The NYPD and the FBI passed along a vague warning about the terror thug who went on to mastermind the July 7 London transit bombing - but the tip wasn't specific enough for British officials to stop the attacks, sources said yesterday.
The U.S. agencies were tipped by a convicted terrorist-turned-informant that Mohammed Sidique Khan "was trouble," and should be "checked out," the sources said.
British officials later learned Khan, 30, led the London suicide squad that killed 52 people in the city's transit system and injured hundreds last summer.
The tips to the NYPD and FBI, part of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, came from Mohammed Junaid Babar, who grew up in Queens and was busted in 2004 for supporting a foiled fertilizer-bomb plot to hit restaurants and train stations in London.
Sources said British investigators initially followed Khan, but may have disregarded him because they thought he wasn't a pivotal player in a radical group.
NYPD spokesman Paul Browne declined to comment. An FBI spokesman could not be reached.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the revelation shows the U.S. agencies were on the ball in this case. "This is the British version of pre-9/11, where a country receives a generalized warning and ignores it with terrible consequences," Schumer said.
Tony Sclafani
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