Hamayun Tariq fled Britain to make bombs for ISIS. He is named by a former undercover intelligence agent as the reason the US decided to ban passengers carrying laptops onto flights bound for America
The former British car mechanic who once boasted of his bomb-making activities in Syria has been named as the reason the United States banned laptops on flights last year.
A former MI6 spy made the revelation in his autobiography explaining how Hamayun Tariq, from Dudley, had plans to smuggle bombs ‘disguised as laptop batteries’.
It prompted a ban on passengers carrying laptops on flights from 10 airports in the Middle East and North Africa bound for the US.
The claims were made by Aimen Dean, a former al-Qaeda explosives expert recruited by secret services to infiltrate UK jihadist circles, as reported by The Sunday Times.
He wrote in ‘Nine Lives’ about Tariq who once went by the nom de guerre Abu Muslim al-Britani:
‘An intelligence source told me in 2017 that Abu Muslim was involved in Isis efforts to develop bombs that could be smuggled onto aircraft disguised as laptop batteries.’
The discovery is believed to have caused the US to ban certain airlines from the Middle East allowing passengers to take laptops onto flights as carry-on luggage.
It also barred electronic tablets, e-readers and anything bigger than a mobile phone.
The ban was initiated in March last year but lifted four months later after improved security checks had been put in place.
![The United States imposed a ban on passengers carrying laptops on-board US-bound flights from 10 airports in the Middle East](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/07/20/21/427E326700000578-4715874-image-a-137_1500582026831.jpg)
The United States imposed a ban on passengers carrying laptops on-board US-bound flights from 10 airports in the Middle East
The report also highlights a case where Tariq to kill rich Britons by smearing the handles of luxury cars with poisonous nicotine.
The former car mechanic, a divorced 40-year-old who was born and raised in Dudley in the West Midlands, left to join ISIS in Syria in 2014 after serving a sentence for fraud in the UK.
He resurfaced on Twitter a year later to share chilling images of a new high-tech bomb-making lab he assembled there.
Components were seen organised on shelves with instruction manuals and bomb-making equipment neatly laid out on work surfaces in the room.
![Tariq escaped the UK and surfaced in Syria where he boasted of a bomb-making lab on Twitter](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/06/17/10/4D54C10C00000578-5853247-image-a-53_1529228426886.jpg)
Tariq escaped the UK and surfaced in Syria where he boasted of a bomb-making lab on Twitter
After posting photographs of his ‘laboratory’, the jihadi wrote on Twitter:
‘IEDs is my favourite weapon after Sniping, u hit the enemy & disappear in thin air just like a Ghost. Its a Must’.
Shortly after joining the terrorist group he began posting detailed explosive-making instructions and encouraging ‘lone wolves’ still living in the West to carry out deadly bomb attacks.
![Tariq threatened to 'reward' then-Home Secretary Theresa May with a bomb attack after having his passport revoked in 2013](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/06/17/10/4D54C10400000578-5853247-image-a-54_1529228432343.jpg)
Tariq threatened to ‘reward’ then-Home Secretary Theresa May with a bomb attack after having his passport revoked in 2013
He regularly posted photographs of handwritten instructions explaining how to assemble crude explosive devices and listed chemicals needed to create deadly poisons.
His British passport was allegedly revoked in 2013 when he sent a sarcastic note of ‘thanks’ to the then-Home Secretary Theresa May.
According to Dean, Tariq is still actively bomb-making, currently developing deadly drones with explosives on the Syria-Iraq border. They have the potential to attack sports stadiums, according to the report.