Intelligence

Named: the al-Qaeda chief who ‘masterminded murder’

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Military’s spokesman sparks row over what caused Bhutto’s death Baitullah Mehsud Martin Fletcher

A notorious al-Qaeda leader named Baitullah Mehsud was named by Pakistan’s
Government last night as the mastermind behind Benazir Bhutto’s
assassination.

The security services intercepted a call from Mehsud yesterday morning in
which he “congratulated his people for carrying out this cowardly act,”
Brigadier Javed Iqbal Cheema, the Interior Ministry’s spokesman, announced.

In a transcript of the call released by the Government an interlocutor named
Maulvi Sahib tells Mehsud that three men were involved in the attack and two
— Badarwala Bilal and Ikramullah — actually carried it out. Mehsud tells
Maulvi Sahib not to tell the men’s families yet and adds: “It was a
spectacular job. They were very brave boys who killed her.”

But Brigadier Cheema also deepened the confusion surrounding Ms Bhutto’s death
by insisting that she had been killed not by her assassin’s bullets or by
shrapnel from his suicide bomb, but from a fractured skull caused by her
head smashing into the lever of her vehicle’s sunroof following the blast.

This directly contradicted accounts given by doctors and security officials on
Thursday who said that she had died from bullet wounds to her head and
spinal cord.

A senior Bhutto aide last night called the Government’s explanation a “pack of
lies”. “Two bullets hit her, one in the abdomen and one in the head,” said
Farook Naik, her top lawyer and a senior official in her Pakistan People’s
Party (PPP).

“Bhutto’s personal secretary, Naheed Khan, and party official Makhdoom Amin
Fahim were in the car and they saw what happened. It is an irreparable loss
and they are turning it into a joke with such claims. The country is heading
towards civil war.”

Brigadier Cheema was speaking at a packed press conference in Islamabad that
seemed designed to allay suspicion that the Government had colluded in the
assassination, or failed to protect Ms Bhutto.

He argued that the PPP leader had ignored the Government’s security advice,
and seemed to suggest that she would have survived had she followed it. The
vehicle was bomb-proof and bullet-proof.

“If she had not come out of the vehicle she would have been unhurt, as all the
other occupants of the vehicle did not receive any injuries,” he said,
adding: “It pains me, I say with a lot of anguish, that we wish she had not
come out of that vehicle to wave to the people.”

Mr Naik also questioned the Government’s claim that Mehsud ordered the
assassination. “The Government is now claiming that Baitullah Mehsud is
responsible. What is the evidence?” he asked.

Hillary Clinton, the US senator and Democratic presidential contender, waded
into the row last night, calling for an independent, international
investigation of Ms Bhutto's death.

“I don’t think the Pakistani Government at this time under President Musharraf
has any credibility at all,” she said. “They have disbanded an independent
judiciary, they oppressed a free press.”

The Interior Ministry released the transcript of its intelligence intercept,
and said that there was “irrefutable evidence that al-Qaeda, its networks
and cohorts are trying to destabilise Pakistan”.

Brigadier Cheema described Mehsud as an al-Qaeda leader who was also behind
the attack on Ms Bhutto’s homecoming parade in Karachi on October 18, which
killed 140 people, and claimed that he was “responsible for most of the
attacks that have taken place in the country”. Other targets had included
President Musharraf, senior government officials and army and intelligence
officers.

Mehsud is thought to be based in the lawless tribal area of South Waziristan,
near the Afghan border, where Pakistani troops have been fighting Islamist
rebels for several years. He has ties to the Taleban as well as to al-Qaeda,
and was quoted in a Pakistan newspaper last autumn as saying that he would
greet Ms Bhutto’s return from exile with suicide bombers.

Not a lot else is known about the man. He reportedly has close ties to Mullar
Omar, the Taleban leader in Afghanistan. He is said to run a “parallel
government” with a private army of 20,000 that imposes strict Islamic law in
Waziristan. Before he kills proGovernment tribal leaders he allegedly sends
them a 1,000 rupee note, a thread and a needle with instructions that the
recipient should buy himself a shroud.

Asked why Pakistan’s security services could intercept Mehsud’s calls but not
track him down, Brigadier Cheema said that he moved fast and went to ground
very quickly after contacting followers and was therefore hard to pick up.

The Interior Ministry released a grainy video taken of Ms Bhutto just moments
before she was shot as she left a rally in a park in Rawalpindi on Thursday
afternoon.

It shows her standing up through the sunroof of her stationary sports utility
vehicle and confidently waving to supporters. The film ends abruptly as
shots ring out. One, possibly two, guns can be seen above the heads of the
crowd behind the vehicle. Given the crush around the vehicle it seems
impossible that the assailant — or assailants — were on a motorbike as some
early reports claimed.

Brigadier Cheema said that all three shots fired by the attacker missed Ms
Bhutto. She was killed when she tried to duck back into the vehicle and
shock waves from the suicide bomb rammed her head into a lever attached to
the sunroof, he said.

“The lever struck near her right ear and fractured her skull . . . There was
no bullet or metal shrapnel found in the injury.”

Brigadier Cheema said that Ms Bhutto’s husband had refused to permit a
post-mortem examination on her body — Islam discourages desecration of dead
bodies. But he said X-rays and an external investigation showed that “there
was no bullet that hit her . . . there was no splinter that hit her”.

Pakistan’s Government is facing considerable public anger for failing to
protect Ms Bhutto. Brigadier Cheema sought to deflect that anger by
insisting the Government had done everything in its power to protect her.

He said that everybody at the rally in Rawalpindi had been searched, Ms
Bhutto’s rostrum had been bullet-proof, and “all possible security
arrangements were made within the resources of the Government of Pakistan”.
He insisted that “no political leader in this country has been provided with
as much security”.

Brigadier Cheema announced two inquiries into the assassination — one by a
high court judge and the other by the security services. He also said that
several other prominent Pakistani politicians were under threat from Islamic
militants, and named Nawaz Sharif, leader of the opposition Pakistan Muslim
League, as one of them.

The 20 other people who died in the assassination included Tauqee Akram, 35,
the husband of a British woman and active member of Ms Bhutto’s PPP. His
widow, Lubna Akram, lives in Halliwell, Bolton, and the couple have two
children.

‘Congratulations’

This is a translation of the alleged telephone conversation yesterday between
Baitullah Mehsud, a senior al-Qaeda leader, and Maulvi Sahib, another
militant, which the Pakistan Interior Ministry said had been intercepted
after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto:

Maulvi Sahib (MS) Asalaam Aleikum (Peace be with you)

Baitullah Mehsud (BM) Waleikum Asalam (And also with you)

MS Chief, how are you?

BM I am fine

MS Congratulations, I just got back during the night

BM Congratulations to you, were they our men?

MS Yes they were ours

BM Who were they?

MS There was Saeed, there was Bilal from Badar and Ikramullah

BM The three of them did it?

MS Ikramullah and Bilal did it

BM Then congratulations

MS Where are you? I want to meet you

BM I am at Makeen [town in South Waziristan tribal region], come over, I am at
Anwar Shah’s house

MS OK, I’ll come

BM Don’t inform their house for the time being

MS OK

BM It was a tremendous effort. They were really brave boys who killed her

MS Mashallah (Thank God). When I come I will give you all the details

BM I will wait for you. Congratulations, once again congratulations

MS Congratulations to you

BM Anything I can do for you?

MS Thank you very much.

BM Asalaam Aleikum

MS Waaleikum Asalaam

December 28, 2007 at 09:14 PM in Al Qaeda, Current Terrorism, Espionage - general | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Authorities point the finger at militant pro-Taliban leader

Authorities point the finger at militant pro-Taliban leader | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited

Rory McCarthy Saturday December 29, 2007 The Guardian Pakistani officials said last night they already had evidence from "intelligence intercepts" linking a pro-Taliban militant commander to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and several other suicide bombings.

On the intercept the commander, named
as Baitullah Mehsud, was recorded congratulating his men for the attack
on Bhutto, said Javed Iqbal Cheema, Pakistan's interior ministry
spokesman.

He described Mehsud as an "al-Qaida leader". Mehsud,
who is one of Pakistan's most wanted militants, is known to be a
pro-Taliban commander based in the violent tribal region of South
Waziristan. Before Bhutto flew back to Pakistan in October he was
reported as threatening a wave of suicide attacks against her, but he
later denied making the threat.

Pakistani officials said they believed Mehsud was also behind the
suicide bomb attack on the day of Bhutto's return which left 130 of her
supporters dead. Mehsud was "behind most of the recent terrorist
attacks that have taken place in Pakistan," Cheema said.

The
announcement came as police began the gruesome task of trying to
identify the suicide bomber behind the assassination at the start of a
fraught and difficult investigation.

The bomber's badly burned
head was recovered from the scene of the blast. Saud Aziz, the city's
police chief, said investigators would reconstruct the head and take
DNA samples from other body parts found nearby in the hope that they
could quickly identify the killer.

However, there is already deep
mistrust in Pakistan among many, not just Bhutto's supporters, who
doubt that a small cell of extremists alone was responsible for her
death. At the heart of these fears lies the long and dangerous
association of the Pakistani government and its military with Islamic
militants, in Afghanistan and Kashmir.

Bhutto herself warned
before her death that there were powerful figures in Pakistan plotting
to kill her. Yesterday disturbing new evidence emerged of concerns that
Bhutto voiced two months ago.

On October 26, a week after her
return to Pakistan was marred by a first suicide bombing which killed
138 of her supporters, she sent an email to her spokesman in the United
States saying she was anxious that she was not being given enough
security. The email was passed to Wolf Blitzer, a CNN presenter, to be
published if she was killed. In the email Bhutto said if she was killed
it would be the responsibility of Pervez Musharraf, the general who
seized power in a coup and became Pakistan's president.

"Nothing
will, God willing happen. Just wanted u to know if it does in addition
to my names in my letter to Musharaf of Oct 16nth, I wld hold Musharaf
responsible," the email said. "I have been made to feel insecure by his
minions and there is no way what is happening in terms of stopping me
from taking private cars or using tinted windows or giving jammers or
four police mobiles to cover all sides cld happen without him. B."

Two
days before her return, Bhutto sent Musharraf a letter, giving names
and telephone numbers of several men she believed were plotting against
her. Reports in the Pakistani press said the men included an official
in the Pakistani intelligence agencies, a member of the National
Accountability Bureau, which has long investigated corruption cases
against her, and a former provincial government official. Then after
the first attack on the day of her return, Bhutto asked for
international investigators to be assigned to the case. Her request was
rejected.

Al-Qaida, or militants allied to the group, might have
had a lot to lose if Bhutto had as expected, won next month's
elections. She had spoken repeatedly of her plans to take on the tide
of militancy sweeping Pakistan. Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaida's No 2,
spoke out against Bhutto's return in a video this month and called for
attacks on all candidates in next month's election.

Bruce Riedel,
a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former senior director
for south Asia on the national security council, said al-Qaida had been
trying to kill Bhutto for many years. "If it's not them, it's certainly
one of the groups that are sympathetic with them," he said. "They all
work together and share a common antipathy to Bhutto because she's a
woman, an advocate of secularism, a supporter of democracy and
everything they stand against."

Others say it may be more
complex. "It's going to be very difficult to establish the truth of who
was behind this," said MJ Gohel, the executive director of the
Asia-Pacific Foundation, a security and intelligence thinktank in
London.

"As well as the Taliban and al-Qaida elements, there are
many other candidates - there are elements within the military and
elements within the intelligence services, which never had a good
relationship with Bhutto."

The transcript

A
transcript released by the Pakistani government yesterday of a
purported conversation between militant leader Baitullah Mehsud, who is
referred to as Emir Sahib, and another man identified as a Maulvi
Sahib, or Mr Cleric. The government alleges the intercepted
conversation proves al-Qaida was behind the assassination of Benazir
Bhutto

Maulvi Sahib Peace be on you.

Mehsud Peace be on you, too.

MS How are you Emir Sahib?

Mehsud Fine.

MS Congratulations. I arrived now tonight.

Mehsud Congratulations to you, too.

MS They were our men there.

Mehsud Who were they?

MS There were Saeed, the second was Badarwala Bilal and Ikramullah was also there.

Mehsud The three did it?

MS Ikramullah and Bilal did it.

Mehsud Then congratulations to you again.

MS Where are you? I want to meet with you?

Mehsud I am in Makin. Come I am at Anwar Shah's home.

MS OK I will come.

Mehsud Do not inform their family presently.

MS Right.

Mehsud It was a spectacular job. They were very brave boys who killed her.

MS Praise be to God. I will give you more details when I come.

Mehsud I will wait for you. Congratulation once again.

MS Congratulations to you as well.

Mehsud: Any service?

MS Thank you very much?

Mehsud Peace be on you.

MS Same to you.

December 28, 2007 at 09:07 PM in Al Qaeda, Current Terrorism, Espionage - general | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

FP Failed States index

The Fund for Peace - Failed States Index Scores 2007

We are pleased to present the third annual Failed States Index - which has been expanded to include 177 countries. Hundreds of thousands of articles from global and regional sources were collected from May to December 2006 using Thomson Dialog. Utilizing our CAST software to do initial analysis of these voluminous documents and with a review by experts, we compiled the scores below.

August 30, 2007 at 03:03 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Al-Qaeda tells British cells to carry out wave of beheadings

 

David Leppard

ISLAMIC terror cells in Britain have been instructed to carry out a series of kidnappings and beheadings of the kind allegedly planned by the nine terrorist suspects arrested in Birmingham last week.

The “strategic” assassination instruction was issued by Al-Qaeda’s leaders in Pakistan and Iraq to dozens of their followers in this country. It was uncovered by MI5 last autumn, senior security sources say.

As a result police are on standby for multiple attempts by terrorists to kidnap and then behead people across Britain. MI5 is conducting a counter-terrorism surveillance operation to prevent such an attack.

The alleged attempt to kidnap and behead a Muslim soldier or soldiers in Birmingham was just the first of a series of planned attacks, security sources say.

The revelation explains the recent deployment of a permanent SAS unit to London. The unit has been placed on 24-hour standby to respond to a terrorist attack in the capital. It would aim to carry out a hostage rescue mission within minutes of being alerted.

Muslim police officers serving in London may also be given extra protection. The Association of Muslim Police is in talks with the Met, which is expected to carry out a risk assessment of the dangers.

One well placed source said: “Cells in the UK have been alerted to carry out this type of attack as opposed to the more sophisticated type of bombing in which you place a large number of volunteers at risk. All you need for a beheading is a bit of courage and a sharp knife.”

The order to encourage “low-tech” assassinations is said to follow a review by senior Al-Qaeda planners after an alleged plot to smuggle bombs onto airlines was foiled by police last August.

The order encouraged followers to adopt the tactics used by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, who was behind the abduction, torture and beheading of Ken Bigley, a British engineer, in Iraq in 2004.

Bigley, 62, was kidnapped and filmed on video begging for Tony Blair to end the war before being beheaded. Footage of his “execution” was later posted on the internet.

After learning of the alleged Birmingham plot to behead a British Muslim soldier returning from Iraq or Afghanistan last autumn, the Ministry of Defence spent several months trying to establish how many soldiers fitted into this category.

After focusing on soldiers in the regular army, the Royal Marines and the Territorial Army, officials whittled the list of potential targets down to fewer than 10.

These soldiers were warned about the potential threat and advised on protection measures, or given the means to protect themselves. Sources said several of the suspects were personally acquainted with the Muslim soldier who was said to have been lined up as their first victim. The soldier, a corporal in military intelligence, is said to be under close protection.

The surveillance operation in Birmingham was stepped up at the beginning of last month when scores of detectives were seconded from the Greater Manchester police to join their colleagues in the West Midlands anti-terrorism unit.

The decision to arrest the nine suspects is said to have been made after one of them was seen buying a video camera in an electronics shop last weekend.

According to another source close to the investigation, those involved in the plot were supplying equipment and computer hardware to Al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. One of the suspects had recently returned from a trip to Pakistan.

There were also claims this weekend that several of the arrested men attended the Hamza mosque in the Sparkhill area of Birmingham.

An official at the mosque, who refused to be named, said it was a centre for a group called Tablighi Jamaat, described by western security services as a “conveyor belt to Al-Qaeda”. The group’s British headquarters is in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, where two of the London bombers regularly attended. In a statement, mosque officials said they could not confirm the claims.

Despite intelligence about the new UK strategy security sources say that Al-Qaeda has not entirely dropped more traditional terrorism tactics.

At least two cells are believed to be preparing attacks using cars packed with fertiliser explosives to cause mass casualties.

Armed guards were last month deployed outside the Bacton gas terminal in Norfolk following intelligence that it had been “scouted” by known terrorist suspects. Intelligence suggested the suspects were discussing how to carry out a car bomb attack.

A Whitehall official said MI5 was now monitoring about 280 terror suspects.

Each was suspected of serious intent to carry out an attack. Cells are being closely observed in at least four British towns and cities.

February 4, 2007 at 12:14 PM in Current Terrorism, MI5, UK | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Worldwide Terror Organisations

Worldwide Terror Organisations

Group
Center of Gravity
Status

Al-Qaeda
Pakistan
Active

Hezbollah
Lebanon
Active

Militant Sunni Islamic Groups

Al-Qaeda in Iraq
Iraq
Active

Mujahideen Shura Council
Iraq
Active

Ansar al-Sunna
Iraq
Active

Jemaah Islamiya
Indonesia
Active

Taliban
Afghanistan
Active

Hizb-I Islami Gulbuddin
Afghanistan
Active

Abu Sayyaf
Philippines
Active

Al Gamaa al-Islamiyaa
Egypt
Reconciliating?

Egyptian Islamic Jihad
Egypt
Merged with al-Qaeda

Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat
Algeria
Active

Al-Badhr Mujahedin
Pakistan
Active

Harakat ul-Jihad-I-Islami
Kashmir
Active

Harakat ul-Mujahedin
Kashmir
Active

Hizbul-Mujahedin
Kashmir
Active

Jaish-e-Mohammed
Kashmir
Active

Jamiat ul-Mujahedin
Kashmir
Active

Jammat ul-Furqan
Kashmir
Active

Lashkar e-Tayyiba
Kashmir
Active

Islamic International Peacekeeping Brigade
Chechnya
Active

Riyadus-Salikhin Reconnaissance
and Sabotage Battalion of Chechen Martyrs
Chechnya
Active

Special Purpose Islamic Regiment
Chechnya
Active

Al-Ittihad al-Islami
Somalia

Armed Islamic Group
Algeria
Defunct?

Asbat al-Ansar
Lebanon
Active

East Turkistan Islamic Movement
China
Active

Jamaatul-Mujahedin Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Active

Harakat-ul-Jihad-I-Islami Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Active

Hezba Nahda
Tajikistan

Islamic Army of Aden
Yemen
Active

Yemen Jannubi Group
Yemen

Islamic Jihad Group of Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan
Active

Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan
Active

Jamaat e Jihad Eritrea
Eritrea

Jamaat e Jihal al Suri
Syria

Kumpulan Mujahedin Malaysia
Malaysia

Libyan Islamic Fighting Group
Libya
Active

Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group
Morocco
Active

People Against Gangsterism and Drugs
South Africa

Sipah-I-Sahaba Pakistan
Pakistan
Active

Tunisian Combatant Group
Tunisia
Active

Al-Qaeda Organizations

Al-Qaeda Fatwah Committee
Afghanistan

Al-Qaeda Finance Committee
Pakistan

Al-Qaeda majlis al shura
Afghanistan

Al-Qaeda Media Committee

Al-Qaeda Military Committee
Afghanistan

Al-Qaeda Travel Subcommittee
Sudan

Al Hijra
Sudan
Defunct

al Themar al Mubaraka
Sudan
Defunct

Jamat Nasiyah Dawa
United Kingdom

Khartoum Tannery
Sudan
Defunct

Ladin International
Sudan
Defunct

Qudarat Transport Company
Sudan
Defunct

Sajana Tower Fruit and Vegetable Company
Sudan
Defunct

Taba Investments
Sudan
Defunct

Wadi al Aqiq
Sudan
Defunct

Operational Cells

UK-US airline bomb plotters
United Kingdom
Captured?

9-11 plotters
United States
Dead or Captured

Hamburg Cell
Germany
Dead, captured or at-large

Bojinka Cell
Philippines
Captured

Palestinian Groups

Hamas
Palestine
Active

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade
Palestine
Active

Palestine Islamic Jihad
Syria
Active

Palestine Liberation Front
Lebanon
Active

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Palestine
Active

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
-General Command
Syria
Active

Other Groups

Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC)
Colombia
Active

Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia Group (AUC)
Colombia
Reconciliating

Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional (ELN)
Colombia
Reconciliating?

Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path)
Peru
Active

Page maintained by John Lumpkin

August 16, 2006 at 12:00 AM in Al Qaeda, Current Terrorism, Espionage - general, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, Lashkar-e-Taiba | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

The truth about Lashkar-e-Taiba

Pakistan Facts - The truth about Lashkar-e-Taiba

Friday, May 21 2004 @ 09:40 PM Central Daylight Time

Pakistan TerrorismKaushik Kapisthalam
When it comes to the common terrorist thread between Willie Brigitte, Izhar-ul-Haque, David Hicks and Faheem Lodhi, Australians constantly hear the name "Lashkar-e-Taiba" (LeT) bandied about. Given the preponderance of LeT connections to terror plans within Australia therefore, it is critical that Australians understand the origins and activities of Lashkar-e-Taiba. To begin with, one must be disabused of the notion that the LeT is a "Kashmiri" group. It is not. The LeT was founded in Pakistan and is made up of mostly Pakistani Punjabis with a smattering of Afghans, Arabs, Bangladeshis, South East Asians and the occasional Western or Indian Muslim recruit. To understand the LeT, it is critical to appreciate its position in the Pakistani as well as the global jihadist movement.

Islamists today are a fractious bunch, but they can agree on the notion that the creation of a 'pure' Islamic state represents the best hope for salvation in both this world and the next, and as such Muslims everywhere are obliged to strive for such a goal. The Jihadist movement represents a subset of Islamists who intensely believe that near-perpetual war, pursued by any and all means against the unbeliever offers the best way to meet their obligations and make the Islamist dream real. In particular those inspired by the 18th century Saudi preacher Ibn Abd al-Wahhab - often known as 'Wahhabis' or 'Salafis'- are among the most persistent, energetic and emphatic promoters of this kind of jihad.

Salafis have been active since the 19th century in the sub-continent, where they are also became known as the "Ahle-Hadith" (People following the Prophet's Tradition.) The connections were renewed as thousands of Arabs armed with billions of petro-dollars streamed in to Pakistan after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. One result was the Lashkar-e-Taiba or the "Army of the Pure" is the jihadi or military expression of the Pakistani Ahle-Hadith movement.

While the Salafi LeT represents one part of the Pakistani jihadi community, the other major grouping consists of the more numerous Deobandi sect with terrorist groups like the Sipah-i-Sahaba-Pakistan (SSP) Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM.) Unlike the Ahle-Hadith, the Deobandis have built a powerful political movement within Pakistan but their political participation has also resulted in periodic bouts of serious tension with the Pakistani Army, which although highly supportive of jihad in Afghanistan and India, nevertheless brooks no challenge to its vice-like grip on political power within the nation. In contrast, the LeT led Ahle-Hadith movement has traditionally stayed apolitical and instead focused on its main goal - the dream of establishing an Islamic Caliphate that stretches from Indonesia to Morocco, including Northern Australia by means of a violent jihad.

Due to its eschewing of political confrontation with the Pakistani army and thanks to the strength of its ties to Saudi Arabia the LeT steadily grew in to one of the largest and most capable jihadist groups in Pakistan, despite the relatively small size of the Ahle Hadith followers in that nation. Even though the LeT elects not to take part in politics, it does have an unarmed wing, the Markaz Da'wa wal-Irshad (MDI) or "Centre for Religious Learning and Social Welfare". At the inspiration and by some accounts seed money from Osama bin Laden, Pakistani Salafists Zafar Iqbal and Hafiz Mohammad Saeed of the University of Engineering and Technology of Lahore, founded the MDI in 1987. One of the other founding fathers of the MDI was Palestinian promoter and scholar of jihad Abdullah Azzam of the Muslim Brotherhood. Azzam was also one of the inspirations behind the creation of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. Many consider Azzam the "Godfather" of the modern jihadist movements. Azzam was in fact the religious and political mentor of Osama Bin Laden and the inspiration behind the "Arab-Afghan" phenomenon of international, particularly Arab volunteers hijacking local conflicts involving Muslims in the name of Islam and turning them into a part of a global jihad. To this day, Lashkar uses Azzam's speeches and publications to train and motivate its cadres. Also noteworthy is the fact that the Lashkar-e-Taiba, before it renamed itself "Jamaat-ud-Dawa"(JuD) in 2002, linked on its website to the Hamas official website and the then English mouthpiece of al Qaeda, Azzam.com. Before Israeli forces killed him, Hamas leader Sheikh Yassin routinely addressed LeT rallies in Pakistan through phone. It is to be noted that Hafiz Mohammad Saeed became the supreme leader or the "Emir" of the LeT following Azzam's death.

The 190 acres large headquarters of the MDI/LeT is located in the town of Muridke, about 45 kilometres from Lahore. Its vast campus contains a huge mosque for the construction of which Osama bin Laden had reportedly contributed 10 million Pakistani Rupees, along with a garment factory, an iron foundry; a wood works factory, a swimming pool and three residential colonies for the volunteers. During the days of the US-Saudi funded jihad in Afghanistan to drive out the Soviets, the MDI was allowed its LeT volunteers to fight along with the Afghan Mujahideen. The Muridke campus also served as a base camp for Arab fighters to rest and recuperate and even train for jihad.

Reports say that Bin Laden also paid for the construction of a lavish and secure guesthouse in the LeT's Muridke campus. Other than staying in the guesthouse occasionally, Bin Laden also used to chair LeT's annual conclaves. After he became a global fugitive in the early to mid 1990s, Bin Laden preferred not to stay in the Muridke guesthouse due to security concerns. While Osama bin Laden stopped attending LeT's annual moots, he has addressed them over the phone until a few years ago from his hideout in the Sudan and, since after 1996 from Afghanistan. Addressing the November 1997 LeT annual meeting on the phone from Kandahar, bin Laden reportedly said: "Those who oppose jihad are not true Muslims." The LeT like other Pakistani jihadist groups also benefited greatly from Al Qaeda training at its camps in Afghanistan. In those camps, LeT fighters gained access to suicide bombing techniques, learned how to build large truck bombs that could destroy reinforced concrete structures, how to conduct surveillance on targets without being noticed, how to plan for spectacular operations covertly etc.

It was only after the Mujahideen's capture of Kabul in 1992 that the LeT aimed its attention on Kashmir. Urged on and materially assisted by the ISI, Pakistan's sinister intelligence agency, with whom it had a working relationship during the Afghan jihad, the LeT started a mass recruitment campaign in Pakistan to fight Indian troops in Kashmir. Though the LeT's nominal goal was to help Pakistan annex Kashmir, it fit in well with its grand plans of establishing an Islamic Caliphate. The LeT saw Hindu majority India as an obstacle on par with the US and Israel to the Islamist dream of creating a unified empire that spans the entire Muslim world. At a press conference at the Lahore Press Club on February 18,1996, LeT's Emir Saeed said: "The jihad in Kashmir would soon spread to entire India. Our Mujahideen would create three Pakistans in India." The LeT is still active in Kashmir while simultaneously being faithful to its original goal.

To finance its day-to-day activities, the LeT leverages its contacts in Saudi Arabia as well as launches donation campaigns with overseas Pakistanis, especially middle class and wealthy Punjabis in Britain, Australia and the Middle East. According to Jane's Terrorism & Insurgency Centre, Osama bin Laden has also financed LeT activities until recently. The LeT, under its new name JuD, uses its outreach networks including schools, social service groups and religious publications to attract and brainwash recruits for jihad in Kashmir and other places.

While LeT apologists try to use its connection to Kashmir to palm it off as a "Kashmiri freedom fighter" group, the reality is that it has always used brutal terrorist tactics in Kashmir and elsewhere in India. LeT members have perpetrated and even claimed responsibility for scores of attacks on Hindu pilgrims, temples and innocent farmers. In fact, the LeT boldly claimed responsibility for a May 2002 attack on the wives and children of Indian troops at a time of war-like situation between India and Pakistan. European Union External Affairs Commissioner Chris Patten noted at that time that he was repulsed by the sheer savagery of the attack where sleeping infants were machine-gunned to death at close range. Despite this, the LeT openly praised the attack and glorified it on its website.

August 12, 2006 at 02:02 PM in Al Qaeda, Current Terrorism, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Muslim background | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Three decades of terror

FT.com / Home UK / UK - Three decades of terror

Published: February 7 2003 16:18 | Last updated: April 28 2006 18:00

April 26 2006. Two suicide bombers blow themselves up in Sinai near the Gaza border in Egypt. Their targets, peacekeepers from the multinational force and observers and Egyptian police, escape injury.

April 24 2006. Scores of people are injured and at least 24 killed in three separate explosions at the Egyptian resort of Dahab, an area popular with Europeans and Israelis. The attacks are blamed on a Sinai desert-based group of extremists and appear to follow an organised pattern in Sinai.

April 23 2006. Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden warns in an audiotape broadcast on al Jazeera, the Arabic satellite television network, that the West should not send UN forces to Darfur in Sudan. He cites Western efforts to isolate the Palestinian Authority since the Islamist group Hamas won January elections as evidence of an alleged anti-Muslim campaign.

November 9 2005. Four Iraqi bombers, including a husband and wife team, attack the Radisson and Grand Hyatt hotels and the Days Inn in Amman, Jordan. The attacks killed at least 57 people. Abu Musab Zarqawi, the alleged leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, claims responsibility.

July 23 2005. At least 64 people were killed in a string of three bombings at the Red Sea resort Sharm al-Sheikh in Egypt.

July 21 2005. Four attempted bombings spread fear in London exactly two weeks after the deadly July 7 attacks, but none of the devices, again on three underground trains and one bus, exploded. In April 2006 the five accused men deny conspiracy to murder and cause explosions. Their trial is set for October 2006.

July 7 2005. Four British suicide bombers hit London’s public transport system in co-ordinated attacks, killing 52 and injuring 700. Three bombs go off on underground trains and a fourth is detonated on a bus an hour later.

December 6 2004. Terrorist organisation al-Qaeda claims responsibility for an attack on the US Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in which five attackers use explosives to break through the fortified entrance and shoot their way into the compound, killing five and injuring nine.

October 7 2004. In Taba, Egypt, Islamic militants drive a car filled with explosives into the lobby of a Hilton Hotel, killing 34 and wounding 159 others. Egyptian authorities identified a Palestinian and an Egyptian as the perpetrators.

June 12 2004. Militants abduct Paul Johnson, a US contractor in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. On June 19, graphic pictures of his body are posted on an Islamist website. The kidnappers, who who claim to be al-Qaeda members, behead their victim after their demand to release prisoners arrested in Saudi Arabia for links to radical Muslim groups are not met.

March 11 2004. Four explosions blow up commuter trains in Madrid, killing 190 people. The Spanish government initially blames the Basque separatist group, Eta, but subsequent evidence points to an attack by Islamist terrorists. The Abu Hafz al-Masri Brigades, said to be a division of al-Qaeda, claims responsibility in retaliation for Spain's involvement in the US-led war in Iraq.

November 20 2003. Two suicide car bombings against Turkish headquarters of HSBC bank and British Consulate in Istanbul, result in the deaths of 27 people, including the British Consul and his personal assistant. al-Qaeda and a local Islamist group claim responsibility.

November 15 2003. Turkish Islamists kill 24 people in truck bombings against two synagogues in Istanbul. Although the attacks target the Beir Israel and Neve Shalom temples, most of the victims are Muslim passers-by. The bombings are claimed by al-Qaeda and a local Islamist group.

November 10 2003. US supreme court announces it will hear the appeals of several British, Australian and Kuwaiti citizens held with more than 600 others after US anti-terror sweeps in Afghanistan. At issue is whether US courts have jurisdiction to hear challenges by the detainees to their imprisonment.

November 9 2003. Suicide car bomb attack on a residential compound in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, kills 17 people, mostly Arab expatriates.

October 29 2003. Ten men, held without trial in the UK for almost two years under controversial anti-terror laws, lose their appeal against detention. The Special Immigration Appeals Commission decided there were "reasonable grounds" for suspecting the detained individuals had links with terrorism.

October 29 2003. Delhi appeals court overturns the conviction of S.A.R. Geelani, a Muslim professor at Delhi University, who had been sentenced to death for his alleged role in orchestrating a suicide terrorist attack on India's parliament two years earlier.

October 2 2003. Court in Indonesia sentences Mukhlas, alleged Jemaah Islamiah operations chief, and third key suspect in Bali bomb trial, to death.

October 2 2003. A federal judge rules that US government prosecutors cannot seek the death penalty against Zacarias Moussaoui, the man accused of conspiring with al-Qaeda in the September 11 terrorist attacks.

September 30 2003. A Belgian court sentences 18 Islamic militants, ending a four-month trial that highlighted the depth and diversity of al-Qaeda's terrorist network at the heart of Europe. Nizar Trabelsi, a former professional soccer player, receives the maximum sentence for his crimes under Belgian law of 10 years in prison after he admitting to preparing a suicide attack on a US air base at Kleine Brogel, near the Dutch border.

September 18 2003. Ali Imron, fourth Bali bombing suspect, sentenced to life in jail.

September 11 2003. Americans hold a day of prayer and remembrance to mark the second anniversary of the September 11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people. A ceremony at Ground Zero in New York features children who lost parents in the attack reading out the victims' names.

September 10 2003. On the eve of the second anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, Arabic-language TV network Al-Jazeera broadcasts what it claims is a new tape of Osama bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, encouraging new attacks against Americans. Meanwhile, Abdul Aziz, a 33-year-old Indonesian computer expert, is sentenced to death for organising the Bali bomb attacks.

September 10 2003. Bali court sentences Imam Samudra, alleged ground commander of Bali attack to death.

August 19 2003. The Brigades of the Martyr Abu Hafz al-Masri, said to be a division of al-Qaeda, claims responsibility for a massive truck bomb which devastates the Baghdad headquarters of the UN, killing Sergio Vieira de Mello, the top UN envoy to Iraq, and 21 others.

August 7 2003. Amrozi bin Nurhasyim is found guilty of conspiring, planning and carrying out terrorist bombings on the Indonesian resort island of Bali. Known as the "smiling bomber", he is sentenced to death by firing squad.

August 5 2003. A huge bomb kills 10 people and wounds 150 at the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta. Matori Abdul Djalil, Indonesian defence minister blames the militant group Jema’ah Islamiyah.

July 31 2003. Wan Min Wan Mat, alleged Jema'ah Islamiah treasurer, tells Bali court part of group's funding came from al-Qaeda, providing link between the two organisations.

June 7 2003. A suicide car bomber blows up a bus full of German peacekeepers east of the Afghan capital Kabul, killing four and wounding 31. Peter Struck, German defence minister, blames al Qaeda.

May 16 2003. Suicide bombers attack a Spanish restaurant, a five-star hotel and a Jewish community centre in Casablanca, killing 45 people, including 12 bombers. Members of a Morrocan organisation known as the Salafist Jihad, which has indirect links to al Qaeda, are later found guilty of co-ordinating the attacks.

May 12 2003. Suicide bombers in vehicles shoot their way into housing compounds for expatriates in Saudi capital, Riyadh, killing 35, including nine Americans. Colin Powell, US secretary of state, blames al-Qaeda.

April 30 2003. Six men suspected of links with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network are seized in a raid in the Pakistani city of Karachi. The Pakistani interior ministry said they had been planning major acts of terrorism in the country.

March 6 2003. Top Central Intelligence Agency officials arrive in Pakistan as evidence mounts that Osama bin Laden is hiding in an area concentrated around Gwadar, a port in the south.

March 1 2003. Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, al-Qaeda's third-ranking officer and the self-confessed planner of the September 11 attacks in the US, is arrested in Pakistan and interrogated by US and Pakistani officials.

February 19 2003. Mounir al-Motassadeq, a Moroccan student, is sentenced to 15 years in prison by a Hamburg court for being an accessory to murder in 3,066 cases - the number of people known to have died in the September 11 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. He is also found guilty of membership of a terrorist organisation.

February 11 2003. Osama bin Laden broadcasts a "call to arms" for Muslims to rise up against the US and its allies in his first public statement in more than four months. Washington takes references to Baghdad as proof that some links exist between Iraq and al-Qaeda.

January 5 2003. UK anti-terrorist police find the deadly poison ricin in a London flat. Seven north Africans are arrested.

December 16 2002. French anti-terrorist police arrest nine north African men in a series of raids in northern Paris. Evidence that they were developing chemical weapons - using cyanide - is discovered.

November 28 2002. Two attacks are launched against Israeli targets in Mombasa, Kenya. A hotel blast kills 16 - including the three suicide car bombers - and a missile is fired but misses an Israeli plane. Al-Qaeda is believed responsible.

November 5 2002. A US missile attack fired from an unmanned Predator aircraft inside Yemen kills six alleged al-Qaeda members, including Ali Qaed Senyan al-Harthi, whom the US has linked to the attack on the warship USS Cole off Aden in October 2000.

October 12 2002. Three bombs explode on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, killing nearly 200 people, mostly foreign tourists. Investigators blame the Jemaah Islamiyah, a southeast Asian terrorist group with ties to al-Qaeda.

October 6 2002. A French-registered oil tanker, Limburg, is damaged by explosives while sailing off the coast of Yemen. Al-Qaeda is suspected.

October 4 2002. A US court sentences John Walker Lindh, the so-called 'American Taleban', to 20 years in jail for fighting for the ousted regime in Afghanistan. US law enforcement officers charge four men with waging war against the US and supporting al-Qaeda.

August 28 2002. Mounir al-Motassadek, a 28-year-old Moroccan living in Germany, becomes the second person to be charged in relation with the 11 September attacks. He is charged with more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder and belonging to a terrorist group.

July 26 2002. The US House of Representatives approves the creation of a Department of Homeland Security. The agency is responsible for guarding US borders, protecting potential targets such as the transportation system and overseeing the recovery from future attacks.

