police.

Canon White, who runs Baghdad's only Anglican parish, said that he met the Al-Qaeda leader on the fringes of a meeting about religious reconciliation held in Amman.

Canon White said "the man talked to me about how they were going to destroy British and Americans. He told me that the plans were already made and they would soon be destroying the British.

"He said 'the people who cure you would kill you'." The man, who was in his forties and had travelled from Syria for the meeting, said that the plans would come to fruition in the next few weeks and target the British first.

"He said that the British and Americans were being targeted because of their actions in Iraq."

He did not learn the man's identity until after the meeting, and will not disclose it now.