Intelligence

U.K. probe points to suicide attacks

TheStar.com - U.K. probe points to suicide attacks

Evidence links 'homegrown' suspects to crime
Explosives found in north England and parked car

SANDRO CONTENTA
EUROPEAN BUREAU

LONDON - Britons have been stunned by dramatic indications that the rush-hour attacks in London were the work of "homegrown" suicide bombers.

Extremism in the United Kingdom has entered a chilling new era.

Peter Clarke, head of the Metropolitan Police anti-terrorism branch, said at least three of the suspected bombers came from the West Yorkshire region, which includes Leeds, the city where the raids took place.

The four bombers were widely described in the media as British-born, but police have not confirmed that information or released any of their names. The three men from Leeds are said to be British citizens of Pakistani descent.

"This investigation is moving at great speed," Clarke told a London news conference.

A significant amount of explosive material was found in one of the raided homes, in Leeds, and in a car parked at the train station in Luton, just north of London. Police carried out "controlled explosions" at both sites.

"Today's events may give people cause for concern that the threat from terrorism that they thought lay elsewhere in this country is to be found rather closer to home," said West Yorkshire Chief Constable Colin Cramphorn, referring to the Leeds raids.

Police have so far stopped short of publicly using the words "suicide bombers" to describe the extremists who blew up three subway cars and a bus in central London last Thursday, killing at least 52 people.

Observers believe the officials' hesitation has more to do with fears of a backlash against Britain's 2 million Muslims than with the evidence uncovered.

Police are leaving little doubt the evidence indicates suicide bombers, noting that documents identifying three of the suspects were found at the scenes of the attacks.

"We have ... found personal documents bearing the names of three of those four men close to the scenes of three of the explosions," Clarke said.

He also said police had "very strong forensic and other evidence" that one of the bombers died in the subway train that exploded near the Aldgate station.

The revelations have shocked representatives of Britain's Islamic community and fuelled public fears of a growing number of homegrown radicals operating below the radar of the intelligence services.

One of the suspected bombers has been identified by The Guardian newspaper as Shahzad Tanweer, 22, an unemployed sports sciences graduate from Leeds University.

His friends are quoted as saying that Tanweer, who was born in nearby Bradford, has been missing for a week.

Tanweer is said to have recently visited Pakistan, was passionate about cricket and martial arts, and sometimes worked in his father's fish and chips shop. He had a secular appearance but attended mosques regularly.

"The idea that he was involved in terrorism or extremism is ridiculous," his friend, Azi Mohammed, is quoted as saying. "The idea that he went down to London and exploded a bomb is unbelievable."

British newspapers identified the other suspected bombers as Hasib Hussain, 18, a close friend of Tanweer; Rashid Facha, a British-born Pakistani in his 20s; and Jacksey Fiaz, about 35.

Britain has produced locally born suicide bombers before — two travelled to Israel to carry out attacks in 2003, and two would-be suicide bombers, including shoe bomber Richard Reid, have been convicted for plotting to blow up aircraft.

But this is the first time a group of Britons have unleashed their suicidal extremism against fellow citizens.

"This is very worrying," Azzam Tamimi, head of the London-based Institute of Islamic Political Thought, said in an interview. "If these people were part of a Muslim community that knew something about them or about this tendency to do something like this, and it was tolerated, then that's a failure of the community."

Evidence that the bombers may have died in the attacks brought some relief that they won't be around to unleash further atrocities. But few believe the four bombers were working on their own.

The hunt is now on for the other members of the cell, or the plan's mastermind. Al Qaeda has a pattern of sending explosive experts or planners inside a country to organize local extremists. Metropolitan Police Chief Ian Blair has described the attacks as bearing the "hallmarks" of Al Qaeda.

The explosives found in the house in Leeds and the parking lot in Luton fuel the theory that other attacks were planned. Why leave a significant amount of explosives behind if the bombers were all to die in suicide attacks?

Police say the four bombers travelled to London by train. One version has three suspects travelling by train from Leeds and the fourth joining them at the Luton station. Another version of events has all of them driving to Luton in a rented car, then hopping the London train.

Closed-circuit video cameras identify all four men at London's King's Cross subway and train station at 8:30 a.m. Thursday, Clarke said. They carried their explosives in backpacks.

"They were chatting. You would think they were going on a hiking holiday," said a security source quoted by Sky News who saw the video.

The blasts on the three subway trains exploded almost simultaneously at 8:50 a.m. The explosion on the bus in Tavistock Square, a short walk from King's Cross, occurred at 9:47 a.m. and killed 13 people.

The family of one of the suspects, believed to be the teenager, called police at 10 a.m. and reported him missing — a call that would later turn into a crucial lead in the investigation.

Clarke said "some of the property" of the missing man was found on the bus that exploded.

A man who got off the packed bus just before the blast told The Associated Press yesterday he had noticed one of his fellow passengers — possibly the bomber — fiddling anxiously with a bag. He said he heard an "excruciating" scream just before the bus blew up.

"This young guy kept diving into this bag or whatever he had in front of his feet," Richard Jones said. "He must have done that at least every minute, if not every 30 seconds. He was getting annoyed."

The arrested Leeds man is reportedly a relative of one of the suspected bombers.

Andy Hayman, assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, called for public calm.

"I understand that times like this can be very difficult for our communities," he said.

"I want to make it absolutely clear that no one should be in any doubt that the work last Thursday is that of extremists and criminals. That being the case, no one should smear or stigmatize any community with these acts," he added.

Government documents leaked to The Sunday Times last weekend said Al Qaeda is secretly recruiting affluent, middle-class Muslims in British universities and colleges to carry out attacks in Britain.

The documents, prepared for Prime Minister Tony Blair by the Home and Foreign offices, estimate less than 1 per cent of the British Muslim population — about 16,000 — are "actively engaged in terrorist activity, whether at home or abroad, or supporting such activity."

British extremists "range from foreign nationals now naturalized and resident in the U.K., arriving mainly from North Africa and the Middle East, to second- and third-generation British citizens whose forebears mainly originate from Pakistan or Kashmir," the document says.

It adds that "a significant number come from liberal, non-religious Muslim backgrounds or converted to Islam in adulthood."

The Iraq war is identified as a key cause of young Britons turning to extremism.

"The war on terror, and in Iraq and Afghanistan, are all seen by a section of British Muslims as having been acts against Islam," the document says.

Blair, the Metropolitan police chief, acknowledged yesterday that British police were lax in cracking down on British extremists in the past, so much so that the frustrated French authorities dubbed the capital "Londonistan."

The Iraq war produced a shift in Al Qaeda-linked attacks from "soft targets of opportunity" — such as nightclubs in Bali, Indonesia — to "targets of strategic importance," such as European capitals where governments backed the war, said terrorism expert Jonathan Stevenson.

The London attacks follow the pattern of the Madrid commuter bombs of March 2004, which killed 191 people. Most of the attackers were local and they blew themselves up when police closed in on their hideout.

"The suicidal attitude was the same," said Stevenson, senior fellow for counter-terrorism at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

July 13, 2005 at 07:45 AM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home