July 24 2002. The US House of Representatives approves a massive increase in intelligence gathering spending. The 2003 fiscal intelligence authorisation bill adds up to $35bn, to cover funds for the CIA, the National Security Agency, several Pentagon departments, and the Departments of State, Justice and Energy.

June 26 2002. A bill is passed in the US House of Representatives that will make it easier for federal agencies to share information about terrorism. The legislation makes co-ordination between the FBI and CIA a legal requirement.

June 11 2002. US authorities say they thwarted a plot by al-Qaeda to attack the country by detonating a radioactive 'dirty bomb' . The alleged bomber Abdullah al-Muhajir, also known as Jose Padilla, was arrested on 8 May at Chicago airport after arriving from Pakistan.

May 14 2002. President Bush signs a new immigration bill aimed at making it more difficult for terror suspects to enter the country. Recommendations include increased border checks and closer monitoring of foreign students. All passports issued after 2003 must now contain fingerprints or facial recognition technology.

April 11 2002. A lorry laden with dynamite and gas cylinders explodes at a synagogue on the Tunisian Island of Djerba, killing 17 people - 11 German tourists, five Tunisians and a Frenchman. German officials blame al-Qaeda and trace planning of the attack to Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, a senior al-Qaeda planner.

December 23 2001. Richard Reid, the so-called shoe bomber, is arrested on a flight from Paris to Miami. He allegedly had explosives hidden in his shoes.

December 14 2001. US Government releases a video which it says proves that Osama bin Laden masterminded the 11 September attacks. Indonesia acknowledges ties between local Islamic groups and Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.

December 12 2001. Zacarias Moussaoui is the first to be charged in connection with the 11 September attacks.

November 28 2001. Mounir El Motassadeq, charged with serving as an accessory to 3,044 murders in New York and Washington D.C. and with belonging to Hamburg al-Qaeda cell, is accused of masterminding the September 11 attacks. His trial, the first against a suspected 9/11 conspirator, begins in Hamburg in October 2002.

November 7 2001. US Government freezes the assets of financial networks alleged to be linked to Osama bin Laden, bringing to 62 the number of groups and people added to a list of suspected terrorist associates.

October 24 2001. US Congress approves anti-terrorism legislation that gives law enforcement agencies sweeping new powers to monitor and detain suspected terrorists.

October 7 2001. US and British forces begin air strikes against targets in Afghanistan.

October 5 2001. Robert Stevens, 63, dies in Palm Beach, Florida, after contracting pulmonary anthrax. Anthrax attacks kill five people and leave 17 seriously ill. Suggestions that Iraq or al-Qaeda might be responsible, are eventually discounted.

September 24 2001. The US authorities freeze the assets of 27 groups and individuals, many of them Islamic charities, alleged to be funding terrorist organisations.

September 14 2001. The FBI reveals the identities of the 19 alleged hijackers and launches the biggest investigation in its history. US Attorney-General John Ashcroft says that all roads in the investigation lead to Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organisation.

September 11 2001. Two hijacked airliners crash into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre. Soon after, the Pentagon is struck by a third hijacked plane. A fourth hijacked plane, suspected to be bound for a high-profile target in Washington, crashes into a field in southern Pennsylvania. More than 5,000 US citizens and other nationals are killed as a result of these acts.

December 30 2000. A bomb explodes in a plaza across the street from the US embassy in Manila, injuring nine people. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front is thought to be responsible.

October 12 2000. In Aden, Yemen, a small dingy carrying explosives rams the destroyer USS Cole, killing 17 sailors and injuring 39 others. Supporters of al-Qaeda are suspected.

December 14 1999. Ahmed Rezzam, an al-Qaeda operative based in Canada, is arrested as he crosses into the US near Seattle, when a bomb is found in his car. He admits he planned to detonate the bomb at Los Angeles airport on the millenium.

October 18 1998. A National Liberation Army (ELN) planted bomb explodes on the Ocensa pipeline in Antioquia Department, Colombia, killing about 71 people and injuring at least 100 others.

August 15 1998. A 500-pound car bomb planted by the Real IRA explodes in Omagh, Northern Ireland, killing 29 people and injuring more than 330.

August 7 1998. A bomb explodes at the rear entrance of the US embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, killing 247 Kenyans, 12 US citizens, and 32 Foreign Service Nationals (FSNs). About 5,000 Kenyans, six US citizens, and 13 FSNs are injured. Almost simultaneously, a bomb is detonated outside the US embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killing seven FSNs and three Tanzanian citizens. The U.S. Government holds Osama bin Ladin responsible.

November 17 1997. Al-Gama'at al-Islamiyya (IG) gunmen shoot and kill 58 tourists and four Egyptians and wounding 26 others at the Hatshepsut Temple in the Valley of the Kings near Luxor.

September 4 1997. Three suicide bombers of Hamas detonated bombs in the Ben Yehuda shopping mall in Jerusalem, killing eight people, including the bombers, and wounding nearly 200 others.

December 3 1996. A bomb explodes aboard a Paris subway train as it arrives at the Port Royal station, killing two French nationals, a Moroccan, and a Canadian, and injuring 86 people. No one claims responsibility for the attack, but Algerian extremists are suspected.

August 1 1996. A bomb exploded at the home of the French Archbishop of Oran, killing him and his chauffeur. The attack occurred after the Archbishop's meeting with the French Foreign Minister. The Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA) is suspected.

June 25 1996. A fuel truck carrying a bomb explodes outside the US military's Khobar Towers housing facility in Dhahran, killing 19 US military personnel and wounding 515 people, including 240 US personnel. Several groups claim responsibility for the attack.

June 15 1996. IRA truck bomb detonated at a Manchester, UK, shopping center, wounding 206 people, and caused extensive property damage.

March 4 1996. Dizengoff Center Bombing. Hamas and the Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ) both claim responsibility for a bombing outside of Tel Aviv's largest shopping mall that kills 20 persons and injuring 75 others.

February 26 1996. In Jerusalem, a suicide bomber blews up a bus, killing 26 people, including three US citizens, and injuring 80 others.

January 31 1996. Members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rammed an explosives-laden truck into the Central Bank in the heart of downtown Colombo, Sri Lanka, killing 90 civilians and injuring more than 1,400 others.

November 19 1995. A suicide bomber drove a vehicle into the Egyptian Embassy compound in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing at least 16 and injuring 60 people. Three militant Islamic groups claimed responsibility.

April 19 1995. Right-wing extremists Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols destroy the Federal Building in Oklahoma City with a massive truck bomb that kills 166 and injurs hundreds more in what is then the largest terrorist attack on American soil.

March 20 1995. Twelve people are killed, and 5,700 injured in a Sarin nerve gas attack on a crowded subway station in the center of Tokyo, Japan. A similar attack occurrs almost simultaneously in the Yokohama subway system. The Aum Shinri-kyu cult is blamed for the attacks.

February 25 1994. Jewish right-wing extremist and US citizen Baruch Goldstein machine-gun Moslem worshippers at a mosque in West Bank town of Hebron, killing 29 and wounding about 150.

April 14 1993. The Iraqi intelligence service attempts to assassinate former US President George Bush during a visit to Kuwait. In retaliation, the US launches a cruise missile attack 2 months later on the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

February 26 1993. The World Trade Center in New York City is badly damaged when a car bomb planted by Islamic terrorists explodes in an underground garage.

December 21 1988. Pan Am flight 103 is blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland, by a bomb believed to have been placed on the aircraft in Frankfurt, West Germany, by Libyan terrorists. All 259 people on board are killed.

November 29 1987. North Korean agents plant a bomb aboard Korean Air Lines Flight 858, which subsequently crashes into the Indian Ocean.

April 5 1986. Two US soldiers are killed, and 79 American servicemen injured in a Libyan bomb attack on a nightclub in West Berlin, West Germany. In retaliation, US military jets bomb targets in and around Tripoli and Benghazi.

June 23 1985. A bomb destroys an Air India Boeing 747 over the Atlantic, killing all 329 people aboard. Both Sikh and Kashmiri terrorists are blamed for the attack. Two cargo handlers are killed at Tokyo airport, Japan, when another Sikh bomb explodes in an Air Canada aircraft en route to India.

12 April 1984. Eighteen US servicemen are killed and 83 people injured in a bomb attack on a restaurant near a US Air Force Base in Torrejón, Spain. Responsibility is claimed by Hizbollah.

October 23 1983. Simultaneous suicide truck-bomb attacks are made on American and French compounds in Beirut, Lebanon. A 12,000-pound bomb destroys the US compound, killing 242 Americans, while 58 French troops are killed when a 400-pound device destroys a French base. Islamic Jihad claims responsibility.

October 9 1983. North Korean Hit Squad blows up a delegation from South Korea in Rangoon, Burma, killing 21 people and injuring 48.

April 18 1983. Sixty-three people, including the CIA's Middle East director, are killed, and 120 injured in a 400-pound suicide truck-bomb attack on the US Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. The Islamic Jihad claims responsibility.

October 6 1981. Soldiers who are secretly members of the Tak fir Wal-Hajira sect attack and kill Egyptian President Anwar Sadat during a troop review.

November 20 1979. Two hundred Islamic terrorists seize the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, taking hundreds of pilgrims hostage. Saudi and French security forces retake the shrine after an intense battle in which 250 people are killed and 600 wounded.

March 16 1978. Italian premier Aldo Moro is seized by the Red Brigade and assassinated 55 days later.

September 5 1972. Eight Palestinian "Black September" terrorists seize 11 Israeli athletes in the Olympic Village in Munich, West Germany. In a bungled rescue attempt by West German authorities, nine of the hostages and five terrorists are killed.

July 21 1972. Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb attacks kill 11 people and injures 130 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Ten days later, three IRA car bomb attacks in the village of Claudy leave six dead.

Sources: US Department of State; BBC; ERRI; Reuters;

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006

July 1, 2006 at 11:54 AM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

British agents trace 7/7 terror links to smalltown America

British agents trace 7/7 terror links to smalltown America - Britain - Times Online

By Daniel McGrory
No 10 rejects calls for inquiry into bombings as evidence emerges of extremists’ role in global terror network
BRITISH agents are operating in the United States to trace links with Islamic extremists from England who recruit Muslims to fight for terrorist groups abroad.

The British-led investigation has played a part in identifying a number of US-based terrorists and helped the authorities in Washington to break up an al-Qaeda cell operating in Falls Church, Virginia.

The agents are particularly keen to discover if the visitors included Mohammad Sidique Khan, leader of the July 7 suicide bombers, who is alleged to have travelled to America’s East Coast to meet fellow militants and stage a series of attacks on synagogues.

Khan was considered such a threat that he was banned from returning to America two years before the attack on London, according to a book written by a US intelligence specialist.

The disclosure, made by the award-winning author Ron Suskind in an extract from The One Percent Doctrine in The Times yesterday, led to calls for a full public inquiry into intelligence lapses before the attacks on July 7 which killed 52 people in London.

Intelligence sources in America insist that the man they were alerted to was Khan.

However, Tony Blair’s spokesman said the claims would not lead to any further investigation by the Intelligence and Security Committee, which last month cleared MI5 of serious errors, or any other form of inquiry. “The [Security and Intelligence] Committee’s conclusion is that there was not an intelligence failure,” he said.

The Conservatives have called for an independent inquiry into the July 7 bombings, while the Liberal Democrats and victims’ relatives want a full public inquiry.

Neither the FBI nor police would comment on the investigations into Khan’s alleged visits to the US in 2002, but, in Falls Church yesterday, residents blamed “foreign agitators” for encouraging young men from the city’s Muslim community to join extremist groups linked to al-Qaeda.

In the Falls Plaza shopping mall, most preferred to chat about their historic city’s latest civic award for its floral displays and not its reputation as the jihad capital of America.

Over the past few months, 11 men who regularly attended the same Islamic Centre in Falls Church have been convicted of terrorism charges. Seven reportedly went to training camps in Pakistan, including one used by Khan.

Their trials exposed a network stretching from this placid commuter belt serving the US capital ten miles away, passing through British cities and on to jihadi camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

A twelfth man from this city of barely 11,000 residents, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, was jailed for 30 years in March for plotting to assassinate President Bush and being a member of al-Qaeda. FBI investigators claim in The One Percent Doctrine that Abu Ali, 24, was in regular e-mail contact with Khan.

The latest trial of the “Virginia 11” led to a junior school teacher, Ali Asad Chandia, being convicted on June 6 for giving aid to the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group, which is banned in both the US and Britain. A number of Scotland Yard officers and British intelligence agents gave evidence.

Like Khan, who worked as a teaching assistant in Leeds, Chandia, 29, was popular with parents and pupils, and his family deny he had any links with British extremists or trained at a camp in Pakistan.

Prosecutors described how Chandia had worked as a chauffeur for a London-based terrorism organiser, Mohammed Ajmal Khan, who was jailed for nine years in March in Britain after admitting shipping weapons to Pakistan.

Chandia was also described as the personal assistant to a charismatic young preacher in Falls Church, Ali al-Tamimi — a US-born biology graduate — who in January was sentenced to life plus 70 years, without parole, for encouraging his followers to go to Afghanistan to fight US-led coalition troops.

The National Security Agency is accused of bugging mosques and private homes where al-Tamimi preached, including the Dar al-Hijrah centre on the edge of Falls Church. This glass-fronted mosque acquired its notoriety in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks when it was discovered that the imam, Sheikh Anwar al-Awlaki, was the spiritual mentor to two of the hijackers.

The imam was never charged but moved to Yemen. His successor, Joharri Abdul Malik, says: “The community is disturbed by what previously happened here,” but believes many of the “Virginia 11” were jailed for “having big mouths”.

“They made inappropriate and irreponsible comments,” the imam said. “Some did go to training camps but none fired a shot in anger, and once they were in places like Pakistan and Afghanistan and saw what it was really like, they soon had a change of heart and came home. They are guilty of thought crimes.”

Imam Joharri is angered that the FBI did not approach community leaders to discuss concerns that extremists from Britain and elsewhere were trying to recruit youngsters from the area. “If the authorities knew this was going on, why weren’t we warned?” he asked.

He described how Ali al-Tamimi, frustrated at his failure to take control of the mosque, led a breakaway group of his followers to a trading estate on the opposite end of the city to set up the Dar alArqam Centre for Islamic Information. The building included the offices of two charities outlawed by the US as fronts for terrorism organisations.

After al-Tamimi’s conviction, what was left of his group abandoned the Dar al-Arqam centre, which no longer has any links with fundamentalist groups. FBI sources say they are unsure what has happened to some of his followers.

THE PROPOSALS

Among the measures suggested by the task force which have yet to be taken up:

# A public inquiry into 7/7 bombings
# Rapid rebuttal unit to combat Islamophobia
# National resource unit for development of curricula in mosques and madrassas, and guidelines for teachers
# Programmes to “upskill” current imams
# Muslim “beacon centres” to help small mosques and cultural centres
# Set up and fund network of Muslim safety forums to promote meaningful partnership between community and police
# Ministerial review of raids, stop and search and armed police activity
# Correct the “alien” image of Islam in the national curriculum

June 19, 2006 at 10:02 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Men attended `training camp': Sources

TheStar.com - Men attended `training camp': Sources

un. 3, 2006. 07:25 AM
MICHELLE SHEPHARD, SURYA BHATTACHARYA AND STAN JOSEY
STAFF REPORTERS

A group of Canadian teenagers and young men in their 20s, accused by police of being members of a suspected homegrown terrorist cell, will appear in court this morning to face accusations that they plotted to attack Canadian targets, the Toronto Star has learned.

Some members of the group allegedly attended a "training camp" north of the city where they made a video imitating military warfare, and the suspects allegedly had acquired weapons and listed targets in Ontario, sources told the Star.

Some members of the group allegedly attended a "training camp" north of the city where they made a video imitating military warfare, and the suspects allegedly had acquired weapons and listed targets in Ontario, sources told the Star.

Led by the RCMP's anti-terrorism task force, more than 400 police officers from across Ontario made the series of arrests last night and early this morning, taking as many as a dozen suspects into custody at a heavily guarded Pickering police station. Sources said there was a concern that some of the group's members had acquired explosives.

The arrested men were driven one by one into the Ajax Pickering community police station at Brock and Kingston Rds. and were taken into the underground garage for processing. Unmarked police cars lined up outside the door, with one car being allowed in approximately every 15 minutes.

Members of the Durham region tactical unit were stationed at one-metre intervals providing a security wall around the police property. Just before 11:30 p.m., five vans belonging to Toronto police's elite Emergency Task Force unit and the force's canine unit converged on a Scarborough home.

The arrests were expected to continue overnight and early this morning, sources say.

Sources told the Star that the group had been watched by Canada's spy service since 2004 and a criminal investigation by the RCMP began last year.

It's not known specifically why police acted last night and none of the allegations have been proven in court.

The group is being charged under the new anti-terrorism legislation introduced into the criminal code in December 2001, after the 9/11 attacks. It's only the second time the terrorism laws have been used in Canada.

Mohammad Momin Khawaja, an Ottawa-area software operator, was the first person arrested on terrorism charges and will stand trial in January for his alleged connection to a British group.

Sources close to last night's investigation are calling the suspects arrested yesterday a "homegrown" group, meaning they are Canadian citizens or long-time residents, raised and allegedly radicalized without leaving the country. It's a phenomenon Canadian officials have been warning about for the past few years.

The London bombings on the subway and a double-decker bus last July were blamed on a homegrown British group.

Although the RCMP would not talk about the arrests last night, community sources confirmed the names of three of the men now behind bars.

Fahim Ahmad, a 22-year-old Scarborough father, was arrested late yesterday. He allegedly rented a car last summer for two men who were later caught bringing weapons across the border into Canada.

The arrests of two other men from Mississauga — brothers-in-law Ahmad Ghany and Zakaria Amara — shocked neighbours and family who said they couldn't believe the allegations.

"I think they have it wrong. Those guys have nothing to do with (terrorism)," said Scarborough Imam Aly Hindy.

Hindy has been a high profile critic of the RCMP and Canadian Security Intelligence Service, accusing the federal agency of targeting Muslims who criticize the foreign policies of Western governments.

He believes this is what led to the arrests yesterday.

"Because they are young people, and they are Muslims, they are saying it's terrorism," he said in an interview last night.

Ahmad had only moved into the Scarborough area, near Sheppard Ave. and Markham Rd., a few weeks ago.

"This is a good community and we're very shocked by the news. We leave our whole family here for the whole day, including our small children, and come back to this," said local resident Qadeer Mohammed.

"This very shocking, and the whole community will be affected."

The case is critical for Canada's international reputation and will be scrutinized worldwide as it works its way through the courts.

There has been cause for skepticism concerning the ability of Canada's intelligence and police services to prosecute security cases. Since 9/11, the majority of high-profile security investigations have ended in international embarrassment, such as the acquittal of suspects in the Air India bombing case and the Maher Arar affair which raised questions about international information sharing, exposed an inexperienced federal police force and left an Ottawa man broken after his deportation, detention and torture in Syria.

Then there was Project Thread, a 2003 joint immigration-RCMP case touted as the dismantling of an Al Qaeda cell, but ending in a routine immigration case that sent Pakistani students home branded terrorists.

With files from Bob Mitchell

June 3, 2006 at 08:48 AM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

How Internet monitoring sparked a CSIS investigation into a suspected homegrown terror cell

TheStar.com - How Internet monitoring sparked a CSIS investigation into a suspected homegrown terror cell

Jun. 3, 2006. 01:00 AM
MICHELLE SHEPHARD
STAFF REPORTER

Last night's dramatic police raid and arrest of as many as a dozen men — with more to come — marks the culmination of Canada's largest ever terrorism investigation into an alleged homegrown cell.

The chain of events began two years ago, sparked by local teenagers roving through Internet sites, reading and espousing anti-Western sentiments and vowing to attack at home, in the name of oppressed Muslims here and abroad.

Their words were sometimes encrypted, the Internet sites where they communicated allegedly restricted by passwords, but Canadian spies back in 2004 were reading them. And as the youths' words turned into actions, they began watching them.

According to sources close to the investigation, the suspects are teenagers and men in their 20s who had a relatively typical Canadian upbringing, but — allegedly spurred on by images of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan and angered by what they saw as the mistreatment of Muslims at home — became increasingly violent.

Police say they acquired weapons, picked targets and made detailed plans.

They travelled north to a "training camp" and made propaganda videos imitating jihadists who had battled in Afghanistan. At night, they washed up at a Tim Hortons nearby.

One was a math and chemistry whiz from Scarborough who grew up to become a 22-year-old husband and father.

It's unclear why the authorities decided to act on their suspicions yesterday. None of these allegations has been proven in court, where the suspects are expected to appear for the first time this morning.

Sources say the arrests involve a "homegrown" terrorism cell — Western youths who have never set foot in Afghanistan but allegedly were radicalized here, and who are thought to be potentially as dangerous as the cells that once took orders from Osama bin Laden. Western governments, including Canada's, have repeatedly warned of this phenomenon and blamed recent attacks, such as last July's bombings in London, as the work of such groups.

The Canadian investigation involves a complicated web of connections, with alleged ties to two men from Georgia who came to Toronto in March 2005 to meet with "like-minded Islamic extremists," according to U.S. court documents.

Details of the Canadian investigation will be officially released this morning at a news conference.

For the spies who work on the 10th floor of a Front St. office building, with the CN Tower looming above and a hub of Toronto's tourist district buzzing below, this investigation was personal.

The group arrested yesterday allegedly had a list of targets, sources have told the Star, and the Toronto headquarters of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service was one of them.

So were the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa and a smattering of other high-profile, heavily populated areas. But since most of the suspects lived in the GTA, it was the potential threat to the spy service's office and the chaos an attack would create in the heart of Toronto that concerned CSIS most.

According to sources, the suspects allegedly planned to target the spy service because many of them had encountered agents early in the investigation, when they were interviewed and put under surveillance. They also were allegedly angered by media reports accusing CSIS of racial profiling of Muslims.

Many of the agents were known to members of the group only by aliases, but the belief that the office had been targeted led to months of unease among CSIS staff, sources said.

Some of the group's members had even been spotted taking notes around the building, and at least one had reportedly visited the basement, one source told the Star.

The investigation began back in 2004, when CSIS was monitoring Internet sites and tracing the paths of Canadians believed to have ties to international terrorist organizations. Local youths espousing fundamentalist views drew special attention, sources say.

Since it was created 21 years ago, the spy service's mandate has been to protect Canada's security. It is not a police force; its agents don't carry weapons, have no power of arrest and traditionally have preferred to stay out of public view.

But CSIS does have a relationship with the RCMP, albeit one traditionally fraught with turf wars and communication problems, and the focus of criticism and concern since 9/11.

The two federal agencies work independently, but when CSIS is monitoring someone who could be prosecuted criminally, the spy service notifies the Mounties in what's known as an "advisory letter."

`We are seeing phenomena

in Canada such as the emergence of homegrown second and third generation terrorists'

Jack Hooper, CSIS deputy director

That happened in this case on Nov. 17, 2004.

Four months after authorities began to fear that Canada might have its own homegrown terrorist cell, two Americans entered the picture.

Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, a 19-year-old U.S. citizen of Bangladeshi descent who had attended high school in Ontario, and Syed Haris Ahmed, 21, a student at Georgia Tech, boarded a Greyhound bus in Atlanta on March 6, 2005, and travelled to Toronto to meet "like-minded Islamic extremists," a U.S. court document alleges.

At the time the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force was watching the U.S. pair, Sadequee, according to court documents, was already on a no-fly list. But they crossed the border uneventfully and met three people associated with the group the Canadian authorities were watching.

Ahmed later told authorities that the meetings were to discuss U.S. locations suitable for a terrorist strike, including oil refineries and military bases, court documents state. They also allegedly talked about how to dismantle the Global Positioning System in an effort to disrupt military and commercial communications and traffic, and their plans to go to Pakistan to train at "terrorist-sponsored camps." (The FBI claims Ahmed "later travelled to Pakistan in an attempt to receive just such training.")

Ahmed is now in U.S. custody, indicted in March for material support of terrorism. He has pleaded not guilty.

Sadequee is accused of making false statements in connection with a terrorism investigation. He was arrested in April in Bangladesh and handed over to American authorities — a transfer his lawyer later characterized in court as being closer to a kidnapping than an arrest. Sadequee was flown to Alaska, according to U.S. news reports, and, having waived a preliminary hearing, consented to being transferred to Brooklyn, N.Y. He has been denied bail and is awaiting trial.

Fahim Ahmad, who was arrested as part of yesterday's sweep, was living with his wife and children in a Scarborough apartment in August 2005, while authorities were watching him closely. The 22-year-old allegedly rented a car for two Toronto-area men to go to the U.S.

The licence plate was flagged so it could be pulled over upon its return to Canada, sources told the Star and court documents confirm. On Aug. 13, at 5:30 a.m., a student working with the Canada Border Services Agency at the Peace Bridge in Fort Erie pulled over the white Buick that Ahmad had rented, which was being driven by Yasin Mohamed, 24, of Toronto, with Ali Dirie, 22, whose last address was in Markham, as a passenger.

The car was targeted because its plate number came back with the warning: "Look out, possible narcotic involvement," on a customs database, court documents state.

After the two were briefly questioned, a superintendent was called over, and Dirie and Mohamed were told to wait outside the car as it was searched.

"The customs inspector noticed that Mohamed seemed to fidgeting with his hands in his pockets, and unable to stand still despite being told to keep his hands where the officers could see them," states the summary that was read into the court record during a hearing last October.

Both appeared nervous, frequently looking at each other. At one point Mohamed tried to push his back away from the wall where he was placed, the documents state. It was at that point that the customs officer discovered a loaded Highpoint .380 calibre handgun that Mohamed had tucked inside his waistband. Ammunition, some of which did not match the guns the men were bringing in, fell out of his pockets as he was being handcuffed.

Officers later found two loaded handguns taped to Dirie's inner thighs — a Millennium PT 19mm and a .380 Calibre Jennings. In his socks they found a magazine for a semi-automatic handgun and "several rounds of ammunition," according to the court transcripts.

Both men, who are landed immigrants, had minor criminal records and told the court they were buying the guns for their own "protection." They pleaded guilty last October and were both given two-year sentences.

"Whether they were mules, whether they were going to use them for their own protection, which is all we have right now, we have nothing to indicate that they were going to be sold," St. Catharines Crown attorney Ron Brooks told the court, according to a transcript of the October sentencing hearing.

"But the bottom line is — the mayor of Toronto indicated fairly recently in an interview — is that there's only one thing that you can use weapons of that nature for, and it's either to kill somebody or to give them to somebody else to kill somebody."

Ahmad, who rented the car, was not charged in the incident.

As to laying such as charge, "I think the only thing we'd be looking at there is if they aided in the commission of the substantial offence. Did they send them on this mission with a rented car? To my knowledge there was not any information that would support the laying of a criminal charge in that case," Niagara police Insp. Brian Eckhardt said in an interview earlier this year.

"I'm sure it was looked at at the time, which is what we always do."

`I do believe that when the time comes, a number of these people will attempt to do something quite serious.'

Dale Neufeld, retired CSIS deputy director

The Star contacted Ahmad last March to discuss the incident, but he refused to meet or answer questions about why he rented the car for the two men.

"I don't want to be discussing this," Ahmad said. When asked about the car rental, he replied: "The police and whatnot, they know my side of the story and that's all that matters."

Mohamed and Dirie both declined the Star's request to be interviewed. Mohamed's brother also said his family did not want to comment.

Although there was no public acknowledgement of this investigation, by last fall, officials were beginning to send out frequent warnings about a homegrown threat.

In the only interview CSIS director Jim Judd has given since taking the helm of the service, he told the Star in September that homegrown terrorism was a pressing concern mainly because it's so difficult to detect.

Unconnected to the case, but being watched closely during this time by Canadian authorities, was the Netherlands investigation into the assassination of filmmaker Theo van Gogh and a young local extremist cell dubbed the Hofstad Group.

Made up of mainly Dutch-born youths angered by van Gogh's critical portrayal of Islam, Canadian authorities believed the group was eerily similar to the Canadian group, sources say. They appeared to be unsophisticated, disenfranchised youths, but the group became a growing threat, killing van Gogh and forcing a number of political figures to go into hiding or flee the country.

That the Canadian group shouldn't be underestimated was a message that hit home.

Last winter, the investigation took a turn when some of the younger members allegedly went north to what police were referring to as a "training camp."

By February this group was being viewed in police and intelligence circles as Canada's greatest terrorism threat. Chiefs of Ontario police forces, including Toronto's Bill Blair, met in Toronto for a high-level briefing.

While the public denials of any specific threat continued, hints were dropped.

During a Senate committee review of Canada's anti-terrorism legislation, now-retired CSIS deputy director Dale Neufeld spoke at length about Canadian-born radicalized youths.

"It's the second generation, the children of Muslims who are born in this country. They have a very normal upbringing, according to our analysis, but at some point in their teenage years or young 20s, they decide that radical Islam is the path they want to take," Neufeld said.

"The other (concern) is young Canadians who are generally quite disillusioned, which is again very disturbing because it's hard to detect and hard to investigate. They're the kids who don't do well in high school, but could do anything. They could become petty criminals. They could get involved in the drug culture. They might join a motorcycle gang. We're now seeing a number of examples where they decide to take up Islam in the radical form.

"It's not just rhetoric. I do believe that when the time comes, a number of these people will attempt to do something quite serious."

On Monday, as final preparations were being made for yesterday's arrests, current CSIS deputy director Jack Hooper again spoke before senators of the threat posed by young people radicalized at home.

"We are seeing phenomena in Canada such as the emergence of homegrown second- and third-generation terrorists. These are people who may have immigrated to Canada at an early age who become radicalized while in Canada. They are virtually indistinguishable from other youth. They blend into our society very well, they speak our language and they appear to be, for all intents and purposes, well assimilated," Hooper said.

He talked about youths absorbing radical ideas from the Internet.

"You are satisfied from the information you have that the homegrown terrorist is primarily looking at targets in Canada?" Senator Michael Meighen asked.

The normally verbose Hooper answered with a curt, "Yes."

Michelle Shephard covers terrorism and security issues for the Toronto Star. She can be reached at mshephard@thestar.ca or 416-869-4391.

June 3, 2006 at 08:47 AM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Threat tracker - visual display

http://www.trackingthethreat.com/flash/nav.jsp

January 27, 2006 at 12:54 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Bomber spotted a year before July 7

London bombs terror attack The Times and Sunday Times Times Online

By Michael Evans
Analysis of surveillance tapes found that the terrorists' leader cropped up more than was thought
THE leader of the London suicide bombers, Mohammad Sidique Khan, appeared on surveillance tapes a year before the attacks on July 7, the security services have admitted.

MI5 has been trawling through transcripts of eavesdropping tapes and video footage of surveillance carried out on a large number of terrorist suspects over a period of about 12 months, leading up to the attacks on the London Underground and a double-decker bus.

ts analysts have been checking to see what could have been uncovered about Khan’s activities and preparations for the suicide bombings.

Previously it had been admitted that one surveillance tape had identified Khan but he had been judged to be only “on the periphery” of suspected terrorist endeavours and, with limited resources available, he was not considered a priority.

Like many other potential suspects caught up in the process of long-term surveillance operations, Khan escaped the net because there was insufficient evidence against him to merit a full-scale monitoring programme, which can take up to 20 MI5 officers for each suspect.

However, since the July 7 bombings, MI5 and other secret agencies have produced a wealth of intelligence that has enabled the Security Service to pinpoint Khan’s activities in the previous year with more accuracy.

Security sources said that with the new intelligence it had been possible to identify Khan on a number of surveillance tapes, matching what were often grainy pictures taken in the dark with the features and profile of the suicide bomber.

The sources said that it was not just a question of benefiting from hindsight. It was the post-July 7 intelligence that had helped to build up a fuller picture of a potential terrorist plot and the key individuals who were to be involved. Apart from Khan, there was also some prior knowledge of Shehzad Tanweer, one of the other suicide bombers.

The discovery of more tape and video evidence puts MI5 in a sensitive position. While the organisation can argue that it did not have the resources to follow every suspect who flitted in and out of its long-term surveillance operations, the more that the Security Service finds from the past records, the more difficult it will be to satisfy the families of the 52 victims of the London bombings that everything possible had been done to try to prevent the terrorist attacks.

The parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee, headed by Paul Murphy, the former Northern Ireland Secretary, has questioned Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, the Director-General of MI5, and several of her most senior intelligence officers on a number of occasions as part of its inquiry into the July 7 bombings.

The committee is examining whether there were intelligence failings and is expected to publish a report in March or April.

Separately, the Home Office is also drawing together a publishable “narrative” of the events leading up to July 7, which is expected to be published in the spring.

Tony Blair has ruled out holding a public inquiry into the bombings.

ON THE TRAIL OF A TERROR SUSPECT
# Mohammad Sidique Khan was spotted on several occasions meeting other terrorist suspects

# He visited a terrorist training camp in northern Pakistan in 2003

# Khan and Shehzad Tanweer were bugged talking about raising funds for Islamic extremism

# The pair went to Pakistan together in November 2004

# Khan learnt how to make bombs in the Pakistani al-Qaeda camp

January 25, 2006 at 09:42 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

US mosques checked for radiation

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | US mosques checked for radiation

US authorities have been secretly monitoring radiation levels at Muslim sites amid fears that terrorists might obtain nuclear weapons, it has emerged.

Scores of mosques and private addresses have been checked for radiation, the US News and World Report says.

A Justice Department spokesman said the programme was necessary in the fight against al-Qaeda.

Last week, President George W Bush admitted allowing the wiretapping of Americans with suspected terror links.

Mr Bush has defended the covert programme and vowed to continue the practice, saying it was vital to protect the country.

No warrants

According to US News and World Report, the nuclear surveillance programme was set up after the attacks of 11 September 2001.

It began in early 2002 and has been run by the FBI and the Department of Energy's Nuclear Emergency Support Team.

The Associated Press news agency said federal law enforcement officials have confirmed the programme's existence.

The targets were almost all US citizens
Source
US News and World Report

The air monitoring targeted private US property in the Washington DC area, including Maryland and Virginia suburbs, and the cities of Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas, New York and Seattle, the magazine said.

At its peak, three vehicles in Washington monitored 120 sites a day.

Nearly all of the targets were key Muslim sites.

"In numerous cases, the monitoring required investigators to go on to the property under surveillance, although no search warrants or court orders were ever obtained, according to those with knowledge of the programme," the publication said.

"The targets were almost all US citizens," an unnamed source involved in the programme told the magazine.

"A lot of us thought it was questionable, but people who complained nearly lost their jobs," the source said.

Muslim anger

Federal officials cited by US News and World Report said that monitoring on public property, such as driveways and parking lots, was legal and that warrants were not needed for the kind of radiation sampling it conducted.

They also rejected the claim that the programme specifically targeted Muslims.

A spokesman for the Department of Justice said the programme was necessary as al-Qaeda remained committed to obtaining nuclear weapons.

An FBI spokesman declined to confirm or deny the report.

The programme has been denounced by Islamic leaders in the US, who say that once again Muslims are being targeted by the government simply for being Muslim.

December 24, 2005 at 02:21 AM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Spies warned of Tube attack

Spies warned of Tube attack - Sunday Times - Times Online

David Leppard
SPYMASTERS warned Tony Blair before the July 7 suicide bombings that Al-Qaeda was planning a “high priority” attack specifically aimed at the London Tube.

A leaked four-page report by the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), which oversees all spying, is the first definitive evidence that the intelligence services expected terrorists to strike at the Underground.

The disclosure will fuel critics’ suspicions that Blair decided to rule out a public inquiry into the bombings last week because it could expose intelligence failings at the highest level.

The document, marked Top Secret and signed off by the heads of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, the government eavesdropping centre, was based partly on the interrogation of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Al-Qaeda’s then operations chief.

It stated: “The UK and its interests remain high in Al-Qaeda’s priorities . . . Plans have been considered to attack Heathrow, the London Underground and other targets.”

Ministers and senior security officials have insisted that there was no warning of an imminent attack ahead of the July 7 bombings, in which 56 people died.

While technically true, the leaked document dated April, 2003, will be seized on by critics to show that ministers failed to disclose that they knew Al-Qaeda was targeting the Tube.

A statement in September 2003 by the prime minister and Sir John Stevens, the then Metropolitan police commissioner, that a suicide attack was “inevitable”, did not name the Tube as a specific target.

The performance of MI5 has already been criticised because it lost track of Mohammad Sidique Khan, leader of the suicide gang, whom it placed under temporary surveillance 18 months before the bombings.

Officers judged that Khan was not an immediate threat to national security and decided to stop monitoring him.

Blair ruled out a public inquiry on the grounds that it would detract from the investigation into the July 7 bombs and the failed July 21 attacks.

The report dated April 2, 2003 is entitled International Terrorism: The Current Threat from Islamic Extremists. Mohammed, who organised the 9/11 attacks, had been arrested in Pakistan the previous month.
In a key passage it states: “The UK and its interests remain high in Al-Qaeda’s priorities. Interrogation of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other detainees confirms this.

“It shows that plans have been considered to attack Heathrow, the London Underground and other targets.”

The report adds that terrorist suspects with links to east Africa are under surveillance.

“We do not yet know the full nature of their activity, but they do not appear to be planning attacks here (some were questioned by the police).”

Five men have been charged over the July 21 attacks. Four of them came from either Ethiopia, Eritrea or Somalia.

JIC documents are circulated to a small group of senior ministers. These include the home secretary, the foreign secretary and defence secretary as well as top civil servants in Whitehall.

The Tories demanded the government publish the whole JIC document and disclose what other intelligence there had been about threats to the Tube. Patrick Mercer, the party’s homeland security spokesman, said: “This leak underlines our demand for an independent inquiry.”
# The police would consider shooting civilians to prevent contaminated people leaving a cordoned-off area in a radiological, biological, nuclear or chemical attack, Chris Fox, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, has said.

December 17, 2005 at 10:07 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Firearms officers in Welsh siege

BBC NEWS | Wales | Firearms officers in Welsh siege

Police officers remain embroiled in an armed siege hours after they swooped on a house in Wales searching for a man wanted over firearms offences.

