Qaeda targeted England, Australia cricket teams, says terrorists' friend

LONDON: One of Britain's leading newspapers has come out with disclosures that the England and Australian cricket teams for the 2005 Ashes series were targets of al-Qaeda. The paper claimed the July 7 London bombers had originally targeted the cricket teams.The paper, Sunday Times, quoted a friend of a terrorist as saying they were instructed to poison the cricketers with sarin gas. The man, who had used a pseudonym Hafiz, and claimed to be a family friend of Hasib Hussain, the person who had bombed the bus in London in July 2005, revealed to the newspaper that two of the suicide bombers involved the attacks were to have been part of an al-Qaeda plot to kill the two cricket sides