Nearby residents have been evacuated for their "own safety" while the street - Cromwell Road in the Maindee area of Newport - remains sealed off.

Gwent police have been trying to make contact with the suspect.

The 38-year-old was killed while investigating a robbery on 18 November. Her colleague, Pc Teresa Milburn, 37, was also shot and injured.

Two men - Muzzaker Imtiaz Shah, 24, and 25-year-old Mustaf Jama - are being hunted by police over the incident.

Newport has a large Somali community and Mr Jama is Somali but police have refused to comment on whether they were searching for him.

Police in Wales say two local schools - St Patrick's on Fairfax Road and St Andrew's Infants on Milner Street - will be closed because of the siege.

'Battering ram'

Chief Inspector Heather Jones said: "The schools will be closed because the inquiry is ongoing.

"We have to make sure the search area is safe."

One resident saw a heavy police presence opposite her house when she woke at 7am.

She said: "We think they broke down the door with a battering ram but the man they want to question is still inside.

"We've seen armed police, riot police, uniformed police and dog handlers. We've seen black vans as well as normal police vans."

Chief Insp Jones said: "Gwent Police are attempting to establish contact with a man in the Maindee area with regard to firearms offences.

"Residents in the locality have been evacuated as a precautionary measure for their own safety and Gwent Police are looking after their welfare."

December 11, 2005 at 08:37 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

The Training of Terrorist Organizations

From: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1995/SDE.htm

by Major David E. Smith USMC

training_of_terrorism_xi

CONCLUSIONS

My first conclusion is that there is no evidence today of a

worldwide terrorist training apparatus.

This is because there is no nation, or block of nations, with both the resources and the belief that its political goals will be furthered by a coordinated global terrorist assault against an opposing camp. The world has fractured into a number of competing alliances and factions, each attempting to further its own ends. This has resulted in terrorist training cooperation along regional, ethnic and religious lines.

A second conclusion is that the training techniques for the
majority of terrorist organizations exhibit many similarities. The first and most important is that ideology is paramount. Political or religious indoctrination is stressed by everyone from Marighella to Islamic fundamentalists. Terrorists from most movements must
demonstrate ability and loyalty by performing simple tasks prior to being trained for more difficult assignments. Hence, as we have seen, Sendero recruits begin by painting graffiti while PIRA initial instruction is designed to build confidence rather than technical ability. Additionally, most groups have a small number of trained key personnel supported by many more less specialized members.

In l985 the British Army estimated the PIRA relied on only four or five master explosives experts.66 Finally, all groups are moving towards weapons and tactics that are increasingly sophisticated and deadly. Their level of violence is increasing, perhaps because the world has become immune to "routine" bombings and shootings.

Past patterns and current developments point to several
trends during the next ten years. First, Islamic fundamentalism will increase rather than wane, and it will be accompanied by continued cooperation in training among militant Islamic cliques. Algeria and Egypt will be subject to increased fundamentalist violence, and religion will have a greater appeal to the poor masses of those nations than their governments will. Continued Shia-Sunni, Iranian-
Sudanese concord will be particularly crucial to support terrorist organizations in North Africa and the Middle East. There is every indication that radical Sunni Islam is on the ascent.67 The increased immigration of Muslims to the United States will facilitate fundamentalist terrorist actions being conducted here in the same way they made it easier to operate in Europe.

Marxist groups will continue to decline because of the failure of communism in the former Soviet Union and general disillusionment with its philosophy. The remnants of those organizations have been deprived of their former East European safe havens. More importantly, they have lost their former popular support above and below ground. Without their support infrastructures these groups will eventually fade away.

Another future trend will be increased participation in the
political process by wings of terrorist organizations. Sinn Fein and the PIRA demonstrated how potent the terrorist political/military combination could be. They were emulated by the Basque ETA whose political wing, Herri Batasuna, generally draws l5 to l7 percent of the votes in the Basque region of north Spain.6 s Several Middle Eastern groups have entered the political arena. Hizballah has recently ventured forth into mainstream Lebanese politics and fundamentalist Islamic groups have attained political successes in
Turkey and Algeria. The political trend is also surfacing in South

America where the Patriotic Union has pursued the interests of the Colombian FARC.69 State-supported terrorism will remain common. This is because terrorism pays. Nations do not need to invest a great deal of resources to assist a terrorist organization, and can gain great negotiating power when it is presumed that they can influence the
activities of certain movements. Terrorism is a particularly effective means of confronting the United States. Saddam Hussein challenged the United States conventionally and was decisively defeated. Iran challenges us constantly through her surrogates and has not suffered

significantly for it. State sponsors of terrorism will be more wary of

the groups they aid, and will increase their efforts to infiltrate and

influence them, intensifying their attempts at agent recruitment

during training. They will increasingly try to guarantee that the

recipients of their assistance do not turn against them.

Ethnic and religious movements will perpetuate as the world

proceeds to evolve after the demise of the former Soviet Union.

Repressed minorities that were held in place by oppressive

communist regimes will struggle for national identity, and faced with

overcoming more heavily armed governments, will resort to

terrorism.

Surviving ethnic/nationalist groups operating in hostile territory

will become much more sophisticated as counter terrorist efforts

increase in effectiveness and expertise. "Survival of the fittest" will

be the rule; groups will either adapt or perish. Organizations that

are able to operate from territory controlled by their sponsors, such

as Hizballah in the Bekaa Valley, will not need to adapt as radically

to persevere. Terrorist groups may take a vested interest in

maintaining their safe havens and may deliberately attempt to

undermine the political, military, or diplomatic efforts of their

sponsors that could threaten them.

Alliances between terrorists and criminals are already a matter of

grave concern. The line separating terrorist organizations and

criminal enterprises has become indistinct, and may be more vague

in the future. The Irish Republican Army and the Loyalist

paramilitaries illustrate groups that risk significant financial loss if

there is a negotiated settlement to the conflict in Northern Ireland.

Protracted struggle lends an air of legitimacy to their local extortion

and racketeering operations. The growing worldwide appetite for

illegal narcotics will provide even greater incentives for alliances

between narcotics producers/distributors and indigenous terrorist

bands. The amount of money Peruvian and Colombian terror

organizations can extort from narcotics traffickers is staggering.

Many drug lords pay terrorists $l5,OOO per flight in or out of

protected runways.70 Police in Lima, Peru believe Sendero Luminoso

has accumulated $4O million, largely from runway "landing fees" .71

Future terrorists will continue to exploit publications that provide

instruction in useful techniques. Military manuals are common,

easily understood, and readily reproduced. The Anarchist's

Cookbook and publications such as the PIRA's Green Book

supplement those documents. Active duty or reserve military

training provides a background of experience that terrorists will

continue to tap as members of action teams and instructors. The

Former Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact have generated thousands of

dispossessed military commissioned and noncommissioned officers

who could conceivably be enticed to provide mercenary instruction.

The combination of profits from illegal undertakings, in conjunction

with an available pool of experienced instructors, could lead to

enhanced training for members of financially unconstrained

movements. In addition to individual instructors, corporations may

offer training to terrorist organizations. Israel's Hod Hohonit Security

Firm was investigated for training Colombian drug cartel

executioners.72

Many terrorists will continue to learn their initial skills while

serving periods of incarceration. John Stephenson (a.k.a. Sean

MacStiofain) of the Provisional IRA learned terrorist techniques from

Greek Cypriot inmates while serving a sentence at the Wormwood

Scrubbs Prison.73 Increased apprehension and sentencing of

terrorists to institutions where they mix with other convicted

criminals will provide them with a fertile recruiting ground, and a

violent and largely dispossessed audience for instruction/exchange of

ideas.

Terrorists will also avail themselves of advances in technology to

further their aims and enhance their training. John Maxwell Oliphant

developed a bomb making video for distribution to Aryan groups in

the United States.74 The Internet and other computer systems

provide a superb medium for spreading global propaganda.

Worldwide mobile communications systems provide the means for

coordinating training and operational planning across great distances.

In the long run, Soviet orchestration of international terrorist

training might seem like "the good old days", since Moscow exerted a

moderating influence on movements it supported, and historically

did not promote actions against United States territory. Today's

Islamic Fundamentalists will be less likely to refrain from attacks on

our soil (as we have seen with the World Trade Center Bombing).

That lack of restraint, with more advanced and lethal munitions, to

include weapons of mass destruction (as evidenced in Tokyo), will

exemplify the character of future terrorist operations.

MAPS Map One: Simferopol and Baku

Map Two: Plauen, Karl Marx Stadt, and Dresden

Map Three: Babelsberg and Kleinmachnow (Klein Machsrow)

Map Four: Varna

Map Five: Al Bayda (Al-Beida), Surt (Sirte), and Tukrah (Tokra)

Map Six: Baktia (PaktikaIPaktia), Jalabad, and Peshawar

Map Seven: Wadi Seidna (Wadi Saydna)
NOTES

l. Karl A. Segar, The Antiterrorism Handbook (Novato: Presidio Press), 6-1l.

2. David Segal, "Tehran's Terror Czar: Sayeed Ali Akbar Mohtashemi," Counterterrorism and Security Affairs, Winter l989-9O, l4- l7.

3. Segar, 4-6.

4. Eileen MacDonald, Shoot the Women First (New York: Random House), 47.

5. Joseph S. Bermudez, Terrorism, the North Korean Connection (New York: Taylor & Francis), l47.

6. MacDonald, 33-62.

7. Christopher Dobson and Ronald Payne, The Terrorists, Their Weapons, Leaders and Tactics (New York: Facts on File Publications), l2- l3.

8. Segar, 44-45.

9. Michael Connor, Terrorism, Its Goals, Its Targets, Its Methods (Boulder: Paladin Press), 22-26.

10. Connor, 27.

ll. Dobson and Payne, (The Terrorists), 7-8.

l2. Dobson and Payne, (The Terrorists), l3O-l3l.

l3. Roger W. Fontaine, Terrorism: The Cuban Connection (New York, Philadelphia, London: Crane Russack & Company), 36-37.

l4. Claire Sterling, The Terror Network (New York: Reader's Digest Press), l4.

l5. Christopher Dobson and Ronald Payne, The Carlos Complex A Study in Terror (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons), 33-34.

l6. Sterling, 253-254.

l7. Sterling, 255.

l8. Sterling, 255-256.

l9. Stephen Segaller, Invisible Armies Terrorism into the 199O's (San Diego, New York, London: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, Publishers), l26.

2O. Sterling, 278.

2l. Sterling 279.

22. Roberta Goren, The Soviet Union and Terrorism (London: George, Allen and Union), l38.

23. Sterling, 279-28O.

24. Bermudez, Joseph S. Terrorism, the North Korean Connection (New York: Taylor & Francis), l32.

25. Galia Golan, Gorbachev's "New Thinking" on Terrorism (New York: The Center for Strategic and International Studies), 88.

26. Golan, 89.

27. Bruce George and Timothy Watson, "Combating International Terrorism After l992" in European Terrorism Today & Tomorrow (New York: MacMillan Publishing), l9O.

28. Patrick Seale, Abu Nidal: A Gun for Hire (New York: Random House), 6-24.

29. Sterling, 26l-264.

3O. Michael Eisenstadt, "Syria and the Terrorist Connection," Jane's Intelligence Review, January l993, 33.

3l. Eisenstadt, 35.

32. Eisenstadt, 35.

33. Tim Ripley, "The PKK-Another Look at the Middle East's Shining Path," Jane's intelligence Review, August l993, 372.

34. "Intelligence Services Report Greece Supporting PKK", Berlin Die Welt, 2 December l994, l. Translated by Foreign Broadcast Information Service: JPRS Report l2 December l994, (JPRS-TOT-94-O48-L).

35. John M. Musacchio and Arnon Rozen, "Fundamentalist Fervor: Islamic Terrorism in the 8O's," Security Management, November l988, 56.

36. Paul Wilkinson, "Terrorism, Iran and the Gulf Region," Jane's Intelligence Review, May l992, 226.

37. Wilkinson (Iran), 224.

38. Wilkinson (Iran), 226.

39. "Israeli Police Find Faxes Calling for Attacks", Tel Aviv Yedi Ot Aharonot, 8 September l994, l and l7. Translated by Foreign Broadcast Information Services: JPRS Report l5 September l994 (JPRS-TOT-94-O3 8-l).

4O. Magnus Ranstorp, "Hezbollah' s Future?- Part l," Jane 's Intelligence Review, February l995, 34.

4l. Anthony Davis, "Foreign Combatants in Afghanistan," Jane's Intelligence Review, July l993, 327.

42. Davis, 328.

43 . Davis, 33l.

44. "'Growing Activity' at 'Islamic Extremists' Training Camps", Paris AL- WATAN AL ARABI, 6 January l995, 6. Translated by Foreign Broadcast Information Service: JPRS Report l9 January l995 (JPRS TOT-95-OOl-L).

45. James Bruce, "Arab Veterans of the Afghan War," Jane's Intelligence Review, April l995, l76.

46. "Sudan's Secret training Camps," The Economist, lO September l992, 2-3.

47. "Turning Informer," New York Times, !9 February l995.

48. "Deputy Speaker Defects, Details Foreign Terrorist Training", Cairo AL AHRAM, l7 January l994, Translated by Foreign Broadcast Information Service: JPRS Report 3l January l994 (JPRS-TOT-94- OO4-L).

49. James Wylie, "Sudan-The Middle East's Latest Rogue State," Jane's intelligence Review, July l992, 3ll.

5O. "Patterns of Global Terrorism," Department of State, l993, 25.

5l. Foreign Report, The Economist, l2 November l992.

52. Foreign Report, The Economist, 3O April l992, 4.

53. Ahmed Rashid, "March of the Militants," Far Eastern Economic Review, 9 March l995, l8.

54. Rigoberto Tiglao, "To Fight or Not to Fight," Far Eastern Economic Review, 9 March l995, 2l.

55. Thomas Bedford Jones Frank, "Sendero Luminoso: Origins, Outlooks and Implications. Naval Post Graduate School, Monterey, California, June l986, 53.

56. "Colombia's Other Gangsters," The Economist, 25 March l995, 48.

57. Robert A. Friedlander, Documents of International and Local Control Volume VI Global Terrorism in the Dangerous Decade (London, Rome, New York: Oceana Publications Incorporated), 299, 3lO.

58. Paul Wilkinson, "Terrorism in Europe-Retrospect and Prospect," Jane's The World In Conflict, 59.

59. Christopher Dobson and Ronald Payne, The Never Ending War- Terrorism in the 8O's (New York: Facts on File Publications), l8O.

6O. Dobson and Payne (Never Ending War), l82.

6l. Dobson and Payne (Never Ending War), l85.

62. Dobson and Payne (The Terrorists), 75.

63. MacDonald,l36-l37.

64. Roberta Goren, The Soviet Union and Terrorism (London, Boston, Sydney: George, Allen & Urwin), l39.

65. Jeffery D. Simon, The Terrorist Trap. America 's Experience With Terrorism (Bloomington& Indianapolis: Indiana University Press), 358.

66. Dobson and Payne (Never Ending War), l82

67. Judith Miller, "Faces of Fundamentalism: Hassan al Turabi and Muhammed Fadlallah," Foreign Affairs, November/December l994, l42.

68. John Durnton, "Basques Find Inspiration as I.R.A. Talks of Peace," New York Times, l6 April l995, 6.

69. Friedlander, 3O9.

7O. "Colombia's Other Gangsters", The Economist, 25 March l995, 48.

7l. Linda Robinson, "No Holds Barred", U.S. News & World Report, 28 September l992, 49.

72. "Counterterror Course for Beginners", Counterterrorism & Security, Winter l989-l99O, 2l.

73. Stephen E. Arthurs, Terrorism: A Reference Handbook (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO Inc.),78.

74. Brent L. Smith, Terrorism in America Pipe Bombs and Pipe Dreams, (Albany: State University of New York Press), 8O.
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November 11, 2005 at 10:33 AM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Indonesia terror attack warning

Scotsman.com News - Latest News - Indonesia terror attack warning

Australia has warned its citizens against travelling to Indonesia.

It said it had credible evidence that terrorists were in the "advanced stages" of plotting a terror attack before the end of the year.

In a revised travel advisory, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it continued "to receive a stream of credible reporting suggesting that terrorists are in the advanced stages of planning attacks against Western interests in Indonesia".

"Recent new information suggests that terrorists may be planning attacks to occur before the end of 2005," it added.

The department advised Australians to avoid all non-essential travel to Indonesia and warned those already in the archipelago nation to consider leaving immediately.

"Attacks could occur at any time, anywhere in Indonesia and could be directed at any locations known to be frequented by foreigners," the advisory warned.

Hotels, schools, shopping centres, restaurants, bars, embassies and "other areas where Westerners tend to gather" were all listed as possible targets.

Australian interests have been the target of several terrorist attacks in Indonesia in recent years.

Four Australians were among the 23 people killed by suicide bombers on the popular resort island of Bali on October 1 this year, and 88 Australians were also killed in the October 2002 Bali nightclub bombings.

The Australian Embassy was also targeted by suicide bombers in September last year, killing 11 people, none of them Australian.

© Copyright Press Association Ltd 2005, All Rights Reserved.

November 5, 2005 at 09:53 AM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

London bomber video could have been 'year old'

London bombs terror attack The Times and Sunday Times Times Online

By Sam Knight, Times Online

A video made by the London suicide bomber Mohammed Siddique Khan in which he explains his motives for the attack was probably made up to a year before the July 7 outrage, a former friend said today.

Security analysts are studying the video to ascertain when and where it was made, and whether it means that Khan and his fellow bombers had firm links with al-Qaeda, which released the video with the "al Sahab" logo that normally accompanies their tapes.

But while none of the neighbours knew what Khan and the three other bombers were planning for July 7, Irshad Hussain, who knew Khan because both lived in the same Dewsbury suburb, said the appearance of the video suggested they had been plotting for up to a year.

"It looks like an older video. I you look at his age when he blew himself up and you look at the video he looks pretty much younger there," he told BBC News.

"It is maybe something that whoever masterminded this held on to and waited to do exactly what they have done - cause more pain in this community."

Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, and Muslim leaders across Britain expressed their disgust today at the video of Khan, the presumed leader of the four bombers, that was broadcast last night on al-Jazeera television.

Khan's diatribe, in which he blamed the British public for the war in Iraq and said "We are at war and I am a soldier", was broadcast alongside a message from Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's second in command and the chief al-Qaeda ideologue.

Tony Blair declined to comment on the video but Mr Straw said: "There is no excuse, no justification for terrorism of any kind, and it happens that those who, entirely wrongly, claim to speak in the name of Islam are mainly killing their fellow Muslims."

Shahid Malik, Labour MP for Dewsbury, near where Khan worked as a teacher's assistant in a special needs school, said the video offered "an insight into the mind of the enemy within". Mr Malik added that it might jolt some British Muslims out of a sense of denial that British men carried out the bombings.

"I believe there is a hardcore rump within the British Muslim community that didn’t actually believe, somehow, that Siddique and his cohort were responsible. Rampant conspiracy theories mushroomed out of control," he said.

Inayat Bunglawala, of the Muslim Council of Britain, said the argument set out by Khan, in which he claimed that Londoners were complicit in a holy war against Islam, was completely flawed.

"Nothing can ever justify committing acts of terrorism against innocent civilians. It is quite absurd to suggest - as Mr Khan does in the video - that he is seeking justice for the people of Iraq and Palestine by committing an act of injustice against the people of London," he said.

Khan's repeated mention of the war in Iraq prompted some observers to say that it was time for the Government to acknowledge the link between terrorism and Britain's support of the US-led War on Terror.

Dr Azzam Tamimi, of the Muslim Association of Britain, said: "If the tape is genuine and they appear genuine then this proves what we have been saying all along. The involvement of Britain in the war in Iraq has provided Osama Bin Laden with extra ammunition to recruit these young Britons and brainwash them."

Mark Oaten, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman: "Britain’s involvement in the war in Iraq is no excuse for Muslim extremism. However, it would be wrong for the Government to deny that Muslim communities feel a sense of unease about our involvement in Iraq."

September 2, 2005 at 05:33 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Questions Unanswered in London Investigation

Questions Unanswered in London Investigation - New York Times

By ALAN COWELL and RAYMOND BONNER
Published: August 15, 2005

LONDON, Aug. 14 - With some fanfare in the weeks since the London bombings, the British authorities have quickly detained the main surviving suspects and, just as rapidly, embarked on a high-profile campaign to expel prominent, foreign-born Islamic figures as part of promised measures against extremism.

But the investigation into the lethal July 7 attacks and the failed July 21 attacks seems to have undergone some less publicized changes that have left important questions unanswered, in public at least. Some leads, once hotly pursued, have fizzled out. Others have proved to be blind alleys.

Investigators now doubt their early estimation that the two groups of attackers had an organizational link to Al Qaeda, a senior British police official said, though the attackers might have taken their inspiration from it. Nor have investigators identified any outside mastermind, or any evidence of an operational link between the groups of attackers.

Initially, Sir Ian Blair, commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police, said the July 21 attacks had some "resonance" with the earlier bombing: both attacks made targets of three subway trains and a bus; both involved young Muslim men with bulky bags or backpacks laden with homemade explosives capable, in his words, of wreaking "carnage."

Since then, comparisons of the two sets of attackers have become more nuanced. The groups differed in makeup. Three of the four July 7 bombers, who died with their 52 victims in subways and on a double-decker bus in London, were concentrated near Leeds, in the north, and were of Pakistani descent. The July 21 group, whose four bombs failed to go off in the London transit system, came from disparate areas, north, south and west of the city, and several of them were of African descent.

One of the suspects in the July 21 attacks, Hussain Osman, who is also known as Hamdi Issac and who fled to Italy, is an Ethiopian-born father of three who told investigators in Rome that their attacks were "copycat" attacks intended to frighten, but not kill, Britons, said his court-appointed lawyer, Antoinette Sonnessa. Still, investigators have not ruled out the possibility that the groups were linked, said diplomats here, and European and American law enforcement officials.

Philosophically, both groups seemed driven by a reverence for Osama bin Laden.

"Osama bin Laden is a hero in the Islamic view," said Mohamoud Nur, a Somali social worker, seeking to explain the draw of radical Islam among the 150,000 Somalis in London. "Somalis in Britain believe that Osama bin Laden stood against a superpower that oppressed people." But he denied that that belief would translate into suicidal terrorism.

Two weeks ago, the investigators thought they had identified a third cell, of six or seven men, that was preparing for another attack. But in recent interviews, two senior diplomats here who are kept informed of the investigation and an American official said investigators had concluded that the intelligence was faulty.

The investigation is entering a more difficult, grinding phase. Three of the four main suspects in the July 21 attack have been charged, which means that their interrogations have effectively ended - and that the police are legally severely limited in what they can say publicly about the case.

Some tasks are seemingly herculean. Investigators are trying to follow up on calls to Pakistan made from some of the homes and cellphones of the July 7 attackers. A Pakistani official said investigators were trying to trace more than 100 calls. But most were made to commercial telephone centers, which are common in many developing countries, where people pay by the call for connections.

"Can you imagine trying to get records from these call offices in Pakistan?" the official said.

Pakistani officials are also still tracing the activities of three of the July 7 bombers, who spent time in Pakistan in the last two years, the official said.

As the investigation continues, other possibilities for common strands between the groups of attackers have emerged.

They may have shared a sense of separateness from the society around them and from older generations - a phenomenon as familiar among second-generation immigrants in Leeds as among those in London. "These people do not have a strong identity," said Jemal Omar, a school career adviser from Eritrea, who is among 10,000 Eritreans who have found sanctuary here. "They are British more than their parents, and they are alienated because they don't fit in 100 percent."

That may make fundamentalism more alluring, said Mr. Nur, the Somali social worker. "If you are young and energetic and you feel marginalized and you meet this extreme ideology, it will be attractive."

Those influences could well have coalesced initially at the Finsbury Park mosque - once a hotbed of Islamic militancy under the stewardship of Sheik Abu Hams al-Masri, an Egyptian-born cleric wanted in the United States on terrorism charges dating from 1999. Mr. Masri is in detention facing extradition hearings.

Toaha Qureshi, the chairman of the trustees of the Stockwell mosque in south London, said Mr. Osman, the man held in Rome, was one of a group of Islamic militants in their 20's who tried to "take over" the Stockwell mosque in June 2003 after Britain's charitable authorities closed the Finsbury Park mosque.

Their intention was to use the mosque as a base for radical sermons and proselytizing, he said. According to the police, three of the July 21 bombers began their journeys at the Stockwell subway station, and Mr. Osman lived in a housing project in Stockwell with his wife, Yeshiemebet Girma, and their three children.

More conservative Muslims in Stockwell resisted the takeover attempt in 2003, Mr. Qureshi said. Thereafter, some of the radicals may have congregated in gyms - one of the bags in the July 21 attacks was from a chain of workout centers called Fitness First. The July 7 bombers, too, were reported to have operated outside mosques, congregating in places like Islamic bookstores and a gym.

Other suspects in the July 21 attacks who have been charged with attempted murder and explosives offenses in London include Ibrahim Muktar Said, an Eritrean-born British citizen who arrived in London with his parents at age 12 in 1990, and Yassin Hassan Omar, 24, a Somali refugee who arrived with his sister when he was 11.

But there were connections to cities besides London. One of the men accused in the July 21 attacks, Mr. Omar, was arrested in Birmingham, where a Somali minority has built in strength as Somalis migrate to Britain from other European countries like the Netherlands where, as refugees, they acquired citizenship enabling them to crisscross European frontiers at will.

Some of the people accused of helping Mr. Osman - who told British authorities he was a Somali when he came here from Italy in the mid-1990's - were seized in Brighton, on the south coast.

The ties between the July 21 attackers and their forebears' homeland seem to have been looser and less of an influence on their behavior than those of the July 7 attackers, with their travel in Pakistan, where religious extremism is strong.

"There's no link between them and Somali society whatever," Mr. Nur, the Somali social worker, said of the July 21 group, expressing a view echoed by Eritreans and Ethiopians. "Whatever developed in them was here in the United Kingdom."

Stephen Grey and Souad Mekhennet contributed reporting from London for this article, and William K. Rashbaum from New York.

August 16, 2005 at 08:24 AM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

City terror attack 'inevitable'

BBC NEWS | Business | City terror attack 'inevitable'

It is only a matter of time before London's financial centre is attacked by terrorists, police believe.

Potential targets in the Square Mile have been staked-out a number of times but no arrests made, said City of London Police Commissioner James Hart.

While the security "ring of steel" has been extended twice since 9/11, only half of firms have made contingency plans, he told the Financial Times.

Business group the CBI said "good links" have been formed with police.

"There is an ongoing dialogue," it told the BBC News website. "But more can always be done to raise awareness."

'Maximum disruption'

While there was no specific threat against the City, the mindset of terrorists meant that it was an "obvious target", said Mr Hart.

"If you want to hurt the government, hurt people at the same time, and you want to cause maximum disruption...where better to hit than at the financial centre?"

He added: "I think it is a matter of when, rather than if."

Mr Hart said the City of London had been a target for terror attacks for years, highlighting the number of times the area had been hit by the IRA.

In April 1992 three people were killed when a bomb exploded outside the Baltic Exchange and one person was killed in April 1993 when a bomb targeted the Bishopsgate area. Big business outside the City was targeted in 1996, when a large bomb was detonated in the Docklands.

Potential targets could now include prominent sites and business - "anywhere where the maximum damage can be inflicted on the financial systems," Mr Hart said.

'Sharpen up'

The City of London police estimate that only half of City firms have made adequate provisions for a terrorist attack.

Chief executives need to take a greater role in developing security policies, Mr Hart said.

"I need to get the matter of security on to their business agendas, so it is a little bit of a call to sharpen up."

While many of the large City firms were taking the threat seriously, there was a need to "sensitise those people that are a little bit complacent about this kind of thing".

Mr Hart said the larger firms needed to put "a friendly arm around smaller businesses within their shadow" as not all companies could afford sophisticated security staff.

Overall review

It is often a problem of insufficient time and money that prevents smaller firms from developing contingency plans, the Confederation of Small Businesses said.

It called for expert advice and tax breaks to be provided to the companies, many of which "have become more aware of their need to plan for emergencies and, in particular, terror attacks", since 9/11 and the London bombings.

Business lobby group London First says that 50% of companies are unprepared for a significant event, with small and medium companies particularly vulnerable.

It is estimated that 50% of firms that shut down temporarily in New York after 9/ll never reopened.

And the CBI says that only two-thirds of its members had conducted a strategic overall review of security in 2004, but it expects that after the London bombings businesses would take the threat more seriously.

August 10, 2005 at 08:37 AM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Prescott tells extremist: 'Enjoy long holiday'

ePolitix.com - Prescott tells extremist: 'Enjoy long holiday'

John Prescott has called on Islamic extremist Omar Bakri Mohammed not to return to the UK in the near future.

The deputy prime minister, in charge of government while Tony Blair is on holiday, spoke out after it emerged that the preacher had travelled to Lebanon on Saturday.

"Enjoy your holiday - make it a long one," Prescott said.

Bakri has said he would not return to Britain if he is not welcome.

Asked if Bakri should come back, Prescott added: "I don't think he is welcome by many people in this country, is he?

"But at the moment he has the right to come in and out. That is the circumstances at present and we have to change situations in this country by law.

"It's a democracy, not a dictatorship, for God's sake."

Bakri told BBC Radio Five Live he had travelled to Lebanon to visit family but planned to return in four weeks.

Prescott was non-committal on whether the controversial cleric would be allowed to return to Britain.

He said: "These are matters to consider when it happens. You [the media] are already talking about the changes that take place.

"We will have to look at how the circumstances change.

"You know that the home secretary's already made clear he has powers. He intends to extend them under the existing powers he has got at the moment. So let's wait and see what those proposals are.

"We have to act as the law is and as the convention operates."

August 9, 2005 at 05:48 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

It will be dangerous to ignore the man in the turban

Telegraph | Opinion | It will be dangerous to ignore the man in the turban

By Frank Gardner
(Filed: 07/08/2005)

So, the fervent strategist and spokesman of al-Qaeda was back on our screens last week. Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri promised Britain more death and destruction, and did his best to make life uncomfortable for the Prime Minister on the eve of his summer holidays. Let us leave aside for now the important question of whether or not he and his organisation really did have any operational role in last month's London bombings.

The issue that is becoming increasingly urgent is whether or not al-Qaeda - and those who follow its vengeful creed - have any sort of negotiable aims. On the surface of it there are plenty of grounds for thinking they don't. The last al-Qaeda militant I met gave me a big smile, said "Peace be upon you," then took out a pistol and shot me, leaving me for dead on the streets of Riyadh. But he was hardly a decision-maker. The question now is could or should the West come to an understanding with al-Qaeda ideologues in order to prevent further attacks, or would this simply be seen as surrender and an invitation to further violence?

Osama bin Laden offered Europe a truce last year, giving its governments three months to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan. The offer was ignored, but although the idea that you cannot and should not make deals with terrorists is a noble one, it is not always followed in practice. Witness the IRA. There are arguments both for and against trying to negotiate with al-Qaeda, but what Western leaders have largely failed to do until now is to take the trouble to really understand what on earth it is that al-Qaeda actually wants.

"They don't like us because they don't like our way of life," said President Bush about al-Qaeda on more than one occasion. That is missing the point; al-Qaeda's leadership has never given a stuff how Americans behave in their own country. What they object to most is the presence of Western forces in Muslim lands. It is true that one of the organisation's early ideological influences was an Egyptian engineer who returned from the US bitter and disgusted at what he saw there as decadent behaviour. But that is not the reason why bin Laden and those who follow him are at war with the West. The US Administration has also sought to depict al-Qaeda as nihilistic madmen with no discernible aims. Again, this is untrue. Al-Qaeda and those that follow it do have aims and grievances but they also have a maddening habit of shifting the goalposts.

In the 15 years that I have been watching the al-Qaeda phenomenon I have seen its agenda morph from being a localised, country-specific one into a global war with America and all its allies. Al-Qaeda as an organisation began as a way of administering the thousands of young Arab volunteers who had flocked to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets and then their Afghan communist allies. By the early 1990s bin Laden had turned his attentions towards his own country, Saudi Arabia, whose rulers he fiercely criticised for allowing in US troops. In backstreet bookshops in old Jeddah I would come across scratchy cassette tapes circulating illegally that shared his view. They carried sermons railing against the continued presence of these troops and against the Saudi government for keeping them there. By 1996 bin Laden had decided that America was the root of all problems for Muslims worldwide and that year he publicly declared war on Americans. But even then it was still safe for a Western journalist to visit him in his Afghan exile and several did. In fact we narrowly missed getting the first television interview with him because of the Taliban advance on Kabul. "Tell the BBC to wait until things settle down," he told his PR officer in London, a Saudi dissident now awaiting extradition to the US.

Yet over the next two years bin Laden became increasingly radicalised by the man in the turban we saw last Thursday. Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri had headed his own terrorist organisation, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, but after joining forces with bin Laden they issued their joint "declaration of jihad against Jews and crusaders" (ie Christians). Their beef was essentially that America should stop supporting Israel and what they saw as corrupt and apostate regimes in the Arab world.

When I interviewed Osama bin Laden's half-brother Yeslam this summer, he told me how al-Zawahiri's violent, global views on jihad and revenge were largely responsible for shaping Osama's own views on the direction al-Qaeda should take. In short, he got him to think big. Instead of limiting himself to condemning the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia, bin Laden and his senior commanders now sanctioned attacks on US embassies in east Africa, a billion dollar US warship in Yemen, and of course on New York and Washington. With the destruction of al-Qaeda's Afghan bases in 2001 it has become much harder to ascertain if there is any central direction behind the violence attributed to them. Last year's Madrid bombings, for example, appear to have been carried out by north African extremists with no operational ties to the rump al-Qaeda leadership in Pakistan.

If so, it could be argued, then what is the point in paying any attention to the latest rant from a man whose sole message seems to be one of violence? But to ignore al-Zawahiri all together would be dangerous. Even if it were true that he and his associates no longer control terrorist operations, his ideology inspires many, providing sanction to young jihadis who see in his words a reassurance that they have a secret duty to somehow hit back at the West for its actions in Muslim countries.

The Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary have rightly pointed out in recent days that al-Qaeda was attacking the West long before the invasions of either Iraq or Afghanistan. But it would be wrong to assume that al-Qaeda's attacks simply came out of nowhere. They stem from a desire both for revenge for perceived injustices and to warn off the West from "interfering" in Muslim countries.

The question of whether the West should talk to al-Qaeda is really an academic one. These people do not sit around long tables with bottles of Evian and interpreters. But they have, through smuggled video cassettes and internet broadcasts, and in their own pedantic and lecturing way, made their demands clear. These are: the withdrawal of all Western forces from Muslim lands, especially Iraq, the withdrawal of support for Israel, and of support for "apostate" governments, specifically in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. I am not for one minute suggesting that the West must do al-Qaeda's bidding, but it is easy to see how the first of these demands currently carries most weight amongst al-Qaeda's followers.

It is true that there are men at the heart of al-Qaeda who still dream of reviving by force the great mediaeval caliphate, an Islamic empire that once stretched from Andalusia to India. These individuals will probably never be satisfied until the whole world is one giant caliphate but their ideas have little popular appeal on the Muslim street. There are also the smouldering conflicts in Kashmir and Chechnya but these are hard to blame on the West. By contrast, the invasion of Iraq and - to a lesser extent - the denial of a viable Palestinian homeland are two burning, emotive issues for many, many Muslims. If these can be resolved then the extremist ideologues risk being left as rebels without a cause. If they are left to fester then al-Qaeda and its associations will never be short of recruits.
# Frank Gardner is the BBC Security Correspondent. His reports on al-Qaeda and global security can be seen on BBC1 and News24. Matthew d'Ancona is away.
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August 7, 2005 at 02:33 AM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Rumsfeld: London Attacks Not Retaliation

Rumsfeld: London Attacks Not Retaliation - Yahoo! News

By RYAN PEARSON, Associated Press Writer Thu Aug 4, 7:34 PM ET

LOS ANGELES - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Thursday rejected as "nonsense" the notion that recent terrorist attacks in London were retaliation for the U.S.-led war in
Iraq.

"Some people seem confused about the motivations and intentions of terrorists and about our coalition's defense of the still young democracies in
Afghanistan and Iraq," Rumsfeld said in a speech to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council.

"They seem to cling to the discredited theory that the recent attacks in London and elsewhere, for example, are really in retaliation for the war in Iraq or for the so-called occupation of Afghanistan," he added. "That is nonsense."

In a videotape broadcast earlier Thursday, the second-in-command for the al-Qaida terrorist network, Ayman al-Zawahri, threatened more destruction in London, saying that British Prime Minister
Tony Blair would be to blame.

Al-Zawahri also threatened the United States with tens of thousands of military dead if it does not withdraw its troops from Iraq immediately.

In his speech, Rumsfeld reiterated his oft-stated assertion that
Syria is helping the insurgency in Iraq. He said it is acting as a haven for Baathist former members of the
Saddam Hussein regime who fled Baghdad after the U.S. invasion, and allowing insurgents to cross its border with Iraq. He said the Syrians are making a mistake.

"What they're doing is harmful ultimately to themselves," he said. "They're going to have to live in that neighborhood, and Iraq doesn't like what Syria is doing. And Iraq is going to be in that neighborhood for a very long time and it's a bigger country and it will be a more powerful country."

Rumsfeld, meanwhile, paid tribute to the 21 Marines killed this week in Iraq, including the 14 killed Wednesday by a single roadside bomb near the city of Haditha in western Iraq.

"Patriots, they were determined to stop the terrorists from reclaiming Iraq and from launching more attacks on our people," he said. "Our nation needed them, called on them in battle, and mourns them now in death."

Rumsfeld spoke broadly about
President Bush's rationale for fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan — "the only way to defeat terrorism is to go after them where they are" — but said little about the administration's plan for turning over the security mission in Iraq to the Iraqis. He did suggest that the goal is within reach.

"Once Iraq is safely in the hands of the Iraqi people, and a government that they elected under a new constitution ... , our troops will be able to ... come home with the honor they will have earned," he said, without elaborating.

In response to a question from his audience about the U.S. military strategy in Iraq, Rumsfeld said that a key to getting U.S. forces out of Iraq is getting enough Iraqi government forces trained to take over.

"We're passing off pieces of real estate to the Iraqis as fast as they are capable of taking it over," he said.

___

On the Net:

Defense Department: http://www.defenselink.mil

August 6, 2005 at 02:19 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

The Logic of Suicide Terrorism

The Logic of Suicide Terrorism

It’s the occupation, not the fundamentalism

Last month, Scott McConnell caught up with Associate Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago, whose book on suicide terrorism, Dying to Win, is beginning to receive wide notice. Pape has found that the most common American perceptions about who the terrorists are and what motivates them are off by a wide margin. In his office is the world’s largest database of information about suicide terrorists, rows and rows of manila folders containing articles and biographical snippets in dozens of languages compiled by Pape and teams of graduate students, a trove of data that has been sorted and analyzed and which underscores the great need for reappraising the Bush administration’s current strategy. Below are excerpts from a conversation with the man who knows more about suicide terrorists than any other American.

The American Conservative: Your new book, Dying to Win, has a subtitle: The Logic of Suicide Terrorism. Can you just tell us generally on what the book is based, what kind of research went into it, and what your findings were?

Robert Pape: Over the past two years, I have collected the first complete database of every suicide-terrorist attack around the world from 1980 to early 2004. This research is conducted not only in English but also in native-language sources—Arabic, Hebrew, Russian, and Tamil, and others—so that we can gather information not only from newspapers but also from products from the terrorist community. The terrorists are often quite proud of what they do in their local communities, and they produce albums and all kinds of other information that can be very helpful to understand suicide-terrorist attacks.

This wealth of information creates a new picture about what is motivating suicide terrorism. Islamic fundamentalism is not as closely associated with suicide terrorism as many people think. The world leader in suicide terrorism is a group that you may not be familiar with: the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.

This is a Marxist group, a completely secular group that draws from the Hindu families of the Tamil regions of the country. They invented the famous suicide vest for their suicide assassination of Rajiv Ghandi in May 1991. The Palestinians got the idea of the suicide vest from the Tamil Tigers.

TAC: So if Islamic fundamentalism is not necessarily a key variable behind these groups, what is?

RP: The central fact is that overwhelmingly suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion as much as they are by a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the West Bank, every major suicide-terrorist campaign—over 95 percent of all the incidents—has had as its central objective to compel a democratic state to withdraw.

TAC: That would seem to run contrary to a view that one heard during the American election campaign, put forth by people who favor Bush’s policy. That is, we need to fight the terrorists over there, so we don’t have to fight them here.

RP: Since suicide terrorism is mainly a response to foreign occupation and not Islamic fundamentalism, the use of heavy military force to transform Muslim societies over there, if you would, is only likely to increase the number of suicide terrorists coming at us.

Since 1990, the United States has stationed tens of thousands of ground troops on the Arabian Peninsula, and that is the main mobilization appeal of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. People who make the argument that it is a good thing to have them attacking us over there are missing that suicide terrorism is not a supply-limited phenomenon where there are just a few hundred around the world willing to do it because they are religious fanatics. It is a demand-driven phenomenon. That is, it is driven by the presence of foreign forces on the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. The operation in Iraq has stimulated suicide terrorism and has given suicide terrorism a new lease on life.

TAC: If we were to back up a little bit before the invasion of Iraq to what happened before 9/11, what was the nature of the agitprop that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda were putting out to attract people?

RP: Osama bin Laden’s speeches and sermons run 40 and 50 pages long. They begin by calling tremendous attention to the presence of tens of thousands of American combat forces on the Arabian Peninsula.

In 1996, he went on to say that there was a grand plan by the United States—that the Americans were going to use combat forces to conquer Iraq, break it into three pieces, give a piece of it to Israel so that Israel could enlarge its country, and then do the same thing to Saudi Arabia. As you can see, we are fulfilling his prediction, which is of tremendous help in his mobilization appeals.

TAC: The fact that we had troops stationed on the Arabian Peninsula was not a very live issue in American debate at all. How many Saudis and other people in the Gulf were conscious of it?

RP: We would like to think that if we could keep a low profile with our troops that it would be okay to station them in foreign countries. The truth is, we did keep a fairly low profile. We did try to keep them away from Saudi society in general, but the key issue with American troops is their actual combat power. Tens of thousands of American combat troops, married with air power, is a tremendously powerful tool.

Now, of course, today we have 150,000 troops on the Arabian Peninsula, and we are more in control of the Arabian Peninsula than ever before.

TAC: If you were to break down causal factors, how much weight would you put on a cultural rejection of the West and how much weight on the presence of American troops on Muslim territory?

RP: The evidence shows that the presence of American troops is clearly the pivotal factor driving suicide terrorism.

If Islamic fundamentalism were the pivotal factor, then we should see some of the largest Islamic fundamentalist countries in the world, like Iran, which has 70 million people—three times the population of Iraq and three times the population of Saudi Arabia—with some of the most active groups in suicide terrorism against the United States. However, there has never been an al-Qaeda suicide terrorist from Iran, and we have no evidence that there are any suicide terrorists in Iraq from Iran.

Sudan is a country of 21 million people. Its government is extremely Islamic fundamentalist. The ideology of Sudan was so congenial to Osama bin Laden that he spent three years in Sudan in the 1990s. Yet there has never been an al-Qaeda suicide terrorist from Sudan.

I have the first complete set of data on every al-Qaeda suicide terrorist from 1995 to early 2004, and they are not from some of the largest Islamic fundamentalist countries in the world. Two thirds are from the countries where the United States has stationed heavy combat troops since 1990.

Another point in this regard is Iraq itself. Before our invasion, Iraq never had a suicide-terrorist attack in its history. Never. Since our invasion, suicide terrorism has been escalating rapidly with 20 attacks in 2003, 48 in 2004, and over 50 in just the first five months of 2005. Every year that the United States has stationed 150,000 combat troops in Iraq, suicide terrorism has doubled.

TAC: So your assessment is that there are more suicide terrorists or potential suicide terrorists today than there were in March 2003?

RP: I have collected demographic data from around the world on the 462 suicide terrorists since 1980 who completed the mission, actually killed themselves. This information tells us that most are walk-in volunteers. Very few are criminals. Few are actually longtime members of a terrorist group. For most suicide terrorists, their first experience with violence is their very own suicide-terrorist attack.

There is no evidence there were any suicide-terrorist organizations lying in wait in Iraq before our invasion. What is happening is that the suicide terrorists have been produced by the invasion.

TAC: Do we know who is committing suicide terrorism in Iraq? Are they primarily Iraqis or walk-ins from other countries in the region?

RP: Our best information at the moment is that the Iraqi suicide terrorists are coming from two groups—Iraqi Sunnis and Saudis—the two populations most vulnerable to transformation by the presence of large American combat troops on the Arabian Peninsula. This is perfectly consistent with the strategic logic of suicide terrorism.

TAC: Does al-Qaeda have the capacity to launch attacks on the United States, or are they too tied down in Iraq? Or have they made a strategic decision not to attack the United States, and if so, why?

RP: Al-Qaeda appears to have made a deliberate decision not to attack the United States in the short term. We know this not only from the pattern of their attacks but because we have an actual al-Qaeda planning document found by Norwegian intelligence. The document says that al-Qaeda should not try to attack the continent of the United States in the short term but instead should focus its energies on hitting America’s allies in order to try to split the coalition.

What the document then goes on to do is analyze whether they should hit Britain, Poland, or Spain. It concludes that they should hit Spain just before the March 2004 elections because, and I am quoting almost verbatim: Spain could not withstand two, maximum three, blows before withdrawing from the coalition, and then others would fall like dominoes.

That is exactly what happened. Six months after the document was produced, al-Qaeda attacked Spain in Madrid. That caused Spain to withdraw from the coalition. Others have followed. So al-Qaeda certainly has demonstrated the capacity to attack and in fact they have done over 15 suicide-terrorist attacks since 2002, more than all the years before 9/11 combined. Al-Qaeda is not weaker now. Al-Qaeda is stronger.

TAC: What would constitute a victory in the War on Terror or at least an improvement in the American situation?

RP: For us, victory means not sacrificing any of our vital interests while also not having Americans vulnerable to suicide-terrorist attacks. In the case of the Persian Gulf, that means we should pursue a strategy that secures our interest in oil but does not encourage the rise of a new generation of suicide terrorists.

In the 1970s and the 1980s, the United States secured its interest in oil without stationing a single combat soldier on the Arabian Peninsula. Instead, we formed an alliance with Iraq and Saudi Arabia, which we can now do again. We relied on numerous aircraft carriers off the coast of the Arabian Peninsula, and naval air power now is more effective not less. We also built numerous military bases so that we could move large numbers of ground forces to the region quickly if a crisis emerged.

That strategy, called “offshore balancing,” worked splendidly against Saddam Hussein in 1990 and is again our best strategy to secure our interest in oil while preventing the rise of more suicide terrorists.

TAC: Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders also talked about the “Crusaders-Zionist alliance,” and I wonder if that, even if we weren’t in Iraq, would not foster suicide terrorism. Even if the policy had helped bring about a Palestinian state, I don’t think that would appease the more hardcore opponents of Israel.

RP: I not only study the patterns of where suicide terrorism has occurred but also where it hasn’t occurred. Not every foreign occupation has produced suicide terrorism. Why do some and not others? Here is where religion matters, but not quite in the way most people think. In virtually every instance where an occupation has produced a suicide-terrorist campaign, there has been a religious difference between the occupier and the occupied community. That is true not only in places such as Lebanon and in Iraq today but also in Sri Lanka, where it is the Sinhala Buddhists who are having a dispute with the Hindu Tamils.

When there is a religious difference between the occupier and the occupied, that enables terrorist leaders to demonize the occupier in especially vicious ways. Now, that still requires the occupier to be there. Absent the presence of foreign troops, Osama bin Laden could make his arguments but there wouldn’t be much reality behind them. The reason that it is so difficult for us to dispute those arguments is because we really do have tens of thousands of combat soldiers sitting on the Arabian Peninsula.

TAC: Has the next generation of anti-American suicide terrorists already been created? Is it too late to wind this down, even assuming your analysis is correct and we could de-occupy Iraq?

RP: Many people worry that once a large number of suicide terrorists have acted that it is impossible to wind it down. The history of the last 20 years, however, shows the opposite. Once the occupying forces withdraw from the homeland territory of the terrorists, they often stop—and often on a dime.

In Lebanon, for instance, there were 41 suicide-terrorist attacks from 1982 to 1986, and after the U.S. withdrew its forces, France withdrew its forces, and then Israel withdrew to just that six-mile buffer zone of Lebanon, they virtually ceased. They didn’t completely stop, but there was no campaign of suicide terrorism. Once Israel withdrew from the vast bulk of Lebanese territory, the suicide terrorists did not follow Israel to Tel Aviv.

This is also the pattern of the second Intifada with the Palestinians. As Israel is at least promising to withdraw from Palestinian-controlled territory (in addition to some other factors), there has been a decline of that ferocious suicide-terrorist campaign. This is just more evidence that withdrawal of military forces really does diminish the ability of the terrorist leaders to recruit more suicide terrorists.

That doesn’t mean that the existing suicide terrorists will not want to keep going. I am not saying that Osama bin Laden would turn over a new leaf and suddenly vote for George Bush. There will be a tiny number of people who are still committed to the cause, but the real issue is not whether Osama bin Laden exists. It is whether anybody listens to him. That is what needs to come to an end for Americans to be safe from suicide terrorism.

TAC: There have been many kinds of non-Islamic suicide terrorists, but have there been Christian suicide terrorists?

RP: Not from Christian groups per se, but in Lebanon in the 1980s, of those suicide attackers, only eight were Islamic fundamentalists. Twenty-seven were Communists and Socialists. Three were Christians.

TAC: Has the IRA used suicide terrorism?

RP: The IRA did not. There were IRA members willing to commit suicide—the famous hunger strike was in 1981. What is missing in the IRA case is not the willingness to commit suicide, to kill themselves, but the lack of a suicide-terrorist attack where they try to kill others.

If you look at the pattern of violence in the IRA, almost all of the killing is front-loaded to the 1970s and then trails off rather dramatically as you get through the mid-1980s through the 1990s. There is a good reason for that, which is that the British government, starting in the mid-1980s, began to make numerous concessions to the IRA on the basis of its ordinary violence. In fact, there were secret negotiations in the 1980s, which then led to public negotiations, which then led to the Good Friday Accords. If you look at the pattern of the IRA, this is a case where they actually got virtually everything that they wanted through ordinary violence.

The purpose of a suicide-terrorist attack is not to die. It is the kill, to inflict the maximum number of casualties on the target society in order to compel that target society to put pressure on its government to change policy. If the government is already changing policy, then the whole point of suicide terrorism, at least the way it has been used for the last 25 years, doesn’t come up.

TAC: Are you aware of any different strategic decision made by al-Qaeda to change from attacking American troops or ships stationed at or near the Gulf to attacking American civilians in the United States?

RP: I wish I could say yes because that would then make the people reading this a lot more comfortable.

The fact is not only in the case of al-Qaeda, but in suicide-terrorist campaigns in general, we don’t see much evidence that suicide-terrorist groups adhere to a norm of attacking military targets in some circumstances and civilians in others.

In fact, we often see that suicide-terrorist groups routinely attack both civilian and military targets, and often the military targets are off-duty policemen who are unsuspecting. They are not really prepared for battle.

The reasons for the target selection of suicide terrorists appear to be much more based on operational rather than normative criteria. They appear to be looking for the targets where they can maximize the number of casualties.

In the case of the West Bank, for instance, there is a pattern where Hamas and Islamic Jihad use ordinary guerrilla attacks, not suicide attacks, mainly to attack settlers. They use suicide attacks to penetrate into Israel proper. Over 75 percent of all the suicide attacks in the second Intifada were against Israel proper and only 25 percent on the West Bank itself.

TAC: What do you think the chances are of a weapon of mass destruction being used in an American city?

RP: I think it depends not exclusively, but heavily, on how long our combat forces remain in the Persian Gulf. The central motive for anti-American terrorism, suicide terrorism, and catastrophic terrorism is response to foreign occupation, the presence of our troops. The longer our forces stay on the ground in the Arabian Peninsula, the greater the risk of the next 9/11, whether that is a suicide attack, a nuclear attack, or a biological attack.

August 5, 2005 at 09:56 AM in Al Qaeda, Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Timeline: London bombing developments

BBC NEWS | UK | Timeline: London bombing developments

A day-by-day look at developments following the London bombings:

THURSDAY 4 AUGUST

Osama Bin Laden's lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahri warned London will face more attacks because of Prime Minister Tony Blair's foreign policy decisions.

His comments were made in a videotape which was broadcast on Arab satellite channel al-Jazeera.

In London, Ismael Abdurahman is remanded in custody at his first court appearance over charges relating to the 21 July.

And in Rome, bomb suspect Osman Hussain will face an extradition hearing on 17 August.

WEDNESDAY 3 AUGUST

Ismael Abdurahman, 23, from Kennington, became the first person to be charged over the 21 July attacks.

Police said he had been charged with not reporting information that could have led to the apprehension of someone involved in terrorism.

It is understood the charge relates to the Shepherd's Bush bombing which Osman Hussain, held in Italy, is suspected of carrying out.

Meanwhile, a police leader warned the safety of London could be "fatally compromised" if police officers were not given time to rest and recuperate.

It was also revealed that work on some murder investigations was being scaled back during the continuing terror alert.

And there was anger on Wednesday after it was confirmed that the families of those killed in the London terror attacks would only be eligible for automatic bereavement compensation of £11,000.

First charges over 21 July attacks

TUESDAY 2 AUGUST

A meeting intended to improve community relations and root out extremists is held between Home Office Minister Hazel Blears and Muslim leaders.

The talks, in Oldham, were the first of a series across the country offering the chance to raise concerns prompted by the London bombings.

It involved councillors, police and MPs.

Meanwhile, the Hammersmith and City Tube line has reopened for the first time since the 7 July bombings.

Four people arrested over the bombings are released without charge, bringing the number still held in custody in the UK to 17 out of 37 arrests.

Home Office minister seeks to reassure Muslims

MONDAY 1 AUGUST

Bomb suspect Osman Hussain is charged by the Italian authorities with association with the aim of international terrorism and with possessing false documents.

The move allows the authorities to continue holding Hussain - also known as Hamdi Isaac - and is separate from Britain's attempt to extradite him.

Italian investigators say they believe Hussain has no links with international terrorist organisations.

In a press conference in Rome anti-terrorism chief Carlo de Stefano says Hussain lied about his background in order to be naturalised as a British citizen.

In the UK, two men are arrested in connection with the 21 July failed attacks after three raids on separate addresses in south London.

Bombings suspect charged in Italy

SUNDAY 31 JULY

A second brother of Osman Hussain's is arrested, according to Italian media reports.

ANSA news agency claims Fati Isaac was detained in Brescia, northern Italy.

In the UK, seven more people are arrested after two properties are raided by police in Sussex.

SATURDAY 30 JULY

Osman Hussain faces an extradition hearing in Rome after his arrest there on 29 July.

The 27-year-old, who is also being named as Hamdi Isaac, was detained after police tracked his movements from London to Paris and then on to Italy.

Police traced calls made from a mobile phone to his brother, named by the Italian media as Remzi Isaac, who was also detained, and his father in Brescia, northern Italy.

Italian authorities said he was an Ethiopian-born UK citizen, not Somali-born as originally reported.

FRIDAY 29 JULY

Three men are arrested in raids in London and another in Rome.

One identified himself to police as Muktar Said Ibrahim - a suspect for the failed bombing of a Number 26 bus on 21 July. He was arrested after police stormed Dalgarno Gardens, on the Peabody estate in North Kensington.

A second man arrested at the same flat named himself as Ramzi Mohammed, police said. He was wanted in connection with the attempted Oval Tube station attack.

A third man, who has not yet been named, was arrested in Tavistock Crescent, Notting Hill, in London. Police are investigating whether he was a possible fifth bomber, linked to a device found in west London last week.

Later on Friday a fourth man - Osman Hussain - was arrested in Rome. He is suspected of attempting to bomb a Tube train near Shepherd's Bush.

Police believe all four of the July 21 bomb suspects are now in custody. That includes a man arrested in Birmingham on Wednesday, Yasin Hassan Omar, a suspect in the attempted Warren Street Tube attack.

The armed police operation in London which led to the arrests began about 1130 BST, with streets cordoned off and buildings evacuated.

During the afternoon, police also arrest two women reportedly pinned to the ground in a queue at Liverpool Street station.

Earlier, investigators from the Independent Police Complaints Commission go to Stockwell Tube station, looking for witnesses to the police shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes a week ago.

Meanwhile West Midlands Police issue a statement defending their use of a Taser stun gun in the arrest of bombing suspect Yasin Hassan Omar in Birmingham.

Edgware Road station opens for the first time since the 7 July bomb attacks.

Bomb 'suspects' held in raids

THURSDAY 28 JULY

Anti-terror police arrest nine men in raids on two addresses in Tooting, south London.

They are arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 and taken to a central London police station for questioning, but it is not thought any of the suspected bombers is among them.

Police sources say later no explosives were found in the raids.

Meanwhile British Transport Police confirm they are on high alert as of Thursday morning, and will maintain an increased presence on the UK's transport system.

BBC News reveals that Muktar Said Ibrahim, suspected of leaving the explosive device on the back seat of a number 26 bus in Hackney on 21 July, failed to appear before magistrates on 19 January charged with a public order offence.

Horseferry Road Magistrates' Court in central London was reportedly given an address in Farleigh Road, Stoke Newington, north London.

And Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair says he is confident the bombers would be caught, but the failure of the 21 July attacks did not mean a weakening of their capability or resolve.

He acknowledges it is possible those at large "will strike again".

Later, speaking on a special Questions of Security programme on BBC One, Sir Ian says West Midlands Police took an "incredible risk" using a stun gun during the arrest of suspected suicide bomber Yasin Hassan Omar in Birmingham.

Home Office officials say the student visa of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes had expired two years before he was shot by police at Stockwell Tube station.

His body is flown back to Brazil for a funeral in his home town.

Transport police on alert as more men held

WEDNESDAY 27 JULY

Police investigating the 21 July bombings arrest four men at two addresses in Birmingham.

It later emerges that one of the men, who was wearing a rucksack, was held after being shot with a Taser stun gun. He was found in the Small Heath area of the city.

The Metropolitan Police confirm the man is Yasin Hassan Omar, wanted as a suspect in the Warren Street attempted bombing on 21 July.

They also release a new picture of the man believed tried to set off a bomb on the Shepherd's Bush Tube train.

Three women are arrested when police raid a ground floor flat at Blair House, 200 yards from Stockwell Tube station in south London.

Police say the women were arrested on suspicion of harbouring offenders.

Meanwhile, a man who was about to board a plane bound for Nimes in France was detained under the Terrorism Act at Luton Airport. He has since been released.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair met his Spanish counterpart Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and welcomed a proposal to create an "alliance of civilisations" between Western and Muslim countries in the fight against terror.

Two men arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act at Grantham railway station in Lincolnshire are released without charge.

Tube bomb suspect held by police

TUESDAY 26 JULY

Police find a large quantity of "possible" explosives in a flat in New Southgate, north London, where bomb suspect Yasin Hassan Omar lived.

They also cordon off a white VW Golf in East Finchley. Security sources said it was believed to have been used by one of the suspected would-be bombers on 21 July.

Police are given extra time to question a man arrested in Tulse Hill, south London, on 23 July.

He could now be held until 27 July, along with two men arrested in Stockwell on 22 July.

At 11pm police arrest two men under the Prevention of Terrorism Act at Grantham railway station as they travel from Newcastle to London King's Cross.

Meanwhile, the family of Muktar Said Ibrahim issue a statement expressing their shock that he has been named a suspect in the attempted bombing of the No 26 bus in Hackney Road on 21 July.

MONDAY 25 JULY

Muktar Said Ibrahim
Police are seeking Muktar Said Ibrahim over the 21 July attacks
Police say the device found at Little Wormwood Scrubs, in west London, was a bomb similar to those used by the 21 July attackers, prompting speculation a fifth bomber may still be at large.

They release details of the plastic food containers used for all five devices.

They also name two of the suspected failed bombers as Muktar Said Ibrahim, 27, also known as Muktar Mohammed Said, and Yasin Hassan Omar, 24.

Ibrahim is being linked to the attempted bombing of a Number 26 bus and Omar to an attack on the Tube between Oxford Circus and Warren Street.

Armed officers raid a property in Ladderswood Way, New Southgate, north London, which Ibrahim is thought to have visited recently.

Police also reveal that two more people have been arrested, taking the total held to five.

Tony Blair expresses regret over the death at Stockwell Tube of Jean Charles de Menezes, as his inquest hears that he was shot eight times - seven times in the head and once in the shoulder.

Police name two bombing suspects

SUNDAY 24 JULY

Police carry out a controlled explosion on the suspicious package found in Little Wormwood Scrubs.

Police are granted extra time to question the two men arrested in Stockwell and reveal they have arrested a third man under the Terrorism Act, in Tulse Hill, south London.

Scotland Yard Commissioner Sir Ian Blair apologises to the family of Mr Menezes and Home Secretary Charles Clarke expresses his regret.

Families of the victims of the 7 July attacks visit the scenes to pay tribute to their loved ones.

Police chief apologises for Tube shooting death

SATURDAY 23 JULY

The man shot dead at Stockwell Tube was not connected to the 21 July attacks, police say. They name him as Charles de Menezes, 27, a Brazilian working as an electrician in London.

Stockwell and Warren Street stations reopen and the train on which a bomb failed to detonate properly at Shepherd's Bush station is moved.

Police say a second man was arrested in Stockwell, south London and officers raid a flat in Streatham Hill, also in south London.

Police say a suspicious package found in bushes at Little Wormwood Scrubs, north-west London may be linked to the attacks.

A possible link between those behind the 21 July London attacks and a white-water rafting course attended by two of the 7 July bombers in north Wales is investigated.

Shot man 'not linked to bombing'

FRIDAY 22 JULY

A man is shot dead by armed officers at Stockwell Tube station as police continued to hunt four would-be bombers.

Stockwell Tube station

Passenger Mark Whitby tells BBC News he saw a man of Asian appearance shot five times by "plain-clothes police officers" with a handgun.

"I saw the gun being fired five times into the guy - he is dead," he said.

Passengers were evacuated from the Northern Line station in south London.

Police arrest a man in Stockwell in connection with Thursday's failed attacks.

Man shot dead by police on Tube

THURSDAY 21 JULY

London's transport network is again plunged into chaos with stations cleared after attempted bombings on Tube trains at Oval, Warren Street and Shepherd's Bush Underground stations and on a number 26 bus in Bethnal Green.

The devices only partially exploded but Met Police Sir Ian Blair says they were designed to kill people.

No-one is injured in the incidents but they cause disruption on three Tube lines and around stations across the capital.

A massive hunt begins for the bombers who fled when their bombs failed to explode properly.

Fresh London blasts cause travel chaos

WEDNESDAY 20 JULY

Several people are arrested in Pakistan, the country's High Commissioner to the UK confirms.

Maleeha Lodhi tells BBC Radio 4's Today Programme: "A number of people have been taken in for questioning because obviously we want to make sure we get to the bottom of this as much as you do."

TUESDAY 19 JULY

The train carriage in which seven people died at Edgware Road station is removed from the track.

A Leeds chemistry student, arrested in Cairo as part of the investigation, has nothing to do with the bombing, the Egyptian government says.

Magdi Mahmoud al-Nashar, 33, was detained by Egyptian police on the request of the British government on 15 July.

But an interior ministry report "made clear there was no link between Magdi al-Nashar and al-Qaeda or the bombings", a government spokesman says.

MONDAY 18 JULY

Pakistani officials confirm three of the four London suicide bombers visited Pakistan last year.

Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer arrived and left together, and spent three months there. Hasib Hussain flew in last July for an unknown period.

The British Muslim Forum issues a religious decree - or fatwa - offering condolences for the attacks.

The fatwa states that Islam condemns violence and forbids suicide bombings, and is to be read at mosques on 22 July.

Three UK bombers visited Pakistan

SUNDAY 17 JULY

Police release a CCTV image of the four London bombers together at Luton station as they set off on their way to London.

The bombers (left to right): Hasib Hussain, Germaine Lindsay (dark cap), Mohammad Sidique Khan (light cap) and Shehzad Tanweer
The four men were pictured entering Luton rail station at 0720 BST

It also emerges that Edgware Road bomber Khan was investigated by MI5 last year but not deemed a threat.

Khan was subject to a routine assessment because of an indirect connection to an alleged terror plot.

The families of three of the bombers release statements describing their shock at their relatives' involvement.

The death toll rises to 56, including the four bombers.

Image of bombers' deadly journey

SATURDAY 16 JULY

The death toll rises to 55 overall, a figure which includes the four bombers.

FRIDAY 15 JULY

Egyptian chemistry student Magdi Mahmoud al-Nashar, 33, who had been sought by police in connection with the blast, is arrested in Cairo.

The 33-year-old Leeds University chemistry PhD student denies any link to the bombings.

Police continue to search homes in Buckinghamshire and Leeds, including one linked to al-Nashar.

Chemistry expert arrested

THURSDAY 14 JULY

A week on, a two-minute silence is held in memory of victims.

Bomber Hasib Hussain
Hasib Hussain's family reported him missing after the blasts

Police sources believe the fourth bomber was Jamaican-born Lindsey Germaine, of Bucks, thought to have carried out the King's Cross attack.

Scotland Yard releases an image of bus bomber Hussain, caught on CCTV as he went through Luton station on his way to King's Cross.

Police continue to hunt for a fifth man linked to the bombings who they say left the UK before they took place.

Police release bus-bomber images

WEDNESDAY 13 JULY

Two of the bombers are named by police as Shehzad Tanweer, 22, of Beeston, Leeds, and Hasib Mir Hussain, 18, also of Leeds.

Tanweer is thought to be responsible for the Liverpool Street blast and Hussain the Tavistock Square.

A third, Mohammed Sidique Khan, 30, of Beeston, linked to the Edgware Road attack is named by newspapers. The fourth bomber's identity is unclear.

Anti-terror police also raid a house in Aylesbury, Bucks.

Bomb hunt focuses on masterminds

TUESDAY 12 JULY

Detectives say they believe the bombings were carried out by four British-born men in what are possibly the country's first suicide attacks.

Security sources say at least three of the men are dead after belongings were found at the scenes.

The details emerge as explosives are found in Leeds and Luton after a series of raids.

At least one bomber died in blast

MONDAY 11 JULY

The first victim of the London bombings is named as the confirmed number of dead reaches 52.

SUNDAY 10 JULY

Police appeal to the public to hand over mobile phone images or photographs taken after the attacks.

Sixty-five people remain in hospitals, many having had operations after losing limbs and suffering burns.

SATURDAY 9 JULY

The three Tube train bombs exploded within 50 seconds of each other, at about 0850 BST, police say.

It was previously thought they had taken place over a longer time period. The bus bombing took place at 0947 BST, it is also revealed.

Tube bombs 'almost simultaneous'

FRIDAY 8 JULY

Sir Ian Blair says there is "absolutely nothing" to suggest the attacks were the work of a suicide bomber or "to rule it out".

Passengers evacuate an underground train at Kings Cross (Photo: Alexander Chadwick)
Passengers evacuate an underground train at Kings Cross (Photo: Alexander Chadwick)

The Met Commissioner said police had an "implacable resolve" to track down those responsible for the bombings.

Relatives search for loved ones who may have been caught in the attacks.

Forty-nine people are confirmed dead, but Sir Ian says efforts to recover bodies from the wreckage of the King's Cross Tube train continue.

London bombs killed 'at least 50'

THURSDAY 7 JULY

A series of co-ordinated bomb attacks towards the end of the morning rush hour cause devastation on London's transport network.

The aftermath of the Tavistock Square bus bombing
The aftermath of the Tavistock Square bus bombing

Bombs explode on three Tube trains just outside Liverpool Street, Edgware Road and King's Cross stations.

Another explosion goes off on a packed number 30 double-decker bus in Tavistock Square.

The known death toll at the end of the first day is 37 with more than 700 injured.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw says the bombings have all "the hallmarks of an al-Qaeda-related attack".

August 5, 2005 at 12:28 AM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Inside the mind of the shoebomber

America, United States, Times Online, The Times, Sunday Times

By Sam Knight, Times Online

Richard Reid

Unrepentant, and convinced that Muslims across the world are the victims of American oppression, the mind of Richard Reid, the attempted shoe bomber from South London, was shown today in a letter published in a Scottish legal magazine.

The letter, written by Reid from his prison cell in America on October 24, 2002, and published by The Firm magazine today, was sent to the magazine's US correspondent instead of an interview.

In the letter, Reid, now 31, gave a rambling but cogent reply to a note sent to him by Noel Young, The Firm's journalist, who offered Reid the chance to "explain to people in Britain why you feel the system there let you down, why you chose to live abroad and why you took the actions you took."

Reid, who is serving a life sentence in the federal "supermax" prison in Florence, Colorado, for his attempt to destroy a passenger aircraft on December 22 2001 by detonating a bomb in his shoes, opens the letter praising Allah before setting out the motives behind his attempt to kill more than 200 people.

"You asked me where do I feel that the British system failed me," wrote Reid, whose letter was literate but only slightly punctuated.

"In reality my actions did not come from some personal grievance but rather because of my belief that the Western countries with America at their head are both openly and secretly fighting the religion of Allah (Islam)."

Reid described his anger at what he perceived as American oppression against Muslims across the world - in Iraq, the Palestinian Authority and Sudan - before launching an attack on the immorality and "self-fulfilment" of Western society which he understood as a threat to Islam.

"All this is in the name of freedom and democracy," wrote Reid of the American foreign policy. "But the reality is that the freedom that they’re talking about is nothing other than forcing the Muslims to accept laws that legalise homosexuality, fornication, adultery etc."

"In any western city you can see the ill effect that allowing the promotion of self fulfillment has had. Teenage girls constantly find themselves responsible of bringing up children whose fathers take little or no responsibility for them," the letter said.

Reid defended the tactics of terrorism as a means to defend Islam against American "oppressive repressive tyrants".

"As for those who wish to condemn our means of warfare, then we did not drop a nuclear bomb on Japan nor do we fund the torture of our opponents nor did we place sanctions on a people for the crimes of a tyrant whom we placed in power thus leading to the deaths of millions of children as America has done in Iraq," he wrote.

Reid, who wrote the letter before the war began in Iraq, showed no remorse for his attempted attack, and said it was the responsibility of "the West" to curb its aggression against Muslims. Reid also stressed that civilians were as guilty as their governments for the crimes committed against Islam.

"I make no apologies for my activities nor those of my associates and I state that if people want the attacks on the West to stop then they should start looking to their ownselves," wrote Reid, who was a petty criminal before he turned to extremist Islam.

"As far as we’re concerned whoever supports the American government’s activities in the Muslim world or helps them in that by any means is equally responsible for those acts and thus such people have as one but their own selves to blame for the attacks on American interests and such attacks will not be stopped unless the Americans stop their oppression of the Muslims."

Richard Draycott, the editor of The Firm, explained today that the magazine decided to publish the letter as a way of showing the workings of an extremist's mind.

"Obviously what with all that's been going on, it's quite timely," he told Times Online. "It obviously gives a bit of an insight into the way that extremists think."

August 2, 2005 at 07:11 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Understanding Insanity

THE FIRM. Because there is life outside London

In 2002 The firm’s U.S.-based reporter Noel Young received a personal letter from the shoe bomber Richard Reid. In light of the recent London atrocities The Firm prints extracts of his letter in an effort to try and understand the motivations of a suicide bomber.

Richard Reid's letter is published in full after the main article below.

When Britain’s four young suicide bombers died in the holocaust they created in London on 7 July, they left behind them dozens of unanswered questions. Many might have been answered if they had been brought to trial, but that was not to be: there were to be no probing questions from the prosecution, no concise address to the jury by M’Lud.
But an earlier, failed, British suicide bomber Richard Reid, now held in the US’s most secure prison in Colorado, did in fact answer such questions. Not only in court, where American lawyers bent over backwards to give him a fair hearing, but also in an extraordinary six-page letter to me, painstakingly written on both sides of prison notepaper. At the time, I had no idea how unique this insight into the mind of a suicide bomber was to prove.
I had written to Reid on behalf of a British newspaper, seeking an interview at the Massachusetts prison where he was being held, following his abortive attempt to blow up an American airliner heading from Paris to Miami at Christmastime, 2001.
To add depth to the letter, I threw in a couple of questions about statements Reid had made in court. This is what I wrote:
“Dear Mr Reid,
I was in court in Boston last week when you told Judge Young, ‘I don’t recognise your law and I don’t recognise your system. I don’t recognise any of your laws at all.’
I am a correspondent for British newspapers here in Boston. Previously I worked as a journalist in Scotland, my native country, for many years. I have attended most of the court hearings concerning yourself in Boston since last December and was impressed when you pleaded guilty to all eight charges, relieving pressure on your family members.
I have now been asked by the editor of a London newspaper if you will agree to an interview so that you can explain to people in Britain why you feel the system there let you down, why you chose to live abroad and why you took the actions you took.”
I thought to myself “fat chance” as I put the letter in the envelope and stuck on the stamp, even giving my home address, confident that I would never hear any more about it. After all, Reid was the most closely guarded prisoner in US history.
You can imagine my elation/horror/dismay/delight when three weeks later my wife walked into the breakfast room and said. “There’s a handwritten letter here for you from a Mr Reid.” She turned the envelope over and spied the official stamp. “My God, it’s from the prison at Walpole.”
Reid began his letter with a greeting in Arabic: “In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate.” He then went on, “I recently received your letter requesting an interview. In reality I am not interested in giving interviews nor do I believe that the American government would allow for such an interview to take place. However you asked me about my statement to the judge, that I don’t recognise American law nor the American system and you also asked me about my reasons for choosing to live in Afghanistan and for carrying out the acts that led to my arrest so I will try to answer those questions.”
Reid declared that he had no regrets over trying to bring down the plane with 197 people onboard.
“I make no apologies for my activities nor those of my associates. If people want the attacks on the West to stop then they should start looking to their own selves.”
“The attacks on American interests,” he said, “will not be stopped unless the Americans stop their oppression of the Muslims.”
He then outlined a whole range of grievances, which he said the Muslims have with the US.
Reid asked that the letter be published in full. The paper, which originally commissioned me, decided that they didn’t want the letter – only a full-blown interview would do for them. The Sunday Mirror, however, recognised the uniqueness of the epistle, and decided they would publish it in part as they decided that only a fair and balanced report would be given.
“You asked me where do I feel that the British system failed me,” Reid wrote. “In reality my actions did not come from some personal grievance but rather because of my belief that the Western countries, with America at their head, are both openly and secretly fighting the religion of Allah [Islam].”
Reid, who converted to Islam at the age of 19, after being introduced to the religion by Pakistani inmates in an English jail, criticised the Northern Alliance, the West’s allies in the fight to remove the Taliban from Afghanistan.
“These groups claim to be fighting for democracy but the reality is that they were and probably still are a bunch of rapists and homosexuals whose preference is young boys,” Reid wrote.
“This is the main reason they refused to surrender to the Taliban because they didn’t want to be punished for the rapes and similar acts they’d carried out when Kabul was under their control the first time around.”
He described Saddam Hussein as a tyrant placed in power by the US. The sanctions on Iraq, he said, had caused the deaths of more than two million children, “yet Saddam, who originally came into power in Iraq with American backing, has not suffered from the sanctions.”
Of course, he was to suffer later.
Reid complained that the US government gave funding to countries like Egypt and Turkey. “These countries use that money to oppress those who call for the implementation of Islamic law. They use imprisonment, rape and torture to demoralise the Muslims.
“In occupied Palestine the Jews, whose blatant oppression of the Palestinian Muslims is well known, also receive backing from America. In Sudan, American-backed Christian rebels regularly attack Muslim villages using tactics, which could be referred to as terrorist acts.
“In the Philippines American trained soldiers using American weapons and American funding attack and terrorise the Muslims in certain areas because those Muslims wish to have an independent area which is ruled by Islamic law.”
The US, he says, is supporting oppression, in the name of freedom and democracy. “The reality is that the freedom that they’re talking about is nothing other than forcing the Muslims to accept laws that legalise homosexuality, fornication, adultery etc. because those who run the American government make money out of the industries that are related to the promotion of those immoral deeds.”
Reid was concerned about teenage pregnancies in Western cities. “Teenage girls constantly find themselves responsible for bringing up children whose fathers take little or no responsibility for them.
“Why? Because, the western governments, in the name of freedom, have allowed the mass media to glorify immorality and to promote it. They’ve legalised fornication, homosexuality, pornography etc. and encouraged the promotion of these things because of greed.
“Muslims seek the justice of the laws of Allah who created the heavens and earth and it is this for which we fight,” he wrote. “As for those who wish to condemn our means of warfare, then we did not drop a nuclear bomb on Japan nor do we fund the torture of our opponents.”
That remark also turned out to be grimly prophetic.
Reid had one more surprise in store for the authorities in Boston. After six court appearances and with the city gearing-up for a three-week show trial (terrorist-proof barriers had been erected outside the Federal courthouse) Reid told the judge that he wanted to plead guilty because “I know what I have done.”
As his lawyers fought to keep references to Al Qaeda out of the charges, Reid announced that it didn’t matter, “I’m a member of Al Qaeda, I pledge to Osama bin Laden and I’m an enemy of your country, and I don’t care. Simple and plain.”
Reid answered “Yeah” to Judge William Young when asked if he understood that he faced a minimum of 60 years in jail.
His guilty plea was later explained by his lawyer as being “to save his family embarrassment.”
The only member of family Reid was known to be close to was his mother, Lesley Hughes, a librarian from Frome, in Somerset.
In e-mails left to be sent to her, he asks that what he has done should not cause her to hate Islam and pleads, “Forgive me for all the problems I have caused you both in life and in death and don’t be angry for what I have done.”
At first the US authorities thought Reid was a low-level operative. Later that assumption was to be questioned.
On 23 January 2002, almost exactly a month after Reid’s failed plot, Daniel Pearl, a reporter on the Wall Street Journal was kidnapped, later to be brutally murdered, in Pakistan. He was there trying to find out more about the travels and activities of the shoe bomber.
When I received the letter from Reid I assumed that it had been thoroughly vetted by the FBI and prison authorities. I knew other letters had been confiscated and I thought they had decided to let this one out for their own reasons.
However, to cover myself, I forwarded copies to the US Attorney in Boston and to the local FBI ‘for their files’.
In fact I later learned that there was consternation when Reid’s letter to me was revealed. It was a complete fluke that it had got out – something to do with the changing of the guard rosters.
The authorities were not slow to make use of Reid’s eloquence, however. Using chunks from the letter at the sentencing hearing to prove that Reid indeed had no regrets for his actions.
Reid, who had appeared indifferent throughout his earlier court hearings, finally lost his cool when he was sentenced to life and a concurrent sentence of 110 years by Judge William Young.
He waved a fist at the judge shouting, “You’re not going to stand me down. You’ll go down. You will be judged by Allah,” before four US marshals dragged him from the courtroom.
Judge Young told Reid that to consider himself a “warrior” in a global war between Islam and the West “gives you far too much stature.”
He went on: “You are not an enemy combatant. You are a terrorist. You are not a soldier in any war. You are a terrorist.
“We are not afraid of any of your terrorist co-conspirators, Mr Reid. We are Americans, we have been through the fire before.”
Then Young motioned to the American flag behind him. “See that flag, Mr Reid?” Young said. “That flag will fly there long after this is all forgotten. That flag still stands for freedom. You know it always will.”
Reid replied: “That flag will be brought down on the day of judgement, and you will see in front of your Lord and my Lord, and then we will know.”
Today Reid is serving his sentence at the US’s most secure prison in Colorado.
He is subject to special restrictions, including FBI monitoring of all his mail and conversations, even with visiting family members.
“He clearly poses an ongoing threat and risk to our country. And it’s important to ensure that he’s not able to get out his messages of hate or any particular plans he has to any other would-be terrorists,” said the US Attorney in Boston, Michael Sullivan. “Reid will now spend the rest of his life in prison, unable to fulfil his delusional quest to destroy democracy and the United States of America in the name of religion.”
Since the London atrocities, many have been wondering what on earth we can do if young Muslims are prepared to give their lives – and take countless innocents with them – to make their protest. Nothing it is clear would have deterred Richard Reid. Nothing would have deterred Germaine Lindsay, with a toddler son and another child on the way. Not tanks, or guns or planes. Certainly not the ludicrously named “War on Terror”.
Somehow we have to get inside the minds of these desperate young people and convince them there has to be a better way: that life and love is a million times more preferable than mindless mutilation and death.

Richard Reid’s Letter to Noel Young in full

Mr Young,

I recently received your letter requesting an interview. In reality I am not interested in giving interviews nor do I believe that the American government would allow for such an interview to take place. However you asked me about my statement to the judge. That I don’t recognise American law nor the American system and you also asked me about my reasons for choosing to live in Afghanistan and for carrying out the acts that led to my arrest, so I will try to answer those questions on the condition that the following text is not edited or altered in any form.

I start by praising Allah who created the heavens and earth in six days and who causes the sky to send its rain and the earth to produce its fruits. The One who causes day to follow night and night to follow day and who sent prophets and messengers to guide mankind to the clear path, the path of truth and righteousness and to warn them from following the false paths and the corrupted desires and lust’s. The false paths and the corrupted desires and lusts. And I send peace and blessings upon the final prophet, Muhammad ibn Abdullah al Quraishi, who was sent with the perfect law that covers all matters temporal and secular. May the blessings of Allah be upon him and his family and companions; and those to follow their way until the day of resurrection.
To proceed - Allah says in the Qur-an that which has the following meaning “O people of the scripture (Jews and Christians) come to a world that is just between us and you that we worship none but Allah and we associate no partners (sons etc) with him and that we should not take Lords from our ownselves besides Allah. (chapter 3, verse 4).
He also says what it means “And we have sent down to you the book (the Qur-an.) In truth confirming that which came before it from the scriptures and as a witness over them so judge between them (the people) by that which Allah has revealed and do not follow their desires diverging from the truth that has come to you (chap 5 vs 8)
You asked me where do I feel that the British system failed me. In reality my actions did not come from some personal grievance but rather because of my belief that the Western countries with America at their head are both openly and secretly fighting the religion of Allah (Islam). This is because they by reasons of sanctions and direct force seek to enforce upon the Muslims man-made secularist laws which contradict many of the laws which Allah sent down upon his prophet. The American government and press have openly insulted the Islamic sharjah by calling it repressive and backwards etc. At the same time the American government gives funding to the secularist apostate governments of countries like Egypt and Turkey, these countries use that money to oppress those who call for the implementation of Islamic law. They use imprisonment, rape and torture to demoralize the Muslims.
The American government knows this yet in the name of democracy and freedom it continues to fund those responsible for these acts. Under the same guise they’ve placed sanctions on Iraq which have caused the deaths of more than two million children. They claim that those sanctions are in order to secure peace and freedom in the area and that they’re aimed at weakening Saddam Hussein ‘s grip on power, yet Saddam who originally came into power in Iraq with American backing has not suffered due to the sanctions in fact he’s allowed to sell oil both officially and unofficially to his neighbouring countries of Turkey and Jordan both of whom have American backed governments and both of whom openly oppress the Islamists and employ rape and torture in their prisons on a regular basis.
In occupied Palestine the Jews whose blatant oppression of the Palestinian Muslims is well known also receive backing from America. In America zionists openly collect money for the creation of the Jewish state in Palestine yet those who collect money to send charity to Muslims in the squalid refugee camps on the Palestinian border have been classed as terrorists! To make things even clearer the Americans placed sanctions on Afghanistan over four years ago when the Taliban government refused to back down its implementation of Islamic laws. The American government openly and freely insulted the sharjah of Islam and called it repressive and backward and roughly two years ago they start chanelling funds into some of the Northern Alliance groups. These groups claim to be fighting for democracy but the reality is that they were and probably still are a bunch of rapists and homosexuals whose preference is young boys, this is the main reason they refused to surrender to the Taliban because they didn’t want to be punished for the rapes and similar acts they’d carried out when Kabul was under their control the first time around.
In Sudan American-backed Christian rebels regularly attack Muslim villages using tactics which could be referred to as terrorist acts and in the Phillipines American trained soldiers using American weapons and American funding attack and terrorize the Muslims in certain areas because those Muslims wish to have an independent area which is ruled by Islamic law.
In all these are very few places in the world where the Muslims are being oppressed except that America is supporting those involved in that oppression, all this is in the name of freedom and democracy but the reality is that the freedom that they’re talking about is nothing other than forcing the Muslims to accept laws that legalize homosexuality, fornication, adultery etc. because those who run the American government make money out of the industries that are related to the promotion of those immoral deeds. So when the Americans talk about freedom they mean the freedom to promote immorality and corrupt society. As for the Muslims we seek to live under Allah’s laws. These laws allow that people keep their own religion and no one is forced to embrace Islam under them yet they forbid the promotion of vices such as homosexuality, adultery, etc. and set firm means of checking the spread of such immoralities thus is aimed at protecting society as a whole. In any western city you can see the ill effect that allowing the promotion of self fulfillment has had. Teenage girls constantly find themselves responsible of bringing up children whose fathers take little or no responsibility for them. These girls on their own are not able to both find an ample living and to look after and bring up their children so you get a cycle and things go from bad to worse. Why? Because the western governments in the name of freedom have allowed the mass media to glorify immorality and to promote it. They’ve legalized fornication, homosexuality, pornographny etc. and encouraged the promotion of these things because of greed. It is out of the same greed that the American government has placed sanctions on Iraq leading to the deaths of over two million children and it’s from this same greed that they back the secularist governments that torture and rape thousands of Muslims; that they seek to enforce their corrupt man made laws upon the Muslims of the world.
Thus the reality is this: Americans are oppressive repressive tyrants while we the Muslims seek the justice of the laws of Allah who created the heavens and earth and it is this for which we fight.
As for those who wish to condemn our means of warfare, then we did not drop a nuclear bomb on Japan nor do we fund the torture of our opponents nor did we place sanctions on a people for the crimes of a tyrant whom we placed in power thus leading to the deaths of millions of children as America has done in Iraq.
As such I make no apologies for my activities nor those of my associates and I state that if people want the attacks on the West to stop then they should start looking to their ownselves because as far as we’re concerned whoever supports the American government’s activities in the Muslim world or helps them in that by any means is equally responsible for those acts and thus such people have as one but their own selves to blame for the attacks on American interests and such attacks will not be stopped unless the Americans stop their oppression of the Muslims.
Lastly I’ll finish by declaring my freedom from the man made laws of the west and declaring my allegiance to Allah and his messenger and to those who seek to see Allah’s law implemented amongst the Mujahideen and righteous Muslims. And I bear witness that none has the right to be worshipped except Allah alone without partners and that muhammed (peace be upon him) is his final prophet and messenger whom he sent to all of mankind to remove them from the injustice of false manmade laws to the justice of Islam and from the darkness of the false desires to the light of faith and belief in Allah

Written and signed:
Aldur Roheen Abn Ibrahin al Jamaicy

August 2, 2005 at 07:10 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Third terror cell on loose

Third terror cell on loose - Newspaper Edition - Times Online

David Leppard and John Follain in Rome
Intelligence warns of new wave against soft targets
A THIRD Islamist terror cell is planning multiple suicide bomb attacks against Tube trains and other “soft” targets in central London, security sources have revealed.

Intelligence about a cell with access to explosives and plans to unleash a “third wave” of attacks was the trigger for last Thursday’s unprecedented security exercise. The operation saw 6,000 police, many armed, patrolling across London.

Senior police officers say that there was “specific” intelligence from several sources that an attack was planned for that day. The disclosure contradicts official statements by Scotland Yard that Thursday’s security exercise — the biggest since the second world war — was simply a precaution aimed at reassuring the public.

The disclosures come as a suspected bomber detained in Italy apparently admitted to involvement in the attacks on July 21. According to Italian reports, Hussain Osman has alleged to investigators that the leader of the July 21 attacks was Muktar Said-Ibrahim, who was detained in London on Friday.

Osman claimed Ibrahim, the alleged bus bomber, had taught him how to make bombs. But he also claimed the incidents on July 21 were intended to be a political statement rather than to take lives.

Details of a “third wave” terror plot to carry out multiple suicide attacks were disclosed to senior police commanders at an emergency Special Branch conference held at Scotland Yard last Wednesday. All police leave was cancelled and hundreds of officers were instructed to book into central London hotel rooms.

Members of the third cell are said to be independent of the July 7 and July 21 terrorists but have “associations” with some of the suspects who have been arrested in connection with the July 21 attacks. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, head of the anti-terrorist branch, said that despite capturing the four suspected bombers and a fifth man linked to the cell “the threat remains and is very real”.

Another officer, a member of the Yard’s firearms unit, which captured three of the suspected suicide bombers in two raids in west London, said: “What we did on Friday was just the tip of the iceberg. There is some big stuff coming in the next few months. There’s a big network that’s got to be cracked.”

Osman, a 27-year-old asylum seeker from Ethiopia who has British citizenship, was arrested by Italian police at his brother’s flat in Rome after an international manhunt.

He is reported to have travelled to France via the Eurostar and then to Italy. Shortly before his arrest, Osman made one phone call to a Saudi Arabian mobile number. Osman is also said to have confessed almost immediately to Italian police. “Yes, it is true, I was there on July 21. I’d been given a rucksack,” he reportedly told police.

Osman is said to have claimed the attacks had been planned by Ibrahim after the two had met at a gym in Notting Hill, west London. He said they had acted independently, had no links to the July 7 attacks, in which 56 people died, and had been taken by surprise by the suicide bombings two weeks earlier.

His group decided to carry out the attacks as a statement about the war in Iraq but was not linked to Al-Qaeda or any other terrorists. Contrary to some reports, he told his interrogators that the plotters did intend to explode their rucksacks but that they did not intend to kill anybody.

He is reported to have said: “Religion had nothing to do with this. We watched films. We were shown videos with images of the war in Iraq. We were told we must do something big. That’s why we met.”

Osman, who is suspected of the Shepherd’s Bush attack, claimed they had not meant to kill anyone. “I didn’t want to kill, ours was supposed to be a demonstrative act,” he is said to have told interrogators. “We planned to carry out an attack. We didn’t want to kill, only to spread terror.”

Osman appeared at a hearing yesterday where Italian magistrates received a British government request for his urgent extradition. He objected to extradition. His lawyer said it could take up to two months for him to be returned to London.

Ibrahim is being questioned at Paddington Green top security police station in London. Yasin Omar, the suspected Warren Street Tube bomber, was arrested last week. The fourth man, Ramzi Mohammed, the suspected Oval Tube bomber, was arrested with Ibrahim. Ramzi’s brother, Wahbi, 22, is being questioned about the discovery of a discarded fifth bomb.

August 1, 2005 at 10:41 AM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

London faces lockdown to thwart third terror strike

London bombs terror attack The Times and Sunday Times Times Online

By Daniel McGrory and Sean O’Neill
THOUSANDS of police marksmen will be on London’s streets and rooftops again today after warnings that another team of suicide bombers is plotting a third attack on the capital.

The new group is believed to be made up of British Muslims who were understood to be close to staging an attack on the Underground network last week. According to security sources the men are thought to be of Pakistani origin but born and brought up in this country. They have links with the Leeds-based terrorist cell that staged the July 7 attacks, in which 52 innocent people died.

Even with the transport system so heavily guarded, police and intelligence sources believe that the bombers are intent on once more attacking London’s bus and Underground network. Another multiple suicide strike is also intended to demonstrate how the network can call on more recruits. The men are said to have access to explosives.

US security sources said yesterday that this third group of would-be bombers met at Finsbury Park mosque in North London, where some of the July 7 terrorists are also known to have stayed. There are reports that this team originally planned to strike last Thursday, which is why more than 6,000 police, half of them armed, were present at Underground stations. Scotland Yard said at the time that this exercise, the biggest since the Second World War, was to test their resources and reassure a nervous public.

As commuters return to work today police chiefs say that the arrest of five suspected bombers in house raids in Birmingham, London and Rome has not ended this threat. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, head of the anti-terrorist branch, said: “The threat remains and is very real.”

There is concern among ministers and police at how long officers can continue such an intensive operation to “lock down” London while a threat remains. Although reinforcements have been brought in and leave has been cancelled, resources are stretched to keep up the guard on the capital, which is costing £500,000 a day. Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, admitted that his officers were “very, very tired”.

While the priority is to thwart another strike, police are still investigating links between the attacks on July 7 and the botched operation a fortnight later. They are also hunting for what officers describe as “key logistical players” behind the attacks.

Seven more people — six men and a woman — were arrested in raids in Brighton yesterday, bringing the number of people under arrest in Britain to 18. A Scotland Yard spokesman said: “This is a further indication of the fact this is a fast-moving investigation and we continue to progress. We are searching for other people in connection with this ongoing inquiry.

“There were quite a few other people involved in the incidents of the 7th and the 21st. It’s extremely likely there will be other people involved in harbouring, financing and making the devices.”

The major link between the two sets of bombers is that the alleged leaders of both groups attended Finsbury Park mosque. Experts are studying similarities between the bombs used on July 7 and 21.

Anti-terrorism officers are still questioning four of the failed bombers at Paddington Green police station while a fifth member of the team is being interrogated in Rome.

Hussain Osman, who tried to blow up a Tube train at Shepherds Bush, told Italian police that the devices were only meant to scare passengers, not injure them. Scotland Yard dismissed that claim as “nonsense”.

The devices, hidden in rucksacks, were studded with razor sharp nails and only failed to explode because of a clumsy mistake by the bombmaker. Sir Ian Blair said that the bombs were designed to kill and that London had a lucky escape.

Ethiopian-born Hussain, 27, who has a British passport, claimed that the plot was orchestrated by another of those arrested on Friday, Muktar Said-Ibrahim. Hussain said that he had been recruited in an underground gym in Notting Hill.

Immigration officials are trying to find out how he managed to slip out of Waterloo station on a Eurostar train to Paris and make way to Italy where he met his brother, who lives in Rome. Officials want to know why Hussain, who says his real name is Hamdi Isaac and who has Italian citizenship, came to Britain posing as a Somali asylum-seeker in 1996.

There were reports last night that Muktar Said-Ibrahim, the suspected ringleader of the July 21 plot, was seen in Rome several weeks before the failed attacks. A mother and daughter living downstairs from the suburban flat where Hussain Osman was arrested on Friday, said that they had recognised Said-Ibrahim from footage of his arrest in London.

Two of Hussain’s brothers who live in Italy are also being held. One is accused of sheltering him; the second was picked up yesterday in the northern town of Brescia.

Italian police say they are using Hussain’s phone records to unpick the international network that has been helping him. Alfredo Mantovano, an Interior Ministry official, said that the network “confirms the presence in our country of autonomous Islamic cells . . . which could represent a concrete threat.” Italy is worried that it is the next target for Islamic terrorists.

July 31, 2005 at 10:59 PM in Current Terrorism, Echelon | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Suspect 'tracked by phone calls'

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Suspect 'tracked by phone calls'

Italian investigators say police used cell phone records to track down one of the suspects in the failed suicide bombings in London on 21 July.

Osman Hussain was arrested on Friday in his brother's flat on the outskirts of the Italian capital, Rome.

He was traced using call records from two cell phone numbers, supplied to the Italians by UK police.

Police believe he travelled by train across Europe from London via Paris, Milan and Bologna.

Osman Hussain is wanted in the UK over the attack on Shepherd's Bush underground station.

Investigators quoted by Corriere della Sera newspaper said that his real name is Hamdi Isaac and that he may have been born in Ethiopia or Eritrea, rather than Somalia as previously thought.

No panic

The suspect's constant use of cell phones betrayed his attempt to find refuge. As well as calling his brother in Rome, he talked to his father who lives in Brescia, in northern Italy.

The suspect, who speaks good Italian, told investigators that he was brought up in Italy after his family sought asylum from Somalia when he was a child.

An unnamed Italian security officer told La Stampa newspaper that police discovered the suspect's whereabouts two days ago.

Police show pictures of suspect Osman Hussein
The man obeyed: first he got down on his knees, then he placed his hands on his head... finally he was handcuffed
Italian security officer
La Stampa

"We went to the area, to take a look around the neighbourhood, to work out what kind of traps or pitfalls there might be," he said.

Italian Central Security Operations (NOCS) officers then approached the brother, who gave them a description of his flat and the door keys.

On the day of the raid, the building was surrounded with snipers and a number of ambulances were on site.

A team of four armed security agents climbed the stairs to the flat, followed by more police.

When officers entered the flat, they found the suspect on a sofa in the living room and told him in English to get down on his knees.

"The man obeyed: first he got down on his knees, then he placed his hands on his head, he allowed himself to be searched, and finally he was handcuffed," the officer told the paper.

"He did not allow himself to panic."

The flat was then searched for traps. Computers and hard-drives were taken away to be analysed.

The suspect has been co-operating with investigators, who he apparently told that he had no intention of carrying out any terrorist activities in Italy.

A phone centre and internet cafe run by his brother near Rome's Termini railway station is also being searched by Italian police.

July 31, 2005 at 08:30 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Seven held in anti-terror raids

BBC NEWS | UK | Seven held in anti-terror raids

Police investigating the failed bomb attacks in London on 21 July have arrested six men and a woman after two raids in Brighton.

Scotland Yard said no armed officers were involved in the Sussex raids.

The arrests bring to 19 the number of people held in connection with the attempted attacks, including the four suspected would-be bombers.

Commons leader Geoff Hoon says ministers will investigate how one was able to leave the UK after the attacks.

Ethiopian-born Osman Hussain, 27, who has a British passport, is believed to have left London Waterloo on a Eurostar train on 26 July, travelling to Paris and Milan before arriving in Rome.

He is suspected of trying to blow up a train near Shepherd's Bush station in west London.

Speaking on the BBC, Mr Hoon said extra passport checks are being considered at departure points from the UK. The Tories said immediate action on border controls was "vital".

A Eurostar spokesman said that there is no permanent point manned by UK officials, but checks are implemented at times of heightened security.

The Home Office said immigration officials were in place at all British departure points from 7 July to 17 July. They were reinstated from 21 July.

Sussex raids

Officers from Sussex police and Scotland Yard raided the two residential addresses at 0830 BST on Sunday.

All of those arrested were detained at one property - a first floor flat in a building known as Fairways in the west of the city.

They are being held under the Terrorism Act on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism, or harbouring fugitives. They are being questioned at a Brighton police station.

Searches are continuing at both the raided addresses. Police said there was no danger to the public in the surrounding area.

Since the arrests on Friday of those suspected of carrying out the failed bombings, police are focusing on finding those who helped plan and finance the attacks, as well as those of 7 July.

But a police spokeswoman earlier played down claims that officers were hunting a third cell poised to strike.

"We are searching for other people in connection with this ongoing inquiry. We have never spoken about a third cell.

"There were quite a few other people involved in the incidents of the 7th and the 21st. It's extremely likely there will be other people involved in harbouring, financing and making the devices."

Police have also been allowed extra time to question Yasin Hassan Omar, the man suspected to trying to blow up a train between Oxford Circus and Warren Street.

He can be questioned until Wednesday. He was arrested in Birmingham on 27 July.

Suspects can be held for a maximum of 14 days under the anti-terror laws, before they must be charged or released.

A man arrested on Sunday under the Terrorism Act at Stockport train station has been released without charge.

A spokesman said the arrest was not connected with any other inquiry at this stage.

In other recent developments:

* Italian police arrest a brother of Osman Hussain, named as Fati Isaac, in Brescia, in northern Italy on Sunday, news agency ANSA said. Another brother, Remzi Isaac, was held on Friday
* Osman Hussain appeared before an extradition hearing in Rome on Saturday. His court-appointed lawyer Antonietta Sonnessa suggested he would fight being returned to the UK
* Yasin Hassan Omar, Muktar Said Ibrahim and Ramzi Mohammed, the other men suspected of carrying out the attempted attacks on 21 July, are being questioned in London
* A fifth suspect named as a brother of Ramzi Mohammed, also arrested during Friday's raids, is also being questioned. Police forensic teams are still searching the two addresses raided
* Teams are also studying items seized from other addresses in London and Birmingham

1: Yasin Hassan Omar, 24, wanted over bomb attempt on a Tube near Warren Street, arrested in Birmingham
2: Muktar Said Ibrahim, 27, suspected of attempting to bomb a No 26 bus in Shoreditch, arrested in North Kensington, London
3: Ramzi Mohammed, wanted over failed attempt to bomb a Tube near Oval, arrested in North Kensington, London
4. Osman Hussain, 27 (also known as Hamdi Isaac) wanted over the Shepherd's Bush attack, arrested in Rome

July 31, 2005 at 08:29 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Captured - all five 21/7 bomb suspects

London bombs terror attack The Times and Sunday Times Times Online

By Daniel McGrory, Stewart Tendler and Sean O’Neill

EVERY suspected member of the July 21 suicide bombing team was under arrest last night after an extraordinary day of police operations stretching from a West London housing estate to the backstreets of Rome.

While police are jubilant following a series of successful armed raids across London they believe that the masterminds behind the London terror campaign are still at large.

The suspected July 21 suicide bombing team will be questioned today in the hope that they will disclose the identity of the bomb builders and planners behind last week’s failed attacks. It is also hoped that they know details of the deadly attacks on London’s transport system on July 7 that killed 52 innocent people.

Scotland Yard now believes that it has the four known failed suicide bombers in custody and has also arrested the mystery “fifth man”, alleged to be Whabi Mohammad, 22, the brother of Ramzi Mohammad, held in connection with the failed bomb at Oval station.

Three suspects were arrested in West London while a fourth man, thought to be the Shepherd’s Bush Tube bomber, was arrested by police in Rome acting on information from Scotland Yard.

After announcing the arrests, Peter Clarke, head of Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist branch, said: “We must not be complacent. The threat remains and is very real.”

The successful arrests ended fears that the men might use what explosive they had left to kill themselves, their captors or the families living alongside their hideouts.

Senior officers said that they were astonished and relieved that the suspects were all taken alive.

There was a scare for police trying to grab two of the bombers, who were at the same flat, when two children wandered into their line of fire.

Seconds later the two men appeared naked on the balcony of their fourth-floor apartment and surrendered without a struggle.

Italian police said that the last of the men to be picked up yesterday, Hussain Osman, a father of three, did not resist arrest. They say that he was trying to escape the intensive search and was not planning to stage attacks in Rome.

There is an investigation under way to discover how the Somali-born man who tried to blow up a train at Shepherds Bush managed to slip out of the UK when his photograph was at every port and airport.

He is believed to have gone first to Paris two days ago then on to Milan and finally Rome where it is understood his brother lives.

In a joint intelligence operation between Rome and London, agents were led to the address by monitoring the mobile telephone of the bomber’s brother. Police refused to say if Hussain Osman had been in contact with members of his cell before yesterday’s raids.

After their day of success, Scotland Yard will now have to concentrate on the dangers still facing the public. They still need to establish whether there are yet more explosives hidden by the cell and the identity of the mastermind.

The identity of the bombmaker remains a mystery, so too the quartermaster who obtained the explosive materials and other equipment needed by the cell.

Questioning of these suspects should also provide details of how the two cells behind the attacks on London’s transport system are linked.

The suspect bomber arrested in Birmingham earlier in the week, Yasin Omar, has already provided police with some information.

He is being held at Paddington Green top-security police station where the three men captured in London yesterday were taken. They are all being held separately.

It is believed that some members of their families are already in custody.

Relatives are understood to have given vital information that helped to end Britain’s biggest manhunt without further loss of life.

Yesterday’s raids came less than 24 hours after Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, promised police watchdogs that his officers were closing in on the would-be bombers.

On Thursday night SO13, the anti-terrorist branch, called in hundreds of officers for a top-level briefing on progress in the investigation.

The most dramatic capture came as police grabbed two of the runaway suspects in Notting Hill, West London, and it was seen unfolding live on television.

It was a call from a member of the public at 9.30am that Scotland Yard said “confirmed the intelligence that this was the building we wanted”.

Police marksmen surrounded a flat on a West London estate as fellow officers tried to evacuate as many homes as they could.

After days of raids and arrests across the capital and in Birmingham, the breakthrough for police came yesterday morning when officers are believed to have traced a telephone call to a hideout at Block K Dalgarno Gardens.

Terrified neighbours could clearly hear officers shouting for the occupants to strip to their underwear and surrender.

Tear-gas canisters had been fired into the property, which is understood to have been barricaded.

Inside was Muktar SaidIbrahim, 27, who is suspected of trying to detonate a nail bomb on a bus, and Ramzi Mohammad, the failed Oval bomber.

Police commanders realised that they could not risk a long stand-off. Terrorists in Madrid blew themselves up when police stormed the building.

Officers called both men by their first names but repeatedly warned them: “You must do as we say.” After a two-hour stand-off both gave up without a fight.

A witness said that they heard one of the men say: “I’ve got rights.”

Senior figures involved in the investigation believe that the five men may have lost their nerve after their failure on July 21. It is understood that the men in the cell began fighting about their next move and that two of them decided to attempt to escape rather than make another terror strike.

Barely a mile away at Tavistock Crescent, police are understood to have caught the fifth bomber, who had discarded his device in a nearby park before he could detonate it. He, too, gave up without a struggle.

Two women were seized at Liverpool Street station in London. Commuters said that the two — both thought to be of Somali origin — were seized by police and wrestled to the ground as they tried to buy tickets for the express service to Stansted airport.

It was a surprise announcement from Giuseppe Pisanu, Italy’s Interior Minister, that revealed that the last of the known suspects — Hussain Osman — a naturalised British citizen, had been picked up in Rome. Scotland Yard will seek his swift extradition under the European Extradition Warrant that came into effect in Italy only on Thursday.

According to initial reports, anti-terrorist units moved in on the suspect in a suburb of the capital. The minister said that the operation was continuing. He said that the arrest was the result of international collaboration and that the operation was “truly worthy of praise”.

Once in Rome, Hussain contacted his brother, the owner of an internet point near the central Termini rail station. Police also searched several homes in Rome in connection with the investigation.

The suspect was arrested with his brother at about 5.30pm local time in the Tor Pignatara district. He was questioned at the central police station, probably by the head of the anti-terrorism pool of prosecutors.

COUNTDOWN

11am Police mount armed operation in Tavistock Crescent, West London. A simultaneous raid is carried out at flats owned by the Peabody Trust in Dalgarno Gardens, close to Wormwood Scrubs prison

1.45pm Police announce a number of arrests in the operations

1.54pm Two women held by armed police at Liverpool Street station

2.45pm Two suspected July 21 bombers are among those held

3.20pm Police say two men were held at one address and a third at a second address after raids in West London

5.25pm Hussain Osman is arrested in Rome. He was alleged to be the Shepherd’s Bush terrorist

7.00pm Muktar Said-Ibrahim, 27, who allegedly tried to blow up a No 26 bus in Hackney, on July 21, identifies himself to police. The second man held in Dalgardo Gardens is Ramzi Mohammad, the alleged Oval Tube bomber

8.00pm a man arrested in Tavistock Crescent is named as Whabi Mohammad, 22. He is the brother of Ramzi Mohammad and is alleged to be the fifth bomber

July 30, 2005 at 01:13 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

As police move in, a scare for survivor of Tube blast

London bombs terror attack The Times and Sunday Times Times Online

By Sean O’Neill, Nicola Woolcock, Stewart Tendler, Daniel McGrory and Adam Luck
Suspects arrested in simultaneous raids after intelligence report
THE deafening bang at 11am shook Michael Henning to his core, taking him back to July 7 when he was cut by flying glass and metal as he stood six feet from a suicide bomber on a Circle Line train.

Frightened, claustrophobic and confused, he ran outside, feeling the need to escape and to find out why he was being bombed again. Mr Henning, 39, a broker at Lloyd’s of London who lives close to the Dalgarno Gardens estate in North Kensington, said: “I heard the explosion and instantly knew what it was, although I desperately tried to think of every other possible reason.

“I had to get out, get away from being trapped inside, get into the open air. I feel safer down here. I saw police arrive in helmets and masks. Seconds later it sounded like five or six gunshots, although they could have been explosions.”

Three weeks after surviving the Aldgate bomb, Mr Henning found himself in the middle of an anti-terrorist raid to capture two of the would-be bombers from July 21. He said: “It seems to be following me around.”

The bangs had been stun grenades, fired by police into a flat in K block on the Peabody Trust estate where the suspects — Ramzi Mohammad and Muktar Said-Ibrahim — had been holed up for a week.

A mile to the east, close to Portobello Road, armed police raided an address on the corner of Basing Street and Tavistock Crescent. Their target was Whabi Mohammad, 22, brother of Ramzi. The raids were simultaneous and executed at less than two hours’ notice after intelligence was received at 9.30am.

The commanders of Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist branch met to decide strategy. Firearms teams and bomb disposal technicians were selected for each location.

Officers wanted to avoid the mistakes of previous operations — the mistaken shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes and what they see as the incorrect decision to disable Yasin Hassan Omar, the suspected Warren Street bomber, with a stun gun during his detention in Birmingham. An air exclusion zone was requested over West London for the time of the raid. Air-traffic control diverted aircraft and the police helicopter was kept on the ground. A news blackout was also requested.

The information that clinched the decision to act was a call from a member of the public which confirmed intelligence. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, head of the anti-terrorist branch, authorised the raid. It is not known whether it came as tip from an informant, from interviews with a suspect, through intelligence or via a telephone trace or tap. With firearms teams and bomb disposal units on standby at locations across London, the decision was taken to tackle the addresses as quickly as possible.

Charlotte Brown, 16, was at home when she heard the commotion as officers ran along Tavistock Crescent towards the block of flats. She said: “I heard maybe gunshots or bangs and then there was someone shouting. I didn’t know it was the police. It was quite frightening. Police knocked on the door and told us to leave. There were people in protective clothing.”

The suspect, sources said, gave himself up quietly as police stormed the flat. He was stripped then clothed in a white, hooded suit used to preserve scientific evidence on suspects’ bodies and prevent contamination.

Officers in blue suits led him to a vehicle and he was driven away as search and explosives teams moved into the building.

Security sources say they are still investigating his alleged role in the bomb plot, but there are suspicions that he may be linked to the discarded device at Little Wormwood Scrubs.

While events moved quickly at Tavistock Crescent, officers hit problems at Dalgarno Gardens. Stun grenades were fired into the flat but officers did not storm it.

The blasts — intended to deafen and daze but not harm — knocked residents in neighbouring flats off their feet.

As people emerged to see what was happening they were confronted by police, some in balaclavas and armed with automatic weapons, shouting at them to get back inside.

Scotland Yard said the operation was entering a “challenging phase” and asked news channels to stop broadcasting live footage from the scene.

There was concern that the bombers might react in the same way the Madrid terrorists did when they were cornered and set off a huge bomb.

Officers were trying to coax the suspects out of the block of flats. Residents, many cowering in their homes, heard police shouting to “Mohammed” to strip down to his underwear and leave the flat with his arms in the air. It seemed that officers did not know how many men were in the flat.

One woman, who declined to be named, said: “I heard police shout, ‘You need to come out of the flat in your underwear with your arms in the air.’ He said, ‘How do I know you’re not going to shoot me and why do I have to just wear my underwear?’ They said, ‘So we know you’ve got no explosives on you.’ He sounded scared.

“A more aggressive police officer came on the loudspeaker telling him to maintain contact. He didn’t. Then a SWAT team arrived.” Police had fired a volley of CS gas canisters into the flat, which flushed out both men. They emerged on the balcony, hands above their heads. Both were stripped to the waist and spitting as they recovered from the effects of the gas. Guns were trained on them as they were ordered to remove the rest of their clothes.

Minutes later they were clothed in forensic suits and taken away. Further news followed from Rome and by last night Scotland Yard believed that five would-be bombers were in custody.

One was in the hands of Italian police. The other four — suspected of planning mass murder in the warped belief that they would go to paradise — were, instead, in the cells at Paddington Green.

July 30, 2005 at 01:25 AM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

'All four' July 21 suspects held

BBC NEWS | UK | 'All four' July 21 suspects held

All four failed London bomb suspects are reported to be in custody following armed raids in the UK capital and Rome.

Two London arrests are thought to be the men wanted for the 21 July Oval Tube and No 26 bus attacks. A third bomb suspect was already being held.

The fourth suspect, wanted for the attempted Shepherd's Bush Tube attack, has been arrested in Rome and named as Somali-born UK citizen Osman Hussain.

Police arrested three people in raids in Notting Hill and north Kensington.

Officers have also arrested two women at Liverpool Street station.

Gas masks

Police are still questioning Yasin Hassan Omar, wanted over the Warren Street Tube attempted attack, who was arrested in Birmingham on Wednesday.

BBC crime correspondent Neil Bennett said he had been told that two of the men arrested in Friday's raids were believed to be wanted in connection with the failed bomb attacks.

They are Muktar Said Ibrahim - suspected of trying to bomb a bus in Shoreditch - and a man, who police have not yet named, wanted over the attempted Oval Tube bombing.

Scotland Yard said they believed the arrests to be highly significant and described Friday as their "best day yet" since 21 July.

The properties raided on Friday are in a Peabody Trust estate in Dalgarno Gardens, North Kensington, where two arrests were made and the Tavistock Road area of Notting Hill, where police arrested one man.

Eyewitnesses say they heard three shots and a large explosion as officers wearing gas masks entered one property.

Map of West London raids

In Dalgarno Gardens officers were continually shouting at someone in a flat to come out. They were addressing him as "Muhammad".

The police asked him: "What is the problem? Why can't you come out?

"Take your clothes off. Exit the building. Do you understand?"

One resident told BBC News 24 she was inside a block of flats on the Peabody Estate at the time.

"They were shouting to him that he needed to come out with his arms up, in just his underwear.

"He was saying to them: 'how do I know when I come out, that you're not going to shoot me? I'm scared'."

Police assured him he would not get shot as long as he followed instructions and they knew he was not a risk to the police or the public, she added.

Officers told other residents on the 350-property estate to "get inside now".

'Almighty bang'

Scotland Yard said they were not aware of firearms having been used.

In an separate raid in Notting Hill one eyewitness says a man dressed in a white forensic overall was taken away in an unmarked police car.

Another has spoken of seeing three other people being taken away in a police van.

Chris Stokes told BBC News: "We got told to move out of the way by armed police and within about five minutes we heard three gunshots go off behind the block of flats at Tavistock Crescent."

Allan Sneddon, who lives nearby, told BBC News: "There was this almighty bang... big enough to shake the ground."

BBC Correspondent Jane Hughes said loud noises heard by witnesses may have been explosives used to blow in the door to a property and CS gas may have been used to subdue people.

In other developments:

# Edgware Road station has opened for the first time since the 7 July bomb attacks.

# The Rail Maritime and Transport union (RMT) - the biggest trade union for Tube workers - is calling for more rail guards on trains and better emergency training and equipment, including breathing apparatus for rail staff.

# Nine men were arrested by police in Tooting, south London, on Thursday, bringing the total number of people held under anti-terrorist laws over the London attacks to 20.

# A major police operation was put into operation on the UK's transport system, with officers on a precautionary high alert to reassure the public and deter would-be attackers.

# The funeral of Jean Charles de Menezes is to be held in his home town of Gonzaga on Friday.

July 29, 2005 at 01:27 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Key London bombs suspect arrested in Zambia

London bombs terror attack The Times and Sunday Times Times Online

By Philippe Naughton, Times Online

Haroon Rashid Aswat

A senior British al-Qaeda operative sought by authorities since the July 7 bombing attacks on London has been arrested in Zambia.

The Los Angeles Times reported today that Haroon Rashid Aswat, a 30-year-old of Indian descent who grew up in West Yorkshire, was arrested last week and is being held in Lusaka, where both British and US anti-terrorism investigators have travelled.

British officials confirmed the report, but would not immediately elaborate. A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: "We are seeking consular access to a British national who is reported to be in custody in Zambia."

Aswat, whose associations with al-Qaeda date back ten years, is believed to have entered Briton about two weeks before July 7 on a ferry into Felixstowe, and to have flown out from Heathrow hours before the four suicide bombers killed 52 rush-hour commuters on three Tube trains and a bus.

Investigators have sought him since discovering that he made up to 20 calls from his mobile phone to two of the bombers. Intelligence sources told The Times that during his stay in Britain Aswat visited the home towns of all four bombers as well as selecting targets in London.

Aswat, who is believed to come from Dewsbury, the West Yorkshire town where one of the July 7 bombers lived, is also being sought by the FBI, accused of having tried to set up al-Qaeda training camps in the US.

The Los Angeles Times said in its report that US and UK authorities had not yet decided where he should be prosecuted after his expected extradition from Zambia.

FBI documents obtained by The Times reveal details of how a London-based cleric sent Aswat to America in 1999 to set up camps in Oregon for US-born recruits.

The papers indicate that Aswat spent three months in America and engaged in firearms and poisons training, but decided against using a remote ranch in Bly as an al-Qaeda camp. The CIA is keeping in close touch with Aswat’s interrogation and British detectives are seeking permission to speak to him.

The FBI is to question a number of figures held in the US, including James Ujaama, an American convert to Islam who met Aswat, and a second al-Qaeda emissary in Seattle.

Ujaama has pleaded guilty to assisting the Taleban and is now a "co-operating witness" who has given details of Aswat’s activities in the US.

Aswat flew into New York on November 26, 1999, on an Air India flight with Oussama Abdullah Kassir, who has Swedish nationality. Kassir, 38, described himself as "a hitman for Osama bin Laden" and claimed to have fought in Afghanistan and Kashmir.

Ujaama drove the pair to the ranch but they complained that it did not have the facilities — especially barracks for potential recruits — that they had been led to believe existed.

July 29, 2005 at 12:38 AM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Wanted man 'detained in Zambia'

BBC NEWS | UK | Wanted man 'detained in Zambia'

A British man wanted for questioning over the 7 July London bombings has reportedly been detained in Zambia.

Haroon Rashid Aswat, who grew up in West Yorkshire, is alleged to have made contact with two suicide bombers before they carried out their mission.

Mr Aswat was held in the border town of Livingstone after entering the country from Zimbabwe, Zambian officials said.

The Foreign Office said it was seeking access to a British national reportedly in custody, but did not name him.

It has been suggested that Mr Aswat was in the UK shortly before the London attacks and called two of the bombers on his mobile phone.

According to news reports from the US, he was arrested last week for his alleged role in planning a terrorist training camp in Oregon in 1999.

'Net closing'

Scotland Yard declined to shed any light on claims Mr Aswat was the possible mastermind of the July 7 attacks.

A spokeswoman said: "It's all speculation and not something that we will discuss at the moment."

The four suicide bombers struck on three underground trains and a bus, killing 52 people and injuring 700.

Meanwhile, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said he remained confident those responsible for last week's attempted bombings in London would be caught.

Speaking in a debate on BBC One, Sir Ian said the "net was closing".

Police are questioning 21 July suspect Yasin Hassan Omar following his arrest in Birmingham on Thursday, but the search for the other three men continues.

In other developments:

# Nine men were arrested by police in Tooting, south London, on Thursday, bringing the total number of people held under anti-terrorist laws over the London attacks to 20.

# A major police operation was put into operation on the UK's transport system, with officers on a precautionary high alert to reassure the public and deter would-be attackers.

# The funeral of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, who was shot at Stockwell Tube station after being wrong identified as a suicide bomber, is to be held in his home town of Gonzaga on Friday.

# The Home Office said Mr Menezes' visa had expired two years before he was shot by police.

# The Metropolitan Police Commissioner told the BBC his officers had no choice but to shot dead Mr Menezes. Sir Ian Blair said using Taser stun-guns on suspected bombers was an "incredible risk".

July 29, 2005 at 12:34 AM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

'Six further terror cells are poised to strike'

The Scotsman - Top Stories - 'Six further terror cells are poised to strike'

GETHIN CHAMBERLAIN
CHIEF NEWS CORRESPONDENT

Key points

• Al-Qaeda experts have warned that there may be six terrorist cells in Britain
• Each cell could have the capacity to manufacture its own explosives
• Transport Police suggest attacks might not be limited to London

Key quote
"It is plainly the case that the group in the 7 July attacks simply didn't appear on the MI5 radar screens. Their assessment of the security situation before the attacks showed a surprising degree of optimism." - Prof Wilkinson, St Andrews University

Story in full AS MANY as six more terrorist cells may be preparing to launch bombing attacks in Britain, with each unaware of the existence of the others, two of the world's most respected al-Qaeda experts warned yesterday.

The warnings came as police continued to search desperately for the five-man gang behind the failed 21 July bombings and the breakthrough that would lead them to the mastermind co-ordinating the attacks.

One development which will be of particular concern to officers involved in the investigation is the discovery yesterday of a large quantity of chemicals apparently used to make the bombs which failed to detonate on three Tube trains and a bus last Thursday.

Bomb disposal officers remained at the 12-storey Curtis House, in Ladderswood Way, New Southgate, which was stormed by armed police on Monday. Counter-terrorism sources have confirmed that a "large amount" of "possibly" explosive material had been found there. Yesterday, police widened the cordon around the tower block and searched lock-up garages nearby.

Police have spoken to suspect Muktar Said-Ibrahim's father, who lives in north-west London, as they look into the background of the bombers, but he has not been arrested.

The bomb factory, in a garage linked to an address in north London visited by members of the gang, suggests that each cell has the capacity to manufacture its own explosives. Detectives had hoped that the bombers may have all been using explosives manufactured at a flat in Leeds, and that the bombs would deteriorate over time, rendering them ineffective.

Despite the seizure yesterday of a car believed to have been used by the gang, there have been no sightings of the men themselves since they were seen returning to the Curtis House flats after their failed attack.

One theory is that the men picked up more explosives and then headed for another safe house, where they are waiting to strike again. But another possibility is that they will now lie low while other cells prepare their own attacks.

Police yesterday searched a white VW Golf, seized in East Finchley, north London, for forensic clues. Insiders say it is thought one of the bombers used the car at some point. Officers closed off a road and evacuated dozens of homes while they carried out an examination before declaring it to be safe.

Experts familiar with the methods adopted by al-Qaeda-linked Islamic terrorist networks are concerned that police and the intelligence services are no closer to discovering who is organising the cells than they were before the first attack.

The leading Pakistani expert on jihadist movements, Mohammad Amir Rana, said he was surprised by how little the British security services appeared to have known about the threat facing them.

He warned that the attacks appeared to be the work of an operation involving many more cells than the two that have struck in London. He added that attempts to find links between the cells may prove futile.

"I would expect six to eight cells," he said. "They would not have to know each other - that is not how they work. I would think they are being co-ordinated from outside Britain, possibly by someone in the tribal areas of Pakistan."

Mr Rana, the author of The Seeds of Terrorism, a new book on the jihadi threat, said he suspected the involvement of Pakistan's Lashkar-e-Taiba network, which has sought to expand its operations in recent years.

He said the group retained strong links with al-Qaeda leaders and had the facility to raise large amounts of money to fund its operations, often through charitable donations from sympathetic Muslims in western countries, including Britain.

Mr Rana's fears over the existence of additional, as yet undetected, cells were supported by Professor Paul Wilkinson, of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at St Andrews University.

"It is very unlikely that the people we know about are the only ones around," he said. "I would expect the network would be more substantial than that. There is a strong possibility that a number of cells are being supported by elements of al-Qaeda. They wouldn't necessarily know each other, though the leaders of the groups may have been in touch with each other."

Prof Wilkinson also voiced serious concerns over how much the intelligence services know about the groups they are facing. "It is plainly the case that the group in the 7 July attacks simply didn't appear on the MI5 radar screens," he said.

"Their assessment of the security situation before the attacks showed a surprising degree of optimism."

In a demonstration of what is looking increasingly like complacency about the threat to the UK, one former government counter-terrorism official yesterday dismissed the effects of the attacks.

Mark Stollery, who is deputy director of research and intelligence at Aegis Defence Services, said the bombers would have hoped to bring the capital "to its knees". However, the result for most people who were not actually caught up in the explosions was "short term and annoyance disruption".

He added: "This may have come as a surprise to al-Qaeda."

Another intelligence source spoke of his surprise at attacks being mounted against Britain, which he said represented "a huge paradigm shift". He said: "It was a shock to the system of tremendous proportions."

The problems facing the intelligence services in linking the cells are demonstrated by the failure of Spanish investigators, more than a year on from the Madrid attacks, to find solid connections between the perpetrators and al-Qaeda's leaders.

The amount of help that can be expected from Pakistan is also in doubt. Despite a much-vaunted crackdown on extremists, there have been no arrests directly linked to the London attacks, and on Monday the country's president, Pervez Musharraf, said that al-Qaeda was too weak to organise terrorist attacks from Pakistan.

He acknowledged that small groups of al-Qaeda militants might still be present in the north and south Waziristan tribal regions of Pakistan, but insisted that they played no part in the attacks.

Speaking last night Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair revealed there had been 250 suicide bomb scares since the 7 July atrocities when police thought they may have been dealing with a suicide bomber.

"I know that when I last saw it there had been seven times when we have got as close to calling it as 'that' and we haven't," he said.

July 27, 2005 at 05:19 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Vanishing bombers and the mystery 'safe house'

London bombs terror attack The Times and Sunday Times Times Online

By Dominic Kennedy, Adam Luck and Daniel McGrory
DETECTIVES leading Britain’s biggest manhunt made a desperate plea for public help last night as it emerged that there have been no sightings of the four suicide bombers since they fled five days ago.

Police named two of the men and released new pictures. Five people are being questioned but none is believed to figure strongly in the investigation.

None of the four main suspects has been seen since 1.05pm on Thursday, minutes after the bungled attacks. It emerged last night that the four attended Finsbury Park mosque, North London and that two received benefits to rent a council flat.

A Populus poll for The Times showed that 74 per cent of the public believe that terrorist bombings and scares are likely to be part of life in London in future. There is support for deporting foreign Muslims who encourage extremism while 70 per cent favour police powers to hold terrorist suspects for up to 90 days without charge.

Police know that three of the bombers assembled at Stockwell Underground station before 12.25pm last Thursday. Scotland Yard released a remarkable photograph of an unnamed suspect staring up as he stands on a Tube train waiting for his bomb to blow up.

The device made a harmless pop like a champagne cork before the train pulled into Oval station. At 12.35pm the man ran towards the exit, pursued by members of the public.

He ran towards the centre of Brixton, throwing away his top with the “New York” logo in Gosling Way, and was last seen in Tindall Street at 12.45pm. Hundreds of officers have been checking the bombers’ known addresses and questioning associates. Police believe that they are at a prearranged safe house in London and fear that they could be preparing more attacks.

Officers spent last night searching the flat at Curtis House, a 13-storey block on a council estate in Bounds Green, North London, used by two of the bombers.

Police believe that this is where the devices were assembled. They were packed in clear plastic 6.25-litre food canisters made in India, which are sold at only 100 outlets in Britain.

Scotland Yard named two of the suspects after previous appeals for help drew a disappointing response.

They are the bus bomber, Muktar Said-Ibrahim, 27, thought to be Eritrean and who also uses the name Muktar Mohammed-Said, and Yasin Hassan Omar, a Somali, the Warren Street bomber. Both are thought to be asylum-seekers.

Omar, who was last seen vaulting a barrier at Warren Street station, has been the registered occupant of the flat since 1999.

Ibrahim, who was last seen in Hackney Road, East London, after his failed attempt to blow up a No 26 bus, shared it with him for the past two years.

Omar, received £88 a week in housing benefit to pay for the council property and also received income support, immigration officials say. Police are close to confirming the identity of the other two suspects and are trying to discover whether any of them attended any overseas training camps.

Officers were also understood last night to be interviewing Ibrahim’s father, who lives in Stanmore, North London.

Sammy Jones, a mother of two, said that she recognised the men from photographs shown to her by detectives. “The man who I now know is called Muktar used to have a big bushy beard but he then shaved that off,” she said.

Mrs Jones, 33, said that the group were seen carrying heavy cardboard boxes into Flat 58 on the ninth floor. Police are understood to have removed a fridge, possibly used to store the explosives.

Another neighbour, Vance Noor, 18, said that the bombers used to play for a Sunday football team of fellow Somalis.

JOIN THE DEBATE

Does the police's shoot-to-kill policy make you feel safer?
Send us your view to debate@thetimes.co.uk

July 25, 2005 at 09:23 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Manhunt puts British capital on edge

TheStar.com - Manhunt puts British capital on edge

Commuters panic after police shooting

One man arrested during dramatic raid

SANDRO CONTENTA
EUROPEAN BUREAU

LONDON—A manhunt has made this uneasy city the scene of heavily armed police raids, sidewalk arrests at gunpoint and the shooting death of a man in front of horrified subway passengers.

The race to catch Britain's most wanted resulted in the arrest of at least one man yesterday in south London under the Terrorism Act. But police haven't said if he is one of the four men who tried to blow up three subway trains and a bus Thursday.

Pictures captured by closed-circuit cameras show three of the suspects leaving the scene of the botched attacks and another with a backpack heading for a subway train.

The most dramatic incident in a tension-filled day occurred when police fired their first shots in London's war against terror — a battle they've waged since a suicide bomb attack two weeks ago killed at least 56 people.

The killing of the unidentified man left Britain's Muslim community leaders demanding to know why an apparently unarmed man was shot point-blank rather than arrested. Police say they saw the man emerge from a south London house that was under surveillance in the hunt for the bombers. The officers followed him to the Stockwell station at about 10 a.m.

"His clothing and his behaviour at the station added to their suspicions," police said in a statement last night, adding it's "not yet clear" whether the dead man is one of the suspected bombers.

Subway passenger Mark Whitby was sitting in a train when he suddenly saw a man run into the carriage and lose his footing at the moment plainclothes police jumped him from behind.

"I caught sight of his face for a split second and he looked absolutely horrified, and then he was on the floor," said Whitby, 47, adding that police immediately fell on him.

"Two of them went down on him — on their knees to hold him — and the other one with the gun just unloaded five shots into him," Whitby, a water systems inspector, said in an interview. "People were cowering, covering their heads as the shots were going off," he said, referring to other passengers.

Whitby, clearly shaken by what he witnessed, said police didn't hesitate — "not for a split second" — before opening fire.

After the shooting, commuters bolted in a panic-stricken rush for the exit, he said.

The incident occurred one stop away from the Oval subway station, one of the targets of Thursday's attacks.

Police have been given the power to shoot to kill if they suspect a suicide bomber. But they weren't saying last night if that's what the officers feared when they opened fire.

"This shooting is directly linked to the ongoing and expanding anti-terrorist operation," Metropolitan Police Chief Ian Blair told reporters.

"Any death is deeply regrettable," he said. "But as I understand the situation, the man was challenged and refused to obey police instructions."

Blair said police "are facing previously unknown threats and great danger" and called for people to remain calm.

But Muslim leaders are demanding an explanation.

"The police may well have had a good reason for shooting this man, but we need to hear what that reason was," said Inayat Bunglawala, spokesperson for the Muslim Council of Britain.

"We need to hear why it was not possible to disable and arrest this man and bring him to a court of law."

Police noted Thursday's attacks, which left one person injured, were similar to the far bloodier ones July 7. But they haven't said if they were the work of amateurish copycats or members of the same cell.

Forensic tests indicate "a bomb partially detonated at each of the four sites" in Thursday's attacks, said assistant police commissioner Andy Hayman. Media reports say the bombs, contained in backpacks, were made of acetone peroxide, the same mixture used for the July 7 bombs.

The Times published a picture yesterday of the backpack left on the upper deck of the No. 26 bus in east London. On a seat next to it is a battery, perhaps part of the firing mechanism.

The July 7 bombings were carried out by four suicide bombers, three of them British-born and one a long-time British resident. That investigation has taken police to Pakistan, which three of the bombers visited, and where several arrests have been made.

A 33-year-old biochemist who studied in Leeds, the northern England hometown of three of the bombers, is being detained in Egypt in connection with the attacks.

It's unclear how many of the four men in Thursday's attacks had planned to be suicide bombers. Hayman said the bombs were "left" on the subway trains and bus. He specifically noted the suspected bus bomber boarded the bus at 12:53 p.m. and left it at 1:06. Witnesses say they heard a small explosion about 20 minutes later.

But witnesses have described two other bombers holding smouldering backpacks that failed to explode.

"There's a high probability these men will be caught, dead or alive," said Robert Ayers, a security analyst who spent 30 years working with the CIA and the Defence Intelligence Agency in the U.S.

"They'll have a difficult time reconnecting with their support network because they're marked men. There's all sorts of forensic evidence from the bombs that didn't explode, so no one will even want to talk to these guys," Ayers said.

Ayers, an analyst with the respected Chatham House think-tank, believes the four bombers on the run are part of the same network that struck on July 7.

At about 1 p.m., heavily armed police descended on Harrow Rd., a multicultural neighbourhood of west London, for one of three house raids they conducted yesterday.

Patricia Osbourn, 35, said she saw an armoured police van come up a residential side street with officers armed with submachine guns taking cover behind it. Then they fanned out and took positions inside houses on Portnall Rd.

Marie Miri, 20, was asleep when three officers suddenly climbed through her back window. They ordered her and her partner into the kitchen and took over the living room overlooking the street.

"I woke up and I thought I was in Law and Order or something," she said, referring to the TV show.

Directly across the street was the house police were targeting. A neighbour said he saw police send a robot downstairs and through a basement door to hunt for bombs. They then fired six gas canisters into the house, smashed opened the front door and stormed the place.

Neighbours said the Omar family, originally from Somalia, lived there. Police made no arrests there, but it's believed a woman and teenager who lived at the address were arrested moments earlier around the corner, on the main street.

Police put a white suit on the teenager and took him and the woman away, witnesses said.

"I went out to buy some milk and suddenly I was confronted with this policeman with a submachine gun yelling at me to get off the street," said Petica Watson, 32, who happened on the arrest.

"London seems pretty crazy these days. It's amazing how so many policemen can just spring out of the woodwork."

Additional articles by Sandro Contenta

July 23, 2005 at 10:48 AM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Suspect shot dead 'had no bomb'

London bombs terror attack The Times and Sunday Times Times Online

By Adam Fresco, Rajeev Syal and Steve Bird
ARMED undercover police chased and shot dead a man directly linked to the London bombers’ terror cell after he ran into a South London Underground station and tried to board a train.

It is understood that he was found not to have been carrying a bomb.

Three officers had followed him to Stockwell station after he emerged from a nearby house that police believed to be connected with Thursday’s attempted bombings.

Three officers had followed him to Stockwell station after he emerged from a nearby house that police believed to be connected with Thursday’s attempted bombings.

The suspect, described as being of Asian appearance and wearing a thick, bulky jacket, vaulted over a ticket barrier when challenged by police and ran down the escalator and along the platform of the Northern Line.

When the armed officers reached the platform with their guns drawn, they shouted at everyone to get down. As waiting passengers and those already on a train that had pulled into the station dived to the floor, the suspect jumped on the train. Two witnesses said that as he entered the train he tripped, ending up half in and half out of the carriage, on all fours. Within seconds, as the clock tower outside the station chimed 10am, the officers caught up with the man and pushed him hard to the floor. Witnesses said that they then fired up to five bullets into him at close range, killing him instantly.

Anthony Larkin, 30, was waiting on the platform when he saw a man in a black bomber jacket and jeans running towards him being chased by the officers. Mr Larkin, a care assistant, from Hartlepool, Teesside, said: “The officers were shouting, ‘Get down, get down’. I immediately hit the ground. I saw the man fall over and then I heard two shots that I believe went into his back.

“There was lots of panicking, people ran screaming out of the station and they were keeping their heads down. I just got up and joined them, running as fast as I could.”

Alerted by the bulk of his jacket, police had followed the suspect on foot for some time and became concerned when he approached the Tube station.

After the officers were ordered to stop him from entering the station at all costs, they challenged him before he crossed the main road to the station.

When they drew their weapons and shouted “Stop, armed police”, the man looked over his shoulder and bolted. He was described as being very fit and agile.

After the suspect had been shot police sent a robot to examine the man, because of fears that any device could still prove a danger. But it is understood that no device was found.

Police are describing him as an “intimate accomplice of the cell”. His name and address were thought to have been found among the possessions left by the would-be bombers on Thursday.

Police sources said he did not live at the address from which he had been followed.

Another witness said that the suspect boarded the Tube and attempted to take a hostage before he was shot.

Dan Copeland, a Northern Line passenger, told BBC News: “The man burst in through the carriage door to my right and grabbed hold of the pole and a person by the glass partition near the door, diagonally opposite me.

“An officer jumped on to my left and screamed, ‘Everybody out’. As I turned out of the door on to the platform I heard four dull bangs.”

The Metropolitan Police said that an Independent Police Complaints Commission investigation will begin, which will inevitably focus on some of the witness accounts.

The incident sparked panic among travellers, some of whom were treated for shock and minor injuries.

Within 20 minutes of the shooting, more armed officers from Scotland Yard’s SO19 group ran into the station carrying semi-automatic weapons, witnesses said.

At 10.42am police cordoned off an area around the station and closed off the busy A3, which runs between Central London and the South Coast. Traffic was backed up for miles. At the same time, the Victoria and Northern lines were stopped. They reopened at 12.20pm.

Just before that, Christine Burgess, 56, who was travelling past the station on a bus, said that she saw a body bag being brought out of the station and put into an ambulance.

Early this morning the area was still cordoned off.

THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
# Anti-terrorist police have a policy, codenamed Operation Kratos, for dealing with suspected suicide bombers. At its most extreme, it involves shooting at the head

# Armed officers in England and Wales aim at the chest, but bombers hit in the chest can still trigger explosives

# Once a person is judged a serious risk to the public armed police can open fire

# They can only open fire while on duty when absolutely necessary and when traditional methods have tried and failed, or are unlikely to succeed

# Police are expected to identify themselves as armed officers and warn of their intent to use firearms

# They must give sufficient time for a suspect to observe the warning, unless that puts anyone at risk

July 23, 2005 at 08:45 AM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Man shot dead by police on Tube

BBC NEWS | UK | Man shot dead by police on Tube

A man has been shot dead by armed officers at Stockwell Tube station, as police hunt four would-be bombers.

Passenger Mark Whitby told BBC News he had seen a man of Asian appearance shot five times by "plain-clothes police officers" with a handgun.

"I saw the gun being fired five times into the guy - he is dead," he said.

Passengers were evacuated from the Northern Line station in south London. The incident followed four minor explosions in the capital on Thursday.

Police have cordoned off a 200-metre area around Stockwell station.

Services on the Victoria and Northern lines have been suspended following a request by the police, London Underground said.

Ambulances including an air ambulance have been sent to the scene at Stockwell.

They pushed him to the floor, bundled on top of him and unloaded five shots into him
Witness Mark Whitby

'They unloaded five shots'

Mr Whitby, told BBC News: "I was sitting on the train reading my paper.

"I heard a load of noise, people saying, 'Get out, get down'!

"I saw an Asian guy run onto the train hotly pursued by three plain-clothes police officers.

"One of them was carrying a black handgun - it looked like an automatic - they pushed him to the floor, bundled on top of him and unloaded five shots into him."

Passenger Alison Bowditch told BBC News: "The tube pulled into the station and we were sitting there, you know, as you do and then there was just a lot of shouting and the sound of gunfire and then people were saying, 'Get off, get off!'

"Somebody definitely went to the ground and as they went to the ground I heard gun fire and assumed they had been shot."

People on my train started banging on the doors, saying, 'Let us off, let us off!
Passenger Jason Dines

Jason Dines, of Brixton, south London, was on a train that pulled in to Stockwell station at about 1000 BST.

He told BBC News: "I suddenly became aware there was a real sense of panic.

"I could see people running down the platform to the exit.

"People on my train started banging on the doors, saying, 'Let us off, let us off!'

"They were making so much noise, it was impossible to hear the driver's announcements.

"The fear was contagious - I felt my heart racing.

"The doors of the train opened - but the driver was trying to get everyone to get back on the train.

"The PA system on the platform was clearer.

"Once people got the message they got back onto my train, and we continued on our way.

"At that point people were saying they had seen armed police shoot a man on the opposite platform.

"People were very scared. I was very angry."

After Thursday's London blasts, the bombers fled after detonators went off, causing small blasts, but failed to detonate the bombs themselves.

July 22, 2005 at 07:44 AM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Attack devices 'similar to 7 July'

BBC NEWS | UK | Attack devices 'similar to 7 July'

Analysis
by Mark Urban
BBC security correspondent

Initial indictors suggest that the devices that went off today were put together in a way very similar to those used two weeks ago.

The rucksacks themselves, as well as the choice of three tube trains and one bus as targets all suggest a similar method of attack, say investigators.

They speculate that the devices were so similar to those used two weeks ago that they may even have been part of the same batch.

These are homemade explosives and their use is very difficult. They can be very volatile and sometimes the materials fail to go off.

There will need to be detailed chemical analysis of the substance that did not detonate this afternoon, in order to prove conclusively that it was indeed explosive.

Worrying

However, police are working on the assumption that they were bombs intended to cause mass casualties.

The investigation will now centre on why the devices failed to detonate properly, what can be learned from them and what has become of the men seen fleeing from the scene of the different attempts.

The worrying thing in this is that we saw a huge and very energetic response from the police and from MI5 and all the other relevant agencies when we had the large number of casualties a fortnight ago.

The state of alert issued by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, which assesses the UK's terrorism threat, was critical - the very highest level of alert it can be.

All sorts of security precautions had been taken in the city to try to prevent further attacks.

Despite this, security services failed to prevent a group of people from planting bombs of a very similar design, possibly made in the same batch as those that were placed two weeks ago.

They have been able, apparently, to mount an almost identical attack - three bombs on the tube, one on the bus - and this is bound to be of great concern to people trying to catch the bombers.

It is only by the tremendous stroke of bad luck on the terrorists' part and good luck for the citizens of London, that these attacks did not succeed.

A lot is being made of the possible forensic utility of having these unexploded bombs.

During the IRA days, this was always something that investigators hoped for: an unexploded device yielding all types of forensic clues. Clearly, the harvesting of these clues has already happened.

The really critical element here is the fact that there are four individuals we know about who left the scene. One man has been arrested in Tottenham Court Road, near to the Warren Street scene.

We do not know if that person planted one of the bombs but if someone like that is caught, then that could bring really rapid and important breakthroughs in the investigation.

July 21, 2005 at 07:20 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

No One Hurt in Coordinated London Blasts

No One Hurt in Coordinated London Blasts - Yahoo! News

By ROBERT BARR, Associated Press Writer 19 minutes ago

LONDON - Small explosions struck the London Underground and a bus at midday Thursday in a chilling but bloodless replay of the suicide bombings that killed 56 people two weeks ago.

No one was injured in the coordinated lunch-hour blasts, which shocked and disrupted the capital and were hauntingly similar to the July 7 bombings by four attackers.

Police Commissioner Ian Blair would not say if any arrests had been made Thursday but he added that forensic evidence collected from the crime scenes could provide a "significant break" in the latest attacks.

"Clearly, the intention must have been to kill," Blair told a news conference. "You don't do this with any other intention."

He also said it was not clear if the two sets of attacks were connected.

Panicked and screaming commuters fled the three affected Underground stations, sometimes leaving behind their shoes, after the near-simultaneous blasts. Firefighters and police with bomb-sniffing dogs sealed off nearby city blocks and evacuated rows of restaurants, pubs and offices.

Prime Minister
Tony Blair appealed for calm.

"We can't minimize incidents such as this," he said at a news conference with the Australian prime minister. "They're done to scare people, to frighten them and make them worried."

He held an emergency Cabinet meeting but said no policy decisions were made.

President Bush was briefed on the explosions and said the terrorists "understand when they kill in cold blood it ends up on our TV screens and they're trying to shake our will. And they're trying to create vacuums in which their ideology can move."

U.S. mass transit systems remain on code orange, or high alert, since the London bombings two weeks ago, but the rest of the country is at yellow, signifying an elevated risk.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said police will begin conducting random searches of packages and backpacks of people entering the city's subway, which carries about 4.5 million passengers on the average weekday. Officials would not immediately say how frequently the checks would occur.

London Transport spokesman Steve Taylor told The Associated Press that it would be impracticable to check bags, or to install airport-style metal detectors and X-ray machines in a subway network that carries 3 million passengers a day, or a bus system that carries some 6 million daily.

Ian Blair, the police commissioner, called the blasts "a very serious incident."

"We know that we have four explosions or attempts of explosions, and it is still pretty unclear as to what has happened," he said outside Scotland Yard.

"At the moment the casualty numbers appear to be very low ... the bombs appear to be smaller" than those detonated July 7, he said. He added later that not all the bombs went off.

Independent security and defense analyst Paul Beaver said he was told by an official close to the investigation that it appeared two devices detonated but that the other two did not.

Police initially said one person was injured in the blasts, but later said there were no bomb blast injuries, although one person was reported to have suffered an asthma attack.

An armed police unit entered University College hospital shortly after the blasts.

Sky News TV reported that police were searching for a man with a blue shirt with wires protruding. Officers asked employees to look for a black or Asian male about 6-foot-2.

The attacks, which targeted trains near the Warren Street, Oval and Shepherd's Bush stations, did not shut down the subway system, only three of its lines. The double-decker bus had its windows blown out on Hackney Road in east London.

"When I got home, my hands were shaking," says 24-year-old commuter Lisa Chilley, who uses the targeted Oval station. "I'm panicking like hell. It's just too close to home."

Witnesses told The Associated Press they did not hear a bang but smelled something similar to an electrical fire at the Warren Street station.

Police in chemical protection suits were at the Warren Street station, but no chemical agents were found.

Stagecoach, the company which operates the stricken bus, said the driver heard a bang and went upstairs, where he found the windows blown out. The company said the bus was structurally intact and there were no injuries.

The incidents paralleled the July 7 blasts, which involved explosions at three Underground stations simultaneously starting at 8:51 a.m., followed quickly by a bomb going off on a bus. Those bombings, during the morning rush hour, also occurred in the center of London, hitting the Underground from various directions.

Thursday's strikes, which began at 12:38 p.m., were more spread out.

"People were panicking. But very fortunately the train was only 15 seconds from the station," witness Ivan McCracken told Sky news.

McCracken said another passenger at Warren Street told him he saw a backpack explode. The July 7 bombs were carried in backpacks, police said.

McCracken said he smelled smoke, and people were panicking and entering his subway car.

He said he spoke to an Italian man who was comforting a woman, and "he said that a man was carrying a rucksack and the rucksack suddenly exploded. It was a minor explosion but enough to blow open the rucksack."

"The man then made an exclamation as if something had gone wrong. At that point everyone rushed from the carriage," McCracken said.

The U.S. Embassy was closed to visitors about two hours after the blasts as a precaution, but embassy staff continued working, said spokeswoman Susan Domowitz.

The explosions came as Pakistani intelligence officials said authorities are seeking the former aide of a radical cleric in Britain in connection with the July 7 bombings.

The officials said British investigators asked Pakistani authorities to search for Haroon Rashid Aswat, who reportedly had been in close contact with the suicide bombers just before the attacks.

Aswat, 31, was of Indian origin and may not be in Pakistan, according to two intelligence officials in Islamabad and one in Lahore, all speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to the media and because of the sensitivity of the investigation.

Aswat reportedly was once an associate of Abu Hamza al-Masri, a radical imam awaiting trial in Britain on charges of incitement to murder. Al-Masri also is wanted in the United States on charges of trying to establish a terrorist training camp in Bly, Ore.; involvement in hostage-taking in Yemen; and funding terror training in
Afghanistan.

Quoting unidentified intelligence sources, The Times of London said Aswat visited the hometowns of the four London bombers and selected their targets. It also reported there had been up to 20 phone calls between Aswat and two of the bombers before the attacks.

Aswat's relatives in Batley, near the northern English town of Leeds, which was home to two of the suicide bombers, said they had not heard from him for many years.

"He has not lived at this house and we have not had contact with him for many years," said his father, Rashid, who asked for his family to be left in peace. "There is no story that we can provide."

Authorities are investigating whether the London bombing suspects, three of whom were of Pakistani origin and traveled to Pakistan last year, received training or other assistance from militants in that country.

One of the July 7 bombers, Shahzad Tanweer, 22, is suspected of visiting a madrassa linked with militants in Lahore which has become a focus of the inquiry.

A Pakistani newspaper reported that Tanweer revered
Osama bin Laden. The English-language Dawn newspaper said Tanweer visited relatives in November in a farming village near Faisalabad in eastern Pakistan. During his stay, he was visited by another bombing suspect, Mohammed Sidique Khan, 30, Tanweer's uncle told the newspaper.

Pakistan has pledged to curb religious extremism amid international concerns that Islamic schools, or madrassas, are promoting extremism.

___ Associated Press reporters Thin Lei Win and Kate Bouey in London and Christopher Torchia in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

July 21, 2005 at 04:43 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Same bomb cell may still be active, experts warn

London bombs terror attack The Times and Sunday Times Times Online

By Simon Freeman, Times Online

The copycat attacks on London suggest that the terrorists behind the July 7 blasts are still at large and intent on causing havoc and bloodshed, according to terrorism analysts.

Robert Ayers, a security analyst at Chatham House in London, said that that he believed that the same group was behind both attacks.

"All along I've been saying that you had four guys that died [in the July 7 bombings], but the infrastructure that trained them, equipped them, funded them, pointed them at the right target - the infrastructure’s still in place, still here," he told the Reuters news agency.

But if the same group was involved, the obvious question was why the first wave of attacks was so professional and deadly, and second was apparently so amateur, continued Mr Ayers, a former US intelligence official.

He pointed out that police had recovered unused explosives from various sites, including a hire car abandoned by bombers at Luton. Police carried out ten controlled explosions on the hire car in Luton station car park before they placed it on a low-loader and took it away.

"One speculation I’ve had all along is that they left those explosives in the car for another group to pick up and carry out a second attack, but when they got there the car had already been taken over by the police, so they have had to cobble something together fairly quickly," he said.

"From what I’ve been able to gather, either the bombs themselves are very, very small compared to two weeks ago, or they’ve got a manufacturing problem and only the detonators are going off, and not the primary charge. They’re certainly using explosives that aren’t nearly as powerful."

Experts agreed that there were two explanations for today's attack. The first, more benign, is that the attacks were carried out by "imitative amateurs" inspired by the July 7 blasts. The second, more worrying, was that the same group behind the suspected al-Qaeda linked attackers had struck again.

That would show that, far from exhausting its strike potential, the group was capable of causing fresh havoc despite heightened security precautions and a high state of alert among both the police and public. It also would show that the group could readily mobilise fresh operatives - perhaps even would-be suicide bombers - to follow the example of the four bombers who blew themselves up.

Michael Clarke, a security expert at King’s College London, told Reuters, said: "The more we know about the bomb attack two weeks ago, the more skilful it looks, well planned - the people behind it know what they’re doing."

Prof Paul Rogers, of Bradford University, agreed that the second wave of attacks was an "ominous" development. He said: "It implies there might be another cell primed and ready to attack. The one ominous thing is that this appears to be a group of a similar nature to the previous July 7 bombers."

Prof Rogers said, however, that the apparent failure of the devices to detonate on the Underground lines would provide investigating teams with crucial evidence for the earlier attacks.

He said: "The level of forensic evidence will be extremely high, much higher than last time. They will have the devices and much can be done to them in terms of fingerprinting, DNA, the origin of the detonators and where the bags were bought. If this was a series of dummies deliberately timed to cause mass panic then it puts the people responsible at considerable risk of being found."

Professor David Capitanchik, a terrorism expert based at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, warned that today’s explosions may have been "amateurish" devices deliberately aimed at emergency services who arrive at the scene. He said eyewitness reports of small explosions in a rucksack could indicate that they were not intended to explode properly until they had been recovered.

"It appears as if the detonators have gone off, but reports indicate a much more amateurish-made device than the bombs two weeks ago," he said.

"In other parts of the world which have experienced incidents like July 7 in London, smaller bombs have later been put in places with the hope that they will go off when the police and emergency services examine them. This indicates that in today’s situation the police are going to take a great deal of time and exercise great care, as there is a possibility that these bombs are intended to entrap police and emergency workers."

All were agreed, however, that today's attacks would add to the fear, which had been beginning to subside. Mr Ayers said that although casualties appear to have been avoided, the long-term damage to the city's psyche may take even longer to heal.

Mr Clarke said: "It is entirely plausible that they will have planned a campaign, not just one bomb. It’s part of terrorist psychology that one bomb is never enough.

"You gain the effect that you want by creating a sense that there are lots of bombs and the public are going to have to live with this for a long time, unless they do something, unless the government changes. The second event is a prerequisite to the psychology of a campaign ... This important because it’s momentum for terrorists."

Former government intelligence officer Crispin Black agreed that those who planned the attacks were trying for the maximum psychological effect.

Speaking outside the police cordon surrounding Warren Street tube station, he said: "It could be that this is a nasty sort of copycat attack mimicking what happened two weeks earlier but not using quite the power of explosives, but still getting the chaos and fear effect as you can see around us.

"In this stage of a counter-terrorism campaign you’re bound to get the feeling that rings are being run around us."

Mr Black said this will be the case until intelligence on all the attacks improves. But he said incidents like today should help police catch the perpetrators.

"In this kind of attack it looks as thought the terrorists have put their heads above the parapets and that falls into Scotland Yard’s hands," Mr Black said.

"It then becomes much easier for police to start tracking them down."

He added: "It’s too early to tell who these people are but even if they’re just copycat attackers that’s a pretty depressing thing to think about, that there are young people out there who are so radicalised they are prepared to bring London to a kind of taunting halt. And that’s the best scenario."

July 21, 2005 at 04:23 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

London bombers on CCTV

The four London bombers arriving at Luton railway station at 721am on Thursday, 07 July 2005, 90 minutes before the first bomb was detonated. From left to right: Hasib Hussain, Germaine Lindsay (dark cap), Mohammed Sidique Khan (light cap), and Shahzad Tanweer (Met Police/EPA)

July 18, 2005 at 04:22 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Killer in the classroom

Times Online

By Daniel McGrory, Michael Evans and Dominic Kennedy

Hunt for British mastermind
Two minutes’ silence at noon
POLICE believe that they have identified the British-born man who masterminded the suicide bomb attacks on London. It also emerged yesterday that one of his recruits was a primary school teaching assistant.
The leader of the terrorist cell is believed to be in his thirties and of Pakistani origin. He arrived at a British port last month and is understood to have left the country the day before four suicide bombers murdered at least 52 people.

Security sources believe that he has been involved in previous terrorist operations and has links with al-Qaeda followers in the United States. It is also believed that he visited the bombers in Leeds and identified targets on the Tube.
Security chiefs say that he is also likely to have schooled his recruits on how to trigger their rucksack bombs at the same time. There were also suggestions that the cell may have decided against using foreign help to reduce the chances of being discovered.
Detectives were trying last night to track two other possible members of the cell. The first was seen on CCTV cameras on the platform of Luton station near the four bombers as they set off on July 7. There are fears that the man, also believed to be of Pakistani origin, could be a fifth bomber, still at large in the London area.
Police are trying to discover if he lives in Luton, where the bombers are thought to have stayed before the attack and where explosives were found in the boot of a hire car. Fingerprint and DNA experts are still examining the Nissan Micra.
Security sources said that there may well be “sixth and a seventh” members of the cell, providing a support network.
MI5 was piecing together the double life of Mohammad Sidique Khan, the oldest of the bombers, who worked at a school in Beeston, Leeds.
Khan, the father of a 14-month-old daughter, was a “learning mentor” for children of immigrant families who had just arrived in Britain. Staff described him as gently spoken, endlessly patient, and immensely popular with children who called him their buddy.
Three years after this photograph was taken at the Hillside primary school, Khan triggered a 10lb bomb at Edgware Road Underground station.
Two of the bombers were known to the police, despite claims that they were “clean skins”. Shehzad Tanweer was arrested for disorderly behaviour and Hasib Hussain was questioned over shoplifting, both last year. The two were cautioned but not charged.

Next Column

© THE TIMES
Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, working as a teaching mentor in a classroom at a school in the Beeston area of Leeds (Unauthorised reproduction forbidden)

Police sources also admitted that the name of one of the bombers had emerged during a major anti-terrorist operation last year. But he was neither arrested nor questioned.
Every recent phone call and e-mail linked to the three known bombers is being investigated by the security and intelligence services. Working backwards from July 7, they will trace every call made from the bombers’ homes in Leeds and plot all their movements and associations with other people, in an effort to trace the bombmaker. MI5 is focusing in particular on any trips they may have made abroad in the past year.
Credit cards were discovered with the bombers’ bodies, and checks on financial dealings over recent months could provide vital information. One security source said: “We are checking if anyone was seen with any of this circle in the weeks up to July 7.
“The men who orchestrated this attack, obtained the explosive and assembled the devices would have been well away from Leeds and London by the time the bombs exploded.”
Scotland Yard were also looking last night for an Egyptianborn chemistry lecturer who was teaching until recently at Leeds University. M. Asdi el-Nashar, 33, is understood to have rented one of the Leeds addresses where explosives were found. He left Britain recently after telling neighbours of difficulties with his visa. The lecturer, who studied in the US, is understood to have known some of the bombers.
The fourth bomber was named unofficially last night as Ejaz Fiaz, thought to be in his early thirties. His home in Leeds was still being searched. Officers were given more time to question a relative of one of bombers. Police also carried out raids in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, last night.
There will be a two-minute silence to remember victims of the bombs across Europe at noon today, London time.
How much police knew about the bombers sparked a row between Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, and his French counterpart, Nicolas Sarkozy, during a meeting on terrorism in Brussels yesterday.

July 14, 2005 at 07:26 AM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

The suicide bomb squad from Leeds

London bombs terror attack The Times and Sunday Times Times Online

By Michael Evans, Daniel McGrory and Stewart Tendler
FOUR friends from northern England have changed the face of terrorism by carrying out the suicide bombings that brought carnage to London last week.

It emerged last night that, for the first time in Western Europe, suicide bombers have been recruited for attacks. Security forces are coming to terms with the realisation that young Britons are prepared to die for their militant cause.

Three of the men lived in Leeds and the immediate fear is that members of a terrorist cell linked to the city are planning further strikes. The mastermind behind the attacks and the bombmaker are both still thought to be at large.

The man who planted the bomb at Edgware Road was named last night as Mohammed Sidique Khan, 30, the married father of an eight-month-old baby, who is believed to have come from the Leeds area.

Two other terrorists were Hasib Hussain, 19, who bombed the bus in Tavistock Square, of Colenso Mount, Leeds, and Shehzad Tanweer, 22, the Aldgate bomber, who lived at Colwyn Road, Leeds.

Police are still trying to identify the fourth, whose remains are believed to be in the bombed Tube train carriage on the Piccadilly Line. It is thought that he comes from Luton.

Armed police raided six addresses in West Yorkshire yesterday, including the homes of three of the men, who they now know travelled to Luton in a hired car last Wednesday to join the fourth man. They boarded the 7.40 Thameslink train to King’s Cross the next day, each armed with a 10lb rucksack bomb.

Police found a bomb factory in Leeds containing a “viable amount of explosives”. Explosives were also recovered from a car left parked near Luton station. The raids came after the discovery of driving licences and credit cards at the scenes of the explosions, and a telephone call from the mother of Hasib Hussain, who asked police to try to trace her son.

A relative of one of the bombers was arrested and taken to London for questioning. Intelligence agencies say that at least two of the men had recently returned from Pakistan. All four were British, but with origins in Pakistan. MI6, MI5 and British diplomats were in touch with the Pakistani authorities last night to try to track down any connections with terrorists there. Security sources confirmed that none of the bombers was on any MI5 file, although one had links to a person investigated by police.

The four were captured on CCTV cameras at King’s Cross Thameslink station, laughing together and carrying rucksacks, minutes before they set off for their targets at 8.30am on July 7.

July 13, 2005 at 07:46 AM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

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

Blair forced to defend security services caught off their guard

The Scotsman - Top Stories - Blair forced to defend security services caught off their guard

JAMES KIRKUP
POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT

Key points
• PM to defend actions of security services
• Tories call for investigation
• Three arrested at Heathrow airport

Key quote
"The track record of our security services in bringing people to justice is good. The problem is the time it takes and... the difficulties of actually getting to the forensic evidence which is needed to do that." - Home Secretary, Charles Clarke

Story in full
TONY Blair will defend the intelligence and security services today over last week's terrorist attacks on London, even though the investigation into the bombings still appears far from identifying the people responsible for at least 49 deaths.

Although three men were arrested under anti-terrorism laws at Heathrow Airport early yesterday morning - the first such arrests since the attacks - police sources last night insisted they were "not that significant" to the investigation.

The three men, all British nationals, are understood to have been arrested upon arriving at Heathrow from an unidentified foreign country. Metropolitan Police sources said they had not been arrested in direct connection with either the London attacks or a security scare in Birmingham on Saturday night.

Announcing the arrests at a press conference, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick said it would be "inappropriate and pure speculation" to link the development to the London attacks.

Intelligence sources have admitted that the London attacks came as a complete surprise, and there are still few useful leads to precisely who carried out the simultaneous bombings.

John Stevens, the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, yesterday offered his view, insisting that the bombers were "home-grown" British Muslims.

Lord Stevens, who left office earlier this year and now writes a lucrative newspaper column, has more than once irritated his former colleagues with his public pronouncements.

Yesterday, serving police commanders insisted that they were not ruling out any possibilities, saying it was equally likely that the bombers were foreign nationals who had entered Britain shortly before the attacks.

Contradicting Lord Stevens' words, two alleged international terrorists are believed to figure in the current investigation - Moroccan-born Mohamed Gerbouzi, and Mustafa Setmarian Nasar, a Syrian linked to last year's attacks in Madrid.

Mr Gerbouzi, a 44-year-old joint British citizen, has been convicted in absentia of terrorism in Morocco, but is believed to be at large in London.

Yesterday, he gave an interview to al-Jazeera, the Arabic-language news channel, in which he protested his innocence. "I am not hiding and I am not a terrorist," said Mr Gerbouzi.

Al-Jazeera said the interview was conducted in London, but there is no way to verify that claim, and Mr Gerbouzi's whereabouts remain unknown.

The police and intelligence agencies investigating the London bombing are still working from an almost entirely blank page, searching surveillance records and agent reports from the weeks before the attacks for clues that may have been missed.

While insisting that some of the 1,800 calls made to a public helpline had yielded important information, the Met yesterday made a new appeal for photographs, video footage and mobile-phone images taken in the area of the blasts.

Despite the appearance of a police force desperately searching for clues, Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, yesterday insisted he was confident that the bombers will eventually be apprehended. "I am very optimistic indeed," he told BBC television.

"The track record of our security services in bringing people to justice is good. The problem is the time it takes and... the difficulties of actually getting to the forensic evidence which is needed to do that."

He added: "It will be painstaking, efficient and I am confident we will bring the perpetrators to justice in the end."

But the almost complete surprise of the intelligence agencies at last week's bombs has prompted the Conservatives to call for an investigation of the pre-attack intelligence process. Michael Howard, the Tory leader, stopped short of saying government or security services had made mistakes before the attacks, but insisted a review was justified.

"Let's look again at our arrangements, let's have an inquiry into what happened and whether anything more could have been done. I hope the Government will look again at some of the suggestions which have been made," Mr Howard said. "The inquiry we have asked for is an inquiry into what happened, what went wrong."

The Prime Minister is expected to address MPs today on the aftermath of the attacks, and aides said he will reject the Tories' implied criticism of the intelligence services.

Downing Street yesterday repeated that Mr Blair has "full confidence" in the police and security services. "We believe there is no need for any inquiry or review," a spokeswoman said.

"The security services have protected us from attacks for many years and they will continue to do so, but we have always said there was a high chance of an attack. No security system, no matter how good, can be perfect every time."

In contrast to the approach taken by the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats have not called for an investigation or criticised the government. Charles Kennedy, the Lib Dem leader, yesterday also refused to draw any connection between the attacks and Britain's role in the invasion of Iraq . "I don't think myself that you can do cause and effect between Iraq and what happened a few days ago," he said.

Initial opinion polling conducted in the days after the attacks suggested one political consequence has been a greater public acceptance of the need for stringent anti-terrorism laws and for the government's proposed identity card scheme.

Ministers have so far declined to argue that the attacks justify their policies, but the public reaction to the bombing is putting civil liberties campaigners and liberals like Mr Kennedy on the defensive.

WITHDRAWAL OF 5,000 UK TROOPS FROM IRAQ 'AN OPTION'

A LEAKED plan to pull 5,000 British troops out of Iraq is only one of a number of "possible options," the Ministry of Defence insisted yesterday.

The paper, written by John Reid, the Defence Secretary, set out how Britain could start handing over control of parts of southern Iraq to the new Iraqi government as soon as the autumn, with a complete transfer by next summer.

There are still 8,500 British troops in Iraq, and the deployment is starting to put strain on parts of the Army, especially the Territorial Army.

In a confidential report entitled Options for future UK force posture in Iraq, Dr Reid argues that reducing the UK commitment in Iraq to around 3,000 personnel would save around £500 million a year.

As well as the financial benefits of the withdrawal, removing troops from Iraq also would make it easier for Britain to fulfil a commitment to take over leadership of the NATO mission in Afghanistan.

Another option believed to be under discussion is for Australian troops to replace some British soldiers in southern Iraq. Australia already has 450 regular troops in Iraq, and its special forces are said to be operating in the country too.

July 11, 2005 at 12:03 AM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Architect of mayhem is sure to have fled before the blasts

London bombs terror attack The Times and Sunday Times Times Online

By Daniel McGrory
INVESTIGATORS believe the mastermind of the synchronised bombings in London fled the country long before the attack. He would have travelled on the Underground network, studied timetables and known his way around major stations such as King’s Cross. Security chiefs say he would have organised his own escape with the same precision.

The hunt for the organiser of the London cell has spread worldwide with police studying suspects from Scandinavia to the borders of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Some of the names being circulated are linked to al-Qaeda’s high command, while others are said to be veterans of terror training camps who have been careful to steer clear of radical groups they knew would be kept under surveillance.

The police list also includes a number of British-based radicals of mainly North African origin. A major problem for Scotland Yard is that a number of these men are on the run in countries such as Iraq where they remain beyond the reach of any authority.

One senior police source said “The pattern of these attacks is that the masterminds make sure they are well clear before the bombs explode.”

The meticulous timing of the Tube bombings also leads investigators to think that the architect is likely to have been involved in planning other terror operations. In Spain, police say the radical leader who planned the bombing of four Madrid commuter trains in March 2004 has never been found.

Experts from a dozen countries are already assisting the Yard, including a team from Spain who have handed over files on some of the alleged architects of the Madrid bombings who are still on the run.

Their main focus is on Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, 46, a Syrian with joint Spanish nationality who lived in North London in the mid-1990s. As The Times revealed last week, he left Britain to start up a terror training camp in Afghanistan before the September 11 attacks where he groomed scores of young British recruits.

Nasar, who has a $5 million (£2.9 million) bounty on his head and who lived in Neasden with his wife and child, has a record of setting up “sleeper cells” wherever he has been.

Two of his lieutenants in the Madrid operation were North Africans who carried British passports in the names of Burgess and Frost. They too have disappeared. There have been various sightings of Nasar, with the latest intelligence reports suggesting he is now in Iraq.

Reports from Denmark yesterday said that police have been asked to track down Abu Rashid, a fellow Syrian, who was Nasar’s deputy at one of his training camps in the mountains straddling the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Rashid is said to have disappeared from his home in Braband, near Aarhus, but police say that he was kept under only loose surveillance by the Danish authorities.

Major Soeren Bach of the Danish Military Academy has described his country as a safe haven for Islamic radicals, saying: “We have decided to leave these people in peace because it is easier to do this rather than get into a legal battle with them.”

The attacks in London triggered a massive security operation in Italy, where police arrested 142 people over the weekend and issued deportation notices for 52 illegal immigrants.

As some of the suspects on Britain’s list are already in custody abroad, British police will ask permission to interview them in prison.

One figure was named as Zeeshan Hyder Siddiqui, 25, a British national who is in prison in Pakistan and is alleged to be among those schooled in bomb-making at one of Nasar’s camps. Siddiqui is from West London and studied physics at a university in the capital.

The Moroccan authorities are still hunting for two clerics said to have helped to plan a string of bomb attacks in Casablanca in May 2003. The two, who cannot be named for legal reasons, are understood to have visited Britain a number of times.

Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, who retired as Metropolitan Police Commissioner in January, argued that everyone involved in this atrocity would be found closer to home. He wrote in his News of the World column “any hope the attackers came from abroad was dangerous wishful thinking. The bombers will be apparently ordinary British citizens, young men conservatively and cleanly dressed and probably with some higher education.

“Highly computer literate, they will have used the internet to research explosives, chemicals and electronics. They are also willing to kill without mercy — and to take a long time in their planning.”

His remarks angered race relations groups. Massoud Shadjareh, chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission in London, said the claims were unfounded and threw suspicion on all Muslims in Britain.

He said: “He has, without doubt stirred up racial tensions at a time when we need unity.” Lord Stevens is confident the public outrage will “unleash a tidal wave” of information from the Muslim community.

He estimates that up to 3,000 British-based militants passed through training camps over the past decade. Details are scant of what became of these recruits. Some are known to have fought in Kashmir, Chechnya and Iraq, but the majority slipped back to Britain.

July 10, 2005 at 09:50 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

London bombs - 8 minutes from Kings Cross

London bombs terror attack The Times and Sunday Times Times Online

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July 10, 2005 at 09:28 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Uncomfortably numb

TheStar.com - Uncomfortably numb

In the wake of the London bombings, the Star's Middle East correspondent, Mitch Potter, examines living with constant insecurity in Jerusalem, which, through sheer repetition, has shed the capacity to be shocked

MITCH POTTER
MIDDLE EAST BUREAU

One morning in New York, one morning in Madrid, one morning in London. And in Jerusalem and Baghdad, too many mornings to count.

Terror loves the rush hour. It loves planes, trains, buses and explosives-packed automobiles. It loves invoking indiscriminate doom on a brand new day.

What it requires in return is fear and panic. And ironically, in this part of the world, it has a much harder time finding it anymore.

Baghdad and Jerusalem, which for very different reasons share miserable status as the world's most terrorized cities, have through sheer repetition shed the capacity to be shocked. Each has been hit often enough and long enough to have attained a kind of civic numbness to the new normal, which amounts, more or less, to a state of near-permanent insecurity.

Jerusalem itself may be gingerly learning to breathe again for the first time in five years on the merits of a fragile ceasefire with Palestinians, but it is clearly a changed city from what it once was.

The enduring banality of terror is evident in the continued construction of the concrete wall slicing across the city's Arab East Side, each new slab a reminder of what Israel expects of its future. It is there in the requisite metal detectors and handheld wands that govern entry to shops and restaurants. It is there in the sheer number of guns, which are to Jerusalem what umbrellas are to Vancouver.

Even under ceasefire, occasional Red Alerts are called, where in a matter of minutes Jerusalem is reduced to gridlock by a gantlet of flying checkpoints. Israeli police use eye contact as the first line of defence, scanning each car for the nervous faces of potential bombers. Even the slightest flicker of uncertainty will trigger a demand for identification. You can leave home without American Express in this city. But don't dare forget your passport, or your sense of freedom compromised.

All this to forestall that sickening boom that Jerusalemites know so well.

People here would have recognized instantly the sound of Thursday morning's double-decker blast in London. When explosions shred buses, there follows a deep, resonant boom strong enough to rattle windows half a city away. Yet the sound is eerily muffled, too, as if by the bodies of those who take its worst.

It is a sound unlike any other, and when it comes, Jerusalemites know well that calls must be placed immediately to account for friends and family. In just a few moments the howl of sirens will start, and then the mobile-phone grid will collapse under the volume of survival checks, just as it did Thursday in London.

British novelist Ian McEwan, writing in Friday's New York Times, described the contradictory reactions to the London attacks under the headline "The Surprise We Expected."

"Now the disaster was upon us, it had an air of weary inevitability, and it looked familiar, as though it happened long ago," he wrote.

"In the drizzle and dim light, the police lines, the emergency vehicles, the silent passers-by appeared as though in an old newsreel film in black and white.

"The news of the successful Olympic bid was more surprising than this. How could we have forgotten that this was always going to happen?"

In Jerusalem, nobody forgets. But in the march of the controversial wall, the city's Jewish side at least takes comfort in knowing the direction from whence its enemy comes. If nothing else, the wall reminds us there is a clearly identifiable other side here, and however similar — and ultimately, self-destructive — Palestinian terror might be to that of Al Qaeda, it is the tactic of a very different struggle for national self-determination.

Where might New York, London or Madrid build their walls? And what possible Red Alert could ever adequately secure the world's oldest and largest subway system from the kind of attacks that struck Thursday?

People here would have recognized instantly the sound of last week's double-decker blast in London
The questions have no answers, and it was perhaps with this in mind that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Thursday instructed his cabinet not to speak about the London attacks, other than to express condolences.

"It is not our incident, and there is no need to talk (about it) beyond expressing shock," a source in Sharon's office told the Hebrew daily Ha'aretz.

Across the desert, Baghdad has walls of its own ringing the hermetically sealed Green Zone, inside which a fledgling government and the U.S.-led coalition gird against a full two years of explosions so intense they have put pale even to what Jerusalem has endured.

Not every blast comes in the morning. Last year, standing on the balcony of al-Hamra Hotel after sundown, I remember watching dumbstruck as an orange ball of flame erupted in the shape of a mushroom, backlighting a nearby row of palm trees in perfect silhouette. Two seconds later the blast impact followed with a concussive whomp.

A few minutes later, at the scene of the Mount Lebanon Hotel car-bombing, something far more impressive: with no fire brigade yet on site, a group of acrobatic young Iraqi men took it upon themselves to scale the burning building in search of survivors. The bomb sheared the hotel façade away cleanly, leaving the smouldering bedrooms exposed like a doll's house. And everyday Iraqis dove in for the rescue.

One of my closest Iraqi friends found work shortly thereafter as a liaison to the newly re-formed British Embassy. Each day he would leave the house in casual clothing and take a different route to the Green Zone. Inside, he would change into more diplomatic work attire — until one day, he was spotted by someone from the neighbourhood, who delivered the warning that "Working in the Green Zone is the kind of thing that can get your family killed."

He quit immediately. And moved immediately, uprooting his family without so much as a goodbye and forwarding address to the neighbours he no longer dared trust.

But even then, as now, Baghdad matches Jerusalem for sheer resilience. In either city, the impact of explosion extends only to the edge of the blast zone. On one block you will find the remnants of unlucky Iraqi police recruits spackled on the sidewalk, as ambulance crews tend to the walking wounded. Walk a block farther and a surreal life continues in dogged, wilful oblivion. You will find bricklayers mixing mortar at the site of a new building, men puffing nargila pipes in stoic repose, restaurateurs skewering rotisserie chickens onto glass-encased sidewalk roasters.

Nobody is unaware of what lies just down the road; nobody can bring themselves to do more or less than simply continue living.

In Jerusalem, radio stations answered bombings with a full day of sad songs in the earlier days of the intifada. But as the blasts continued, the sombre music faded away. Sociologists began remarking on Israel's ability to compartmentalize grief, effectively locking up the emotional baggage into tidy little bundles and hiding the keys indefinitely.

It is difficult to know if such coping mechanisms will backfire, eventually. But Jerusalem, like Baghdad, hasn't had the luxury of looking so far ahead.

Danny Brom, director of the Israeli Centre for Psychotrauma, says the impulse to pack away emotions derives from an overarching need to not feel fear. Survival means not processing feelings, lest the process lead to breakdown.

At its worst, in the summer of 2002, the intifada turned West Jerusalem into a ghost town. It wasn't simply a question of not boarding a bus. Motorists could sometimes be seen pulling over abruptly to avoid coming in vague proximity to a bus. Pedestrians would cross streets to avoid groups of more than five people, as crowds were targets.

"The situation of constant threats affects all areas of life: going to school or work; going out for the evening, or even just walking down the street," Israeli Centre For Psychotrauma explains in its Web-based guide to coping with attack. "When the body's resources are mobilized for long periods of time, they begin to show wear and tear. This may be experienced through symptoms such as weariness, depression, lack of interest and low levels of energy."

But the human body is nevertheless built to withstand such sustained stress. "Very quickly, despite apparent danger, it seeks to return to the quick of a safe routine," the Centre's guide says.

But deadening oneself to shock has its limits, Brom contends.

"Emotions, like carpets, need to be taken out and aired."

Additional articles by Mitch Potter

July 10, 2005 at 10:25 AM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

So how would you behave sitting next to an agitated man on the top of a bus?

London bombs terror attack The Times and Sunday Times Times Online

By David Aaronovitch
On the streets yesterday there was a peculiar mood. People were being unusually careful with each other, and on the Tube they were asking themselves: who is sitting in the carriage? Do they look doomed?

WE DESCRIBE terror first in relation to the body. Survivors pass the injured and note the blood and dust. A doctor who has specialised in helping epileptics has his leg amputated.

The statistics are those killed and hurt. And the uninjured face physical “chaos” as they attempt to move from one place to another. But what has it done to our heads? Because, for most people, that’s where terror lives.

Yesterday morning I met up with two friends, both “shrinks”. One remarked on the constant use of the word “calm” to describe survivors of the attacks. “People in shock,” he said, “are quiet. They don’t make much noise. They are calm.” It’s the ones running about shouting, he suggested, who you don’t have to worry about. He thought that the media coverage, the rolling news, hadn’t helped. By speculating on death and casualties the broadcasters focused attention on the threat, but by not knowing precise facts they made this threat more general, more encompassing, than it actually was.

Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, had got it right. Refusing to play the guessing game, he simply told his televised press conference that he had important messages for the public about what to do. One of my friends explained the importance of being told, gently, by someone in authority, that there was a plan.

The danger was the one that showed itself after Soham. So much coverage, so much talk about death and children — without any attempt at context — had affected large numbers of kids, who could easily imagine that there were now people out there wanting to take them, drown them and burn their bodies. I remember one child who wouldn’t go on Hampstead Heath for a year “because of Soham”.

My other friend predicted, based on previous attacks, how people would now build 7/7 into their fantasies. How would they behave if they were sitting close to a strangely agitated man on the top of the bus?

Would they take the risk, challenge him, deftly reaching into the bag in one lightning movement and pulling the wire away from the detonator? Or would they scoot downstairs, tell the driver what they’d seen, get off and run? But then, as he explained, this exercise in imagination could be a good thing. Maybe, one day, it would help someone to identify and stop a terrorist. Who knows?

What was already obvious from e-mails, chatrooms and newspaper reports was the guilty pleasure that could be derived from being a distant part of the story. Mostly these were tales about friends. A close acquaintance evacuated from the area after having heard an explosion might be worth, say, 20 story points. One who saw the aftermath of a bomb, say, 40. And a friend who was in the next carriage? A hundred.

And then there were the projections on to the bombers themselves. Experts in the media debated the difference between al-Qaeda “affiliation” and al-Qaeda “influenced” as though they had met the bombers personally. A correspondent to the letters page of this newspaper imagined that the culprits were part of the increased number of immigrants allowed in under Mr Blair.

In Parliament George Galloway exhibited what might be called psychotic empathy in telling MPs that the terrorists were, beyond any doubt, animated by the same motives that animated him — albeit using different methods. It was all down to Iraq. The logical problem with this over-identification should have been pretty obvious. If these bombs were about Iraq, what was the Bali bomb about? That was before Iraq, but after Afghanistan. But if Bali was about capturing Kabul, what was 9/11 for, coming as it did before either intervention? That was because of Israel/US bases/the desire for a Caliphate/hatred of Western decadence. So, if we hadn’t invaded Iraq, hadn’t invaded Afghanistan, hadn’t allowed Israel to be established, hadn’t had feminism and whorehouses, hadn’t been rich, hadn’t been democratic, then maybe, maybe, we wouldn’t have been bombed. It’s a story.

On the streets there was a peculiar mood. The woman in the health shop was cross with two customers who had complained about the cost of vitamin supplements. “All these bombs yesterday, all these deaths, and all they can do is moan about prices,” she told me, angrily, neatly displacing her anxiety.

Elsewhere the bombings had taken the conversational role usually occupied by the weather. “What about yesterday?” the newsagent said to me.

“Terrible!” “Really awful.”

Most noticeably, though, people were being unusually careful with each other, as though worried that violence could break out at any moment. There was a decorousness at zebra crossings. There was less solipsistic bustle. Perhaps this fragile etiquette was down to not knowing who it is you might need to rely on if suddenly something happened and the 268, straining past, exploded and changed your world.

The Tube was oddest of all. People getting on would give occupants sidelong looks. Who’s sitting in the carriage? Do they look doomed? Would it be better to be at the front or in the middle? I found myself making gradations of threat.

Two large African women with two large suitcases probably equalled zero menace. Slightly more worrying, perhaps, was the smart Asian (a doctor? a lawyer?) with the attaché case. There weren’t any young Arab men with duffel bags. Probably too scared to travel since becoming everybody else’s possible nightmare.

In the local gym I was finding it hard to get going. The atmosphere here, too, was different. It was only after half an hour that I realised what the problem was. The radio station that blares out from the speakers was not playing its usual thumping music-to-bash-treadmills-to collection. Instead we were slowing down to a succession of mournful ballads, and the conscious decision of the broadcasters was affecting us all at the unconscious level.

A bit like the bombers, really.

July 8, 2005 at 10:27 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Police give warning that bombers may strike again

London bombs terror attack The Times and Sunday Times Times Online

By Sean O’Neill, Daniel McGrory, Tom Baldwin and Stewart Tendler
THE al-Qaeda terrorists who killed more than 52 people in the London rush-hour bombings are still at large and could strike again, security sources gave warning yesterday.

Investigators are increasingly convinced that only one bomber — who killed 13 people in the explosion on a double-decker bus — died in the blasts.

Investigators are increasingly convinced that only one bomber — who killed 13 people in the explosion on a double-decker bus — died in the blasts.

The others are thought to have left their bombs — consisting of less than 10lb of high explosive hidden in rucksacks and fitted with timed fuses — on the floors of three Tube trains before escaping.

New information emerged last night on the timing of the explosions on the Undergroud. Police said that they now believed that the bombs went off within six minutes of each other, the first at Edgware Road station at 8.50am. This was originally logged as a person under a train, but by 9.17 police had realised that it was a bomb.

The second blast, between Aldgate and Liverpool Street on the Circle Line, came at 8.51, with the third, on the Piccadilly Line train between King’s Cross and Russell Square, at 8.56. The bus explosion in Tavistock Square came at 9.47.

One high-level source said that investigators were assuming that “the people who did this are still out there. They could do it again”.

A second attack would fit the pattern of recent al-Qaeda activity in Europe. In November 2003, the HSBC bank and the British Consulate in Istanbul were attacked five days after two synagogues in the city had been bombed.

The London bombs are strikingly similar to the wave of blasts which killed 191 people on commuter trains in Madrid in March last year. Less than a month later, a bomb attack on the high-speed rail line to Seville was foiled.

Scotland Yard’s Anti-Terrorist Branch is in contact with its Spanish counterparts and police and security services around the world to try to discover any intelligence that can identify the bombers.

A main concern is that they are dealing with “clean skins”, possibly British-born terrorists who have not crossed the intelligence radar before. Whoever the killers are, they have access to high explosives and bomb-making expertise.

A police source told The Times: “Our main fear is that this group is out there still sitting on a cache of high explosives knowing that their bomb designs worked.

“We know from the two most recent atrocities in Europe that those groups always intended to make two attacks. Instead of going for perfect synchronicity in one spectacular, they have tried to hit the same target twice.”

The confirmed death toll in Thursday morning’s four blasts has risen to 49 but police say that it could reach 70. Nobody knows how many bodies are inside a wrecked carriage in a deep, badly damaged tunnel between King’s Cross and Russell Square stations.

Some of the 86 people still in hospital were visited by the Queen, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall.

The Queen, visiting the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, told staff: “Atrocities such as these simply reinforce our sense of community, our humanity, our trust in the rule of law. That is the clear message from us all.”

Services on parts of the Underground will not be back to normal for several weeks. Transport for London said that Circle and Hammersmith & City line services, which were suspended yesterday, will resume in days but that the central section of the Piccadilly Line would not be back in action for some weeks.

The bombings overshadowed yesterday’s deals at the G8 summit in Gleneagles on climate change, alleviating debt among developing countries and aid to Africa. Flanked by other world leaders, Tony Blair contrasted its achievements with the “despair and hatred that terrorism sought to put in people’s hearts”.

He highlighted an agreement on $3 billion for the Palestinian Authority after the Israeli disengagement from Gaza, saying that it showed how civilised nations could help “two peoples and two religions live side by side in peace”.

After returning from the summit, President Bush went to the British Embassy in Washington to sign a book of condolences for the victims.

Ministers emphasised yesterday that they would not seek to make political capital out of the bombings. Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, said that they would not have been prevented by identity cards. He has called a meeting of his European counterparts in response to the attacks, in Brussels on Wednesday.

Mr Clarke also suggested that he may agree to a Tory request for an inquiry into any failings by the security services.

Senior Whitehall sources believe that there were no warning signs because the terrorists had planned an attack to coincide with the G8 summit a long time ago. “We did not hear any chatter because there may have been none,” one said.

The police inquiry, the biggest manhunt in Scotland Yard’s history, is focused on the recovery of CCTV film of the bombers boarding or leaving trains. But forensic science analysis is being severely hampered by conditions in the tunnels.

Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, said that the bombings would effect the whole of the UK. “This is a national issue, not just for London,” he said.

July 8, 2005 at 10:11 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Police hunting for first clue to begin joining up the dots

London bombs terror attack The Times and Sunday Times Times Online

By Stewart Tendler and Daniel McGrory
As police collect sackloads of evidence, three main theories over the identity of the bombers are emerging

POLICE are counting on forensic teams to provide the breakthrough that will enable them to find the terrorist cell responsible for the bombings.

The scientific teams have accumulated sacks full of material as evidence, some of it so small that it is barely visible to the eye.

A senior officer at Scotland Yard said last night: “Right now we have a ton of material to investigate. There are hours of CCTV footage to go through, thousands of telephone calls and e-mails to pore over as well as the testimony of survivors.

“What we need is that first, practical clue so we can start joining up the dots.”

In Madrid it was a partial thumbprint on a mobile telephone Sim card that led police to their first suspects.

In Istanbul it was a chassis number on a truck used in a suicide bombing that helped investigators to identify the terrorist cell responsible.

The problem for Scotland Yard detectives is that this scientific operation requires patience and time. They are piecing together the biggest forensic jigsaw puzzle that London has ever seen.

Yesterday, forensic teams were picking metal fragments from the bombed-out bus that were embedded in buildings a hundred yards away.

They will also recover evidence from the bodies of the victims.

From the remains, the police will be able tell for certain whether a suicide bomber was responsible, or if not it will show where the terrorist left the bomb.

“I’m afraid you have to recover every damn thing you can,” the officer said.

“The chances of someone coming forward to identify the cell is unlikely so it’s the evidence which is likely to lead us to these people.”

Police said that they were confident last night that the terrorist who blew up the No 30 bus died with his victims. Their effort now is to discover if there is enough DNA to identity him.

“Find one of the gang, and it leads you to the rest of the cell,” the officer said.

The other priority is to piece together the design and construction of the bombs.

Experts say that those who make bombs leave their tell-tale trademarks, which is why police have asked their counterparts around Europe to send their files from the most recent atrocities.

The officer at Scotland Yard, a veteran of the 30-year battle with IRA bombers, said: “We need to know the explosive used, the type of detonator and timer, wires, tape.

“We even need to know all we can about the bags that they were carried in because we might be able to trace where they were bought and so narrow down the location of the bombers.”

A closely guarded military and scientific complex near Sevenoaks, Kent, in the heart of the Home Counties and a nondesdescript office block in Lambeth, South London, will be the twin centres in this manhunt.

The first, Fort Halstead, is the home of the forensic explosives laboratory. Scientists there have handled material from blasts as big as the Lockerbie bombing and as small as IRA devices hidden in lunch boxes.

The forensic laboratories in South Lambeth Road, an ugly brick-and-concrete 1970s tower block, will co-ordinate the other parts of the search, from fingerprints to DNA and fibres.

The next step will be for the forensic science teams to stage what they call a “Byford conference” to figure out who should do what.

The name comes from Sir Lawerence Byford, a former police chief inspector, who wrote a damning report on the failures of the police investigation into the Yorkshire Ripper case.

His recommendation was that one scientist should be chosen to oversee a whole operation. Each of the others should run an area of expertise and all would advise the senior police investigator.

This method was first used in the aftermath of the IRA hotel bombing during the Conservative Party conference in Brighton in 1984.

Peter Yapp, deputy director of forensic science at the Control Risk Group, said: “Forensics has developed tremendously in the past ten years. Now we can find answers from even microscopic traces, but this won’t be a quick process.

“The bodies will also tell their own tragic story. They too are vital evidence. You are looking for the key that will send you in the right direction. The police investigators can then focus their energies in the one direction.

“Sometimes it is the bombers who make a mistake, who leave the smallest clue when they believe that they have thought of everything to cover their tracks.

THEORY ONE
TEAM OF BRITISH BOMBERS

THE possibility that the bombs were planted by British-born terrorists is the one that causes police most concern. Many young Muslims have been radicalised by events since 9/11 and an unknown number have travelled to Afghanistan, Chechnya and Iraq to take part in the jihad.

Many have returned as trained terrorists, fired with fundamentalist ideas and a hatred of the West and with firearms and explosives experience.

Two recent anti-terrorist operations, which police believe thwarted major bomb attacks in the UK, involved the break-up of alleged terror cells made up of Britons. Naeem Noor Khan, an al-Qaeda operative arrested in Pakistan last year, had maps of the London underground on his computer and had been in contact with British suspects.

Omar Bakri Mohammed, the radical cleric two of whose British followers have been involved in suicide bomb attacks in Israel, declared earlier this year that Islamists were no longer bound by a so-called “covenant of security” which forbade carrying out attacks in Britain.

The Syrian-born founder of al-Muhajiroun told followers in an internet sermon: “I believe the whole of Britain has become Dar ul-Harb [land of war].” In such a state, he added, “the kuffar [non-believer] has no sanctity for their own life or property.”

THEORY TWO
THE MADRID CONNECTION

SCOTLAND YARD has been in close contact with the anti-terrorist authorities in Spain since the blasts on Thursday morning because of the clear similarities with the Madrid train bombs in March last year.

Several suspects from the Madrid cell are still at large and a number are known to have fled to the UK. Three are currently in prison here fighting extradition to Spain. The UK security services are also reported to have asked for help in finding Mohamed Guerbouzi, a Moroccan wanted in his homeland for alleged links with the Madrid attacks and the suicide bombings in Casablanca in 2003. As in Madrid, the bombs appear to have been placed in rucksacks and left on crowded morning rush-hour trains.

It seems likely that they were detonated by the use of timing devices such as the mobile phone alarm clock settings used in the Madrid explosions. The bus bomb is a flaw in the theory that links the two atrocities. But police sources have suggested that the bus bomb was improvised by a bomber who, as alarm spread in London, was blocked from entering a Tube station. Instead he jumped on a Number 30 bus and either left his bomb upstairs or detonated it, killing himself in the process.

The Madrid bombers had planned to carry out other attacks in Spain but “martyred” themselves in suicide explosions when cornered by police.

THEORY THREE
BIN LADEN HIT SQUAD

ARAB sources with close links to al-Qaeda suggest that the attack on London was personally ordered by Osama bin Laden after the rejection last year of his offer of a truce. Bin Laden had offered to halt activities against the West if the UK and other countries withdrew troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Their theory raises the possibility that the al-Qaeda leadership despatched a team under its central command to carry out the attacks. If so, the planning will have gone on for a year or more. In 1998, when al-Qaeda attacked two US embassies in east Africa, the leadership sent in distinct teams to carry out the tasks of targeting, reconnaissance, financing and bombmaking. Only at the last minute were the bombers selected. By then the leaders, who had lived in Kenya running legitimate businesses, were long gone. One of the men wanted by the US for his alleged involvement, Khalid al Fawaaz, was running bin Laden’s media office in West London and has been in prison fighting extradition since 1999.

One al-Qaeda affiliate said: “I don’t think they were after killing the maximum number of people. They know the British are familiar with terrorism after the IRA experience. If you kill too many Britons, they will side with the Government. But if you paralyse the transport system and inflict major damage they’ll say why should we live like this, why for God’s sake are we staying with America?”

July 8, 2005 at 10:07 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

How the day unfolded - July 7th, 2005

graphic below, courtesy of The Times.

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July 8, 2005 at 03:00 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Death toll tops 50

TheStar.com - Death toll tops 50

PAISLEY DODDS
ASSOCIATED PRESS

LONDON — Commuters in London reluctantly descended into the Underground this morning, but buses and subways carried fewer riders than normal in the aftermath of four rush-hour blasts. Police raised the death toll to more than 50 and said each of the bombs contained less than 4.5 kilograms of explosives.

Investigators said they would look for evidence in the debris from yesterday’s attacks and in the video footage from some 1,800 cameras in London’s train stations.

“There is real passion now in the police to make arrests quickly before further attacks can be carried out,” said Charles Shoebridge, a security analyst and former counterterrorism intelligence officer.

Sir Ian Blair, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, said no evidence suggested that the attacks involved suicide bombers but that officials hadn’t ruled out the possibility. He said officials were working to establish a precise death toll; 100 victims were hospitalized overnight, 22 in critical condition.

London’s mass transit system reopened today, though some commuters, admitting they were afraid, opted for a taxi. Normally packed double-decker buses carried just a handful of passengers, and many Underground stations were less congested than normal. But others said they had little choice but to board the subway.

“I was scared, but what can you do?” said Raj Varatharaj, 32, emerging from an Underground station. “This is the fastest way for me to get to work. You just have to carry on.”

Assistant Police Commissioner Andy Hayman said officials still hadn’t gotten near the subway cars of the Russell Square station, fearing that the tunnel is unsafe. Twenty-one dead were confirmed in that blast.

He said officials believe the bombs were placed on the floors of the three subway cars that were hit. He said the initial investigation suggests that each bomb had less than 4.5 kilograms of explosives.

Yesterday’s blasts went off within 18 minutes at three subway stations, starting at 8:51 a.m. local time. An explosion ripped the roof off a double-decker bus less than an hour later, attacks that came as world leaders were opening the G8 summit in Scotland.

More than 700 people were wounded.

Prime Minister Tony Blair, who just the day before had been basking in glory of Britain’s successful Olympics bid, condemned the attacks and blamed Islamic extremists. Foreign Minister Jack Straw said the attacks bore the hallmark of Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda, the group responsible for Sept. 11.

Based on evidence recovered from the rubble, investigators believe some of the bombs were on timers, a U.S. law enforcement official said. The official would not further describe the evidence.

Investigators doubt that cellphones — used in the Madrid train attacks a year ago — were used to detonate the bombs in the Underground because the phones often don’t work in the system’s tunnels, the official said.

Ten of London’s 12 subway lines reopened today, though service on three was restricted. Bus service was running through central London, except for diversions around blast sites.

Aldona Mosjko, a 21-year-old bagel shop manager from Poland, was among those too frightened to take public transportatitoday. “Normally, I take the bus, but today, I took a taxi. I was a bit afraid,” she said.

Some commuters commented on what appeared to be a light police presence at some Underground stations.

“Everyone is very quiet, everybody is a bit anxious,” said Anil Patel, 40, a banker. “An obvious (police) presence would have settled your nerves.”

Shoebridge said detectives will have to watch thousands of hours of video — slowly and carefully. Investigators will try to find on tape the point at which bombs were placed, then trace back the movements of the bomber, a task he said could involve hundreds of cameras.

Shoebridge said investigators also will check records of cell phone calls made in the bombed areas just before the explosions, a job that might be difficult if investigators can’t determine where bombers boarded the trains.

The “Secret Group of Al Qaeda’s Jihad in Europe” claimed it was behind the attacks, but the claim could not be verified. In a posting on a website, the group said the bombings were punishment for Britain’s involvement in the war in Iraq and invasion of Afghanistan.

It threatened to attack Italy and Denmark for their support of the U.S.-led coalitions in both countries, too.

British Home Secretary Charles Clarke said authorities were taking the claim of responsibility seriously, and a senior U.S. counterterrorism official said the posting was considered a ``potentially very credible” claim, in part because it appeared soon after the attacks. But no one was certain, and one defence official said it was too early to say.

The blasts paralysed the city’s public transportation system yesterday, halting subway service, delaying buses and stranding thousands of residents and tourists.

Scenes of frantic subway passengers covered in soot, some cut and bleeding and flooding out of subway stations flashed across television screens.

The worst attack on London since the Second World War brought out a stoicism that recalled Britain under the blitz of the Nazi Luftwaffe.

“As Brits, we’ll carry on — it doesn’t scare us at all” said tour guide Michael Cahill, 37. “Look, loads of people are walking down the streets. It’s Great Britain — not called ‘Great’ for nothing.”

July 8, 2005 at 08:50 AM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Police struggle to reach bodies after London blasts

Top News Article | Reuters.com

By Katherine Baldwin and Kate Holton

LONDON (Reuters) - Police scrambled through dangerous rail tunnels deep underground on Friday to hunt for clues and retrieve bodies after suspected al Qaeda bombers killed more than 50 people in London rush-hour blasts.

A day after four bombs tore through three underground trains and a red double-decker bus, commuters headed to work again on London's battered transport network, some fearful, some defiant, spurred on by the knowledge it might happen again.

"My granddad called me last night and told me I had to go to work today," said Sally Higson, 36. "He's 89. He lived through the war and said it was important to carry on as normal."

The attacks -- which ministers said bore the hallmarks of the Islamic militant al Qaeda network -- were London's deadliest in peacetime and disrupted a summit of the Group of Eight (G8) industrialized countries in Gleneagles, Scotland.

London police chief Ian Blair said more than 50 people were killed in the blasts and 700 wounded.

He said the final death toll was not yet known. Police had yet to reach one of the bombed underground carriages near Russell Square station in central London as the surrounding tunnel was unsafe.

Blair said no survivors were trapped underground and the task now was to retrieve bodies. Andy Trotter of the British Transport Police said the number of bodies still trapped was not known, but one police source said it could be more than 10.

"This was a crowded tube train at rush hour in central London with several hundred people on board," Trotter said.

Andy Hayman, of the London police specialist operations branch, spoke of the "extreme circumstances" under which rescue services were working, saying they faced the hazards of tunnel collapse, vermin and "dangerous substances" in the air.

"Just imagine an explosion that far into a tunnel," he said. "I think we can all respect the sort of things our people are actually confronting."

Hayman said the bombs were believed to have contained up to 10 lbs (4.5 kg) of explosives and could have been carried onto the trains and bus in backpacks.

Police said they had no specific intelligence warning of the attacks. Home Secretary Charles Clarke said the blasts "came completely out of the blue."

The New York Times said timing devices rather than suicide bombers set off the explosions and Blair stressed there was nothing so far to suggest suicide attacks.

MORE BOMBS FEARED

Fears of more attacks kept commuters and markets jittery.

"We have to have ... maximum consideration of the risk of another attack and that's why our total effort today is focused on identifying the perpetrators and bringing them to justice," Clarke told BBC radio.

He said investigators were examining a statement from the "Secret Group of al Qaeda's Jihad in Europe."

The e-mail statement by the previously unknown group said: "Our mujahideen have carried out a blessed invasion in London and here is Britain now burning with fear and terror ... We have repeatedly warned Britain and have kept our promise."

Clarke said: "We monitor now very intensively a wide range of Web sites ... and this one and their claim is something we certainly take seriously."

An Internet statement from another group, calling itself the "Organization of al Qaeda - Jihad in the Arabian Peninsula" praised the attacks and said Rome would be targeted next.

Britain and Italy backed the U.S.-led war in Iraq, and London had been on high alert since al Qaeda's Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

The blasts battered financial markets, but oil prices recovered to near $61 on Friday as analysts said the attacks were expected to have a limited impact on the global economy and oil demand. British shares also recovered their losses, but sterling slid further against the dollar.

"There's still a bit of a terrorist risk premium in the market," said a strategist at a London bank. "It would make a difference if we knew for sure that these were suicide bombers, rather than an active cell on the loose."

The Islamic Human Rights Commission warned London Muslims to stay at home, fearing a backlash against the community. The Muslim Council of Britain, which represents 1.6 million Muslims, called for prayers for the victims.

Thursday's scenes of shocked and bloodied commuters were in stark contrast to the jubilant crowds who took to the streets on Wednesday after London was awarded the 2012 Olympic Games.

Clarke confirmed intelligence chiefs had reduced the threat level only last month following Britain's May 5 election but said there was no indication a higher alert level would have detected the bombers.

(Additional reporting by London bureau)

July 8, 2005 at 08:47 AM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

London explosions: timeline - July 07, 2005

London bombs terror attack The Times and Sunday Times

By Holden Frith, Times Online

0851 BST: The first explosion occurs on a Circle Line train between Liverpool Street and Aldgate

0856: A device explodes on a train between King's Cross and Russell Square.

0905: Witness reports that Kings Cross station is being evacuated

0917: A bomb explodes on a Circle Line train pulling into Edgware Road station, which collides with at least one other train

0922: The entire London Underground network is evacuated

0928: Metronet, a Tube maintenance company, reports that the explosions have been caused by a power surge

0930: University College Hospital placed on major alert

0934: A police spokesman says there are "walking wounded" at Aldgate East

0947: Device explodes in the upper section of a double decker bus at Tavistock Square in Bloomsbury

0951: Scotland Yard declares a "major incident" on the London Underground. Overground trains are diverted from Moorgate to King's Cross

0953: Rescue workers report several injuries at Edgware Road

1000: The National Grid reports that there has been no power surge that might have contributed to the incident

1013: Union officials report that there has been at least one explosive device on the London Underground

1019: Some mainline rail companies close lines in central London and terminate trains outside the capital. People are urged not to travel to London

1023: Scotland Yard says there are reports of an explosion at Moorgate

1108: Transport for London announces that all bus services within Central London have been suspended

1112: Charing Cross Road is cordoned off between Cambridge Circus and Centre Point after reports of a suspect package at a bus stop

1120: The Army is patrolling the streets of Covent Garden

1130: Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, confirms that there have been six sites of blasts in London and that traces of explosives have been found at at least one site

1130: Motorway signs outside the capital read: “Avoid London. Area closed. Turn on radio"

1138: A City of London Police spokeswoman confirms that two people have died at Aldgate

1139: A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman says that armed police and the Army have sealed off the area around the palace

1200: Tony Blair says that it is "reasonably clear" that the explosions were the result of terrorism

1216: Police have been called to Leicester Square Underground station, according to the London Ambulance Service

1224: Der Spiegel, a German news magazine, reports that responsibility for the attacks has been claimed by a group calling itself the "Secret Organisation Group of al-Qaeda of Jihad Organization in Europe" in a message posted on an unnamed website popular with Islamic militants

1234: Washington DC's underground system tightens security, sending armed police and sniffer dogs to patrol the network. Security is also stepped up in New York

1244: Police say that several people died in the bus bombing at Tavistock Square

1245: Police confirm "a number of fatalities" at Edgware Road Tube station

1247: Pope Benedict XVI condemns the attacks.

1256: The Home Secretary tells the House of Commons that "a number of terrorist attacks" have occurred in Central London, including at least four explosions: one at Edgware Road Tube station, one on the Tube between Aldgate and Liverpool Street stations, one between Russell Square and King's Cross stations and one on a bus at Tavistock Square

1303: Brian Paddick, the deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, says that 150 people have been seriously injured. There was no specific warning about the attacks, he says

1331: President George W. Bush makes a televised statement to say that he has instructed the Department of Homeland Security to make sure that American are "extra vigilant"

1355: European Parliament in Brussels sends a message of solidarity to the people of London.

1358: Ken Livingstone, the Mayor London, who is in Singapore says: "Londoners will not be divided by these cowardly attacks."

1452: Polish officials announce that the Warsaw underground system has been placed on alert.

1505: US official says 43 killed in this morning's attacks, quoting discussions among American government agencies.

1525: Metropolitan Police confirm 33 fatalities in the blasts, saying 4 devices have exploded, killing 21 people near King's Cross, 7 near Moorgate and 5 at Edgware Road. There is still no death toll from the bus attack

1529: London Ambulance say they have treated 45 seriously wounded people and 300 people with minor injuries. More than 100 ambulances attended the explosions, taking the injured to four hospitals across London

1616: All mainline railway stations apart from King's Cross have now re-opened and Network Rail urges commuters to start going home now

1703: Hotels report that they are overwhelmed by commuters unable to travel home and tourists who have not been able to leave

1733: Tony Blair pays tribute to the emergency services and the "stoicism and resilience of the people of London" and says the police will bring to justice the perpetrators

1756: Sky TV reports that police have warned people to move away from Victoria station. A suspect package is found in a bus but rail services continue to operate normally

1826: A police spokeswoman says that 37 people have died in the attacks. Seven were killed in the first explosion near Liverpool Street, twenty-one at King's Cross, seven at Edgware Road and two on the bus at Tavistock Square. Police said 700 people were injured, 300 of whom were taken to hospital by ambulance

1842: A police spokesman says that the casualty bureau hotline (0870 156 6344) is receiving 42,000 calls per hour and asks callers to be patient

1905: Transport for London says that overground rail services, buses and the Docklands Light Railway are running normally. The Tube will remain suspended until tomorrow morning, when a reduced service will operate
::NOBREAK::

July 7, 2005 at 05:12 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Inside the secret world of anarchists preparing for G8 summit

Inside the secret world of anarchists preparing for G8 summit - Britain - Times Online

By Adam Luck
The Times penetrated a group of militants who are intent on organised chaos when world leaders come to Scotland

A REMOTE farm in the Lanarkshire countryside was transformed last weekend into a city of well laid-out army tents and marquees resembling a military encampment.

The military aspect was no accident. This was a �war summit�, where about 300 anarchists � some dressed in urban guerrilla garb in freezing temperatures � had gathered to draw up plans to paralyse Scotland during the G8 meeting at Gleneagles in July.

At this so-called Festival of Dissent, held on the land surrounding the imposing 17th-century Birkhill House at Coalburn, a secretive group of militants drew up plans to blockade the summit by cutting road and rail links.

Under the plans, tens of thousands of protesters are to be housed in three camps strategically placed across Scotland and will be deployed through a communications network designed to outflank the police.

Despite the group�s obsessive secrecy, The Times was able to penetrate it to discover the nature of many of its plans � and the willingness of some militants to resort to violence in their determination to disrupt the summit.

After attending a series of meetings under an assumed identity, a Times journalist also established that two key figures in the network are a university dropout named Alessio Lunghi and Mark Aston, a university administrator.

Mr Lunghi, 27, is a leading light within the Wombles, the hardcore anarchist group that was behind the May Day chaos visited on London in 2002. The son of an Italian wine importer and a primary school inspector, Mr Lunghi, from South London, has been directly involved in anti-G8 groups in the run-up to the summit.

He favours combat trousers and heavy, military-style boots, and admitted at one meeting that there was no point to the anti-globalisation protests if there was no violence.

Mr Aston, who works at Cardiff University and was the vice-president of the Cardiff branch of the Association of University Teachers last year, is a key organiser of the anti-globalisation group Dissent, which was behind the festival.

Set up in 2003, Dissent is an umbrella organisation for anarchists and other radical groups, which say that they wish to see the overthrow of capitalism through �direct action�.

The event last weekend at the farm 32 miles southeast of Glasgow attracted radicals from Canada, France, Germany, South Korea, Spain and Iceland, along with a broad section of Britain�s anti-globalisation movement.

These included a PhD student from Cambridge University, a sales representative from London, a professional artist from Cambridge and an assortment of eco- warriors. They were housed in a tent city set in the farm�s 50 acres that included a military-style mess hall, where activists lined up in orderly queues for vegan meals.

Using a large map of the Gleneagles area pinned to the canvas wall of the main marquee, Mr Aston explained to the listening militants the benefits of cutting off the A9 trunk road from Glasgow to Perth and the Forth Road Bridge. �This would effectively cut off the north of Scotland,� he said. �We have to make sure that we can transport the protesters around the area and make sure they have maximum impact and blockade Gleneagles.�

Protesters from outside Scotland would converge on three camps � in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Stirling. Their exact locations are a closely guarded secret.

Activists at one meeting boasted that they knew the intended location for the main police camp, which will house many of the thousands of officers whose task will be to prevent any disruption of the summit. It is believed that some groups intend to target that camp. Mr Aston noted the success of text-messaging in marshalling protesters during anti-globalisation protests abroad and also discussed using motorcycle couriers to disperse information.

Among the foreigners were two Icelandic activists who gave their names as Oli and Runar. Runar, who said he was an art professor in Iceland until being made redundant when his radical activities upset the authorities, said: �We are here to learn about the techniques required for direct action. In Iceland we have serious campaigns against developing hydroelectric dams coming up this summer and felt we needed to come here to understand what we can do.�

The main action � which is scheduled for July 6 � is designed to prevent support workers, journalists and international and British civil servants, rather than the main leaders, from reaching Gleneagles. Several thousand foreign and British civil servants are expected to set the stage for the G8 leaders� three-day meeting, where Tony Blair, as the host leader (if Labour is re-elected on May 5), has pledged to push forward his plan to relieve debt and poverty in Africa.

As plans for the summit are being polished in Western capitals, the organisers of the campaign were preparing their own detailed designs in the hope that they can plunge the event into chaos. The festival focused on a series of workshops that included using blockading techniques, surveillance and counter-surveillance, arrest role play, first aid and �dealing with trauma�.

Activists were told not to use inflammatory language or discuss detailed strategy or tactics in open meetings because of fears that undercover police or journalists were present. Security was tight, with mobile phones and cameras banned.

Nevertheless, activists openly discussed their involvement in previous anti-G8 riots at Evian in France, and Genoa. They also made clear their hatred for the �British State�.

One organiser of an �arrest role play� workshop, who did not give his name, said: �The British State has a soft and fluffy image, but it is not. It can be as violent as the Italian, German and Swiss police. Do not be fooled.�

More than 10,000 police are expected to be drafted in from across Britain to protect world leaders, including Presidents Bush and Putin, in an exercise expected to cost �20 million. Just how seriously the G8 anarchists treat the prospect of violence can be gauged by the setting-up of a trauma group to help protesters to deal with not only the aftermath of any physical injuries received during the G8 summit but also with their long-term effects.

One organiser also stated that they needed to pool funds to �sue the police as fast as we can� because it would �help the recovery process�.

In a �blockading workshop�, activists openly discussed paralysing Scotland�s rail network by using equipment to simulate a signal that there was a train on the line, and methods of interfering with level crossings.

One clean-cut English student, who did not give his name, explained the use of �track circuit operating clips� � which resemble battery jump leads � to turn the signals red on a rail line and effectively close it down. �There is an electrical current and you attach the clips to the tracks and it breaks the circuit,� he said. �This makes it look like there is a train on the line and stops everything.�

The blockading workshops also saw discussion about methods to block motorways, including the scattering of waste metals and plans for activists to dress as motorway maintenance workers before placing cones to create traffic jams.

Although Mr Lunghi did not attend the festival, he was at a meeting this month at a community centre in Reading of a �South East Assembly�, gathered to deal with the logistical difficulties of helping protesters to reach Scotland from London.

It was at an earlier meeting of the South East Assembly umbrella, in East London, that Mr Lunghi addressed the question of violence during the protests against the Gleneagles summit. Asked whether it was likely, he smiled and said: �Well, I would hope so. There�s no point going otherwise.�

Asked yesterday about the campaign, Abby Mordin, 29, a resident of the Talamh co-operative that owns Birkhill House and its estate, said: �Dissent is not about riots but peaceful protest. It is a way to get a strong message across and making sure the world leaders have important issues on the agenda. We had workshops about dealing with the media and peaceful blockades to block roads.�

Mr Aston said: �I would really rather not give an interview to The Times.� Alessio Lunghi refused to comment.

SECURITY IN NUMBERS

100,000 people expected at the Make Poverty History march in Edinburgh on July 2

50,000 protesters expected at a rally outside the Gleneagles Hotel on July 6

10,000 police on standby during the summit, from Scottish forces and from England and Wales

1,151 the regular strength of Tayside police force, which covers the Gleneagles Hotel

1,500 delegates from the eight countries attending the summit

3,000 members of the media covering the summit

�150m estimated cost of hosting the summit

�20m amount provided by the Treasury for security

April 17, 2005 at 05:04 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Focus: Britain's secret war on terror

Focus: Britain's secret war on terror - Britain - Times Online

By David Leppard and Richard Woods
As Michael Howard and Tony Blair slugged it out in the Commons last week, hundreds of men and women from the security services were engaged in a covert battle on the streets. How serious is the threat? report

On Friday afternoon, as MPs and peers were locked in a grand parliamentary row over the abstract principles of liberty and justice, the apparatus of Britain�s secret state stood on its second highest level of alert � �severe (general)�.

The alert has remained enforced since November 2003 when an Al-Qaeda car bomb ripped through the front of the British consulate in Istanbul, killing the consul general and more than 25 others.

It means that an attack is expected on the British mainland but there is no specific intelligence to say where and when. Specialist units of the police, military and emergency services must be prepared to react at a moment�s notice.

The front line in this, Britain�s real war on terror, is not in the corridors of the houses of parliament but some 300 metres along the river inside Thames House, the imposing neo-classical headquarters of MI5, the domestic security service.

On Friday � as the government�s proposed measures for dealing with terror suspects ping-ponged between the Lords and the Commons � it was senior officers from the agency�s G branch who were scrambled to deal with the latest perceived threat to the realm: the impending release into the community of 10 Islamic extremists suspected of plotting terrorism.

Logistics were hammered out. Surveillance teams were readied. Officers were briefed. When such operations go into action Eliza Manningham-Buller, director-general of MI5, typically sends a handwritten report, delivered by courier, to the prime minister.

The terror suspects were being released from three locations � Belmarsh and Woodhill prisons, and Broadmoor secure hospital. Surveillance, curfews, tagging, communication intercepts � MI5 had to get them all in place.

Then on Friday evening as police arrived at Broadmoor to supervise the release of a suspect known only as B, he announced that he did not want to leave. Lawyers say that the Algerian � who has been linked to two fundamentalist north African terror groups and who is known to have bought satellite phones while living in Britain � was then forcibly taken to an empty flat where the door had to be broken down by police to gain entry.

Police, immigration officials, interpreters and lawyers were all involved. The suspected terrorist, who it is claimed has suffered a mental breakdown, will now be monitored under strict rules imposed under the government�s new �control orders�.

It is a year since bombs ripped through commuter trains in the Spanish capital of Madrid, killing 190 and injuring more than 1,500, and for those involved in Britain�s secret war on terror it is no ping-pong match.

Ever since the twin towers were brought down in New York by Al-Qaeda 3� years ago, an army of spooks and special police units have been striving in the shadows to prevent attacks in Britain.

Unknown to the public at large, a series of terrorist court cases involving more than 20 suspects are under way in Britain � but cannot be reported for legal reasons.

Up to 200 other British citizens and foreign nationals suspected of plotting attacks or supporting terrorism are being monitored.

It is a big and growing operation. MI5, which has several hundred officers dedicated to combating terrorism, is recruiting an additional 1,000 staff. The agency has recently set up a network of local branches across Britain to keep a closer eye on regional threats.

The police, too, are heavily involved. In London, Andy Hayman, the new assistant commissioner in charge of counter-terrorism operations at Scotland Yard, has nearly 900 staff in special branch (SO12) and the anti-terrorist branch SO13. More than 1,500 other Special Branch officers operate in regional forces in the West Midlands, Manchester and Scotland.

In the background ranks of analysts at GCHQ, the government�s electronic eavesdropping centre at Cheltenham, are also working round the clock. Their role is to analyse telephone and e-mail intercepts from scores of phones and computers used by terror suspects. Last but by no means least, there are numerous special military and medical units that are constantly training and on stand-by in case a bomber should slip the net.

It is in this already extensive war that Tony Blair won a new weapon last week: the right to impose restrictions on anyone, whether British citizen or not, without a full criminal trial.

To Blair it is a vital move against the terror threat, one that he claimed was �obviously necessary�. To critics it is a step too far, a dangerous slide down the road to a police state. �Legal historians of the future may mark today as the end of the presumption of innocence in English law,� said Shami Chakrabati, director of Liberty, the civil rights group, as the new powers came into being. �Bad law serves neither justice nor security.�

As the political row raged, a grim reminder of the dangers was taking place in Madrid. On Friday a ceremony was held in the Spanish capital to remember those killed and injured in bomb attacks a year ago � a horror that spurred voters to elect a new government only days later.

WITH that atrocity in mind, a secret Whitehall committee comprising MI5 and police is now preparing to send out detailed security advice on how best to defend polling stations against attack in Britain�s forthcoming election, expected on May 5. Security measures include improved CCTV coverage, sweeps of polling booths and police presence on the day.

Such precautions are only prudent. But as the government rams through parliament extraordinary powers after limited consultation, many people are asking: how real is the terrorist threat? Security sources say Manningham-Buller gives short shrift to anyone who asks her how many Islamic terrorists there are in Britain. �Ministers wouldn�t dare to ask Eliza how many terrorists there were stalking the streets. They know that they would get a severe handbagging if they did,� said one security official.

The spooks do not like to play the numbers game because it fails to distinguish between the small band of individuals who pose an imminent danger and the many more who are passive sympathisers, prepared to lend logistical support or to turn a blind eye at some point in the future.

Estimates of the number of young British Muslims who travelled to Al-Qaeda training camps before they were shut down in 2002 vary widely. Senior MI5 officials say that as many as 3,000 might have gone.

Lord Hoffman, one of the law lords who reviewed the cases of suspects detained without trial in Belmarsh, put the figure at 1,000. Blair recently said there were �several hundred� trained Al-Qaeda operatives in Britain, a figure endorsed by the new Metropolitan police commissioner.

Whatever the actual number, the security services have other reasons to believe that the threat of terrorist attack is deadly serious. All terror intelligence is fed into the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, an MI5 unit based at Thames House.

In 2002-03, its first year of operation, the unit received 60,000 individual pieces of intelligence.

�There is plenty of rubbish in there,� said a security source. �But also there are some gems. There are some things that are vital.�

In the past year a series of alleged plots has been uncovered. In March 2004 nearly half a ton of fertiliser, often used to make bombs, was found in a lock-up garage in northwest London. In a separate operation in August police arrested a group of British men with links to Pakistan in a series of raids in London and the Midlands.

Some suspected terror cells are believed to be linked to masterminds in Iraq. One cell, say police, seems to be controlled by Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, the terrorist blamed for many atrocities in Iraq. In addition, MI5 believes that the IRA still poses a threat to mainland Britain.

Suspicion is all very well, but what about hard evidence? Some six terrorist prosecutions are working their way through the courts � but they are proceeding unnoticed because reporting restrictions have been imposed to prevent other defendants being prejudiced in subsequent trials.

The outcome of both current and future cases will be revealed only later this year when a long and complex case, due to start next month, comes to a close.

A total of at least 24 people are on remand awaiting trial or are on trial for alleged terrorism offences. Eleven others � in addition to suspects detained in Belmarsh until last week � are awaiting extradition to face terrorist charges overseas.

One recent case that can be reported is that of Saajid Badat, a former public schoolboy who pleaded guilty earlier this month to conspiring to blow up a jet in 2001 using an explosive hidden in his shoe. Badat is an example of the �home-grown� terror threat now facing this country.

Although in the end he did not go through with his plan, he illustrates how the danger comes not simply from the obvious �mad mullah� extremists. Al-Qaeda has also recruited well educated, articulate young men who are the products of respectable middle-class homes.

Nor is an attack expected to involve weapons of mass destruction. �The most likely type of attack is going to be a conventional vehicle-borne suicide bombing of the sort we see almost every day in Iraq,� said one security source.

Probable targets, following the bombings in Bali and Madrid, are city centre nightclubs, mainline railway stations and airports. Recent intelligence suggests that Al-Qaeda units have carried out covert reconnaissance at Gatwick and Heathrow and at the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent.

The security services are all too well aware that the Spanish authorities suspect Abu Qatada, one of the men released from Belmarsh last week, to be linked to the alleged mastermind of the Madrid bombings.

Qatada, described by a British judge as a �truly dangerous� individual, is reported to have had dealings with Mustafa Setmarian Nasar, a Syrian who allegedly ordered the Madrid bombings. Nasar, for whom America has offered a $5m reward, is said to have been involved with Qatada when he was in Britain in the 1990s. He is now on the run.

Spanish investigators also claim that Qatada is closely linked to Abu Dahdah, another Syrian resident in Spain. Dahdah was arrested on suspicion of recruiting volunteers for Al-Qaeda attacks.

SO the problem is not whether there is a threat, but how best to deal with it.

From the outset the government has bodged and bungled. In the wake of the September 11 attacks it rushed through the Anti-terrorism Crime and Security Act 2001, part of which allowed detention without trial.

But that power applied only to foreigners � not to any UK citizens who happened to be Islamist fanatics planning atrocities. When the law lords declared that power to be discriminatory and disproportionate, the government panicked.

Charles Clarke, who had just become home secretary, announced that he wanted the power to detain anyone, British or foreign, at home without trial and simply on his say-so. From doing too little, the government went to the other extreme.

Politicians, lawyers and civil liberty campaigners were outraged. Michael Howard, the Tory leader, called it a �dreadful measure from a desperate prime minister�.

David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said: �This bill suspends habeas corpus and the presumption of innocence in British law. These are massive changes.�

As the new bill took shape and passed through parliament, Clarke was forced to make concessions � but he still eventually won the power to impose �control orders�, on �reasonable suspicion�, subject to judicial review within seven days.

To some critics the whole row was misguided because other tough laws already existed that, they say, should be used more vigorously to fight terrorism. The Terrorism Act 2000, for example, made it an offence, among other things, to belong to proscribed organisations such as Al-Qaeda. Even addressing a meeting aimed at helping a terrorist can be an offence punishable by 10 years in prison.

The same act also makes it an offence to collect information �of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism�. The penalty: up to 10 years in prison.

It is even an offence �to wear an item of clothing which can give reasonable suspicion indicating membership or support of a proscribed organisation�.

Given those and many other existing powers, Liberty concluded: �We are not sure where the gap in the law is.� Ditching key freedoms such as the presumption of innocence and the right to trial is unnecessary and unacceptable, it claims.

�Past experience of special anti-terror measures is of the temporary becoming permanent and the exceptional becoming routine,� warned Chakrabati.

On Friday, however, as Madrid remembered the victims of last March, few Spaniards had civil liberties at the top of their mind. Pilar Manjon, spokeswoman for the victims and who lost Daniel, her 20-year-old son, in the bombings, warned that many more Al-Qaeda terrorists were on the loose. �How many are there in France, in Great Britain and elsewhere?� she asked.

�An estimated 10,000 went through their training camps. Their model of terrorism is new to us and needs new methods to combat it. For them, everyone else is their enemy. Their minds are sick.�

Investigators in Spain and France do not advocate detention without trial. They follow a system of incarcerating suspects for lengthy periods, often years � but all the while conducting investigations with a view to trial.

An international summit on democracy, terrorism and security held in Madrid last week summed up the need to fight terrorism without compromising freedom.

�Law enforcement agencies need the powers required,� the delegates concluded, �yet they must never sacrifice the principles they are dedicated to defend.�

Additional reporting: Nick Fielding, Ed Owen

Copyright 2005 Times Newspapers Ltd.

March 13, 2005 at 09:04 AM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

CSIS ties man to Madrid blast

TheStar.com - CSIS ties man to Madrid blast

Accused of aiding group that killed 191 on train
Montrealer linked to Al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan

MIRO CERNETIG
QUEBEC BUREAU CHIEF

Montreal—Canada's spy agency says a Montreal man secretly trained as a terrorist at an Al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan and sent money to the masterminds who bombed a Spanish passenger train last year.

Adil Charkaoui entered a courtroom yesterday in the hope of clearing his name, armed with a lie detector test that supporters say shows he is not a sympathizer of Osama bin Laden or any terrorist network.

In documents filed with the court Jan. 6 but made available yesterday, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) alleges Charkaoui was a member of the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, which Spanish authorities have linked to the Madrid bombing that killed 191 people and injured more than 1,800.

Those documents � criticized by Charkaoui's supporters for being almost entirely reliant on footnotes from previously published articles in foreign newspapers � allege he led a secret life for more than five years when he said he was in Montreal making pizzas and aspiring to be a teacher.

CSIS alleges Charkaoui trained in 1998 at a terror camp in Afghanistan, where they say he was recruited by the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group. Upon returning to Canada where he is now a landed immigrant, the spy agency alleges, Charkaoui sent $2,000 to the group and a portable computer to one of its members.

CSIS cites articles in the Moroccan newspaper Le Maroc to prove its case. While media reports are not usually seen as compelling evidence in a Canadian courts, CSIS says that they corroborate information it has already gathered but can't release because it would jeopardize national security.

"The service is of the opinion that the information complements and corroborates the information already obtained and which was filed with the federal court," the CSIS documents conclude. "This information confirms that the ministers have reasonable motive to believe that Charkaoui constituted and still constitutes a public security danger ..."

"The fact that Charkaoui offered financial assistance to profit the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group adds a new element as to the danger of Charkaoui," the documents add. "He has put his talents to the use or profit of a terrorist group."

Charkaoui, 31, has declared his innocence from the day he was arrested in May, 2003, and said he fears he would be killed if turned over to Moroccan authorities. He is being held as a suspected terrorist under a national security certificate.

Human rights groups have agreed he would be in danger if he is returned after being labelled a terrorist threat by Canada.

At one point during the proceedings yesterday, CSIS was forced to reveal it had destroyed potential evidence in the case.

After hearing complaints from Charkaoui's lawyer, Dominique LaRochelle, that her client was being denied information about the evidence presented by CSIS to support allegations he client has terrorist links, Judge Simon Noel asked Crown prosecutors to find out if there were notes backing up some of CSIS' conclusions.

Fifteen minutes later, the prosecutors returned to court and said the original notes CSIS had taken in 2002 interviews with Charkaoui � on which it is basing some of its allegations � had been destroyed.

No reason was given for their destruction.

LaRochelle said neither she nor Charkaoui has seen the evidence because it is deemed to be classified. One of their frustrations in the case is that Charkaoui must defend himself against evidence which he has not seen because its disclosure is deemed to be a threat to Canada's national security.

As a result of the disclosure that CSIS had destroyed its notes, Charkaoui decided not to testify yesterday. It is now not clear when or if he will.

But he and his supporters were quick to say his lie detector test proves his innocence.

In the test, conducted by polygraph expert John Galianos and commissioned by his defence team, Charkaoui was asked if ever took part in a terrorist training camp, was or is a member of a terrorist network or ever planned crimes with members of Al Qaeda.

He responded no to each question.

"I believe he replied truthfully," said Galianos.

January 11, 2005 at 08:14 AM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Banks up customer surveillance

TheStar.com - Banks up customer surveillance

U.S.A. Patriot Act's long arm reaching into Canadian bank, credit card accounts
Bankers can't tell customers they are under investigation

STUART LAIDLAW
BUSINESS REPORTER

Something struck Ken Saul as odd about a Canadian catering business sending money to a Chinese steel company. What, he wondered, would a caterer need with Chinese steel?

For the compliance officer for Cambridge Mercantile Corp., a leading money transfer agent with offices in Canada and the United States, the question was of more than passing interest. Under the U.S.A. Patriot Act, he was compelled to find out more.

"We can argue all we want that U.S. law doesn't apply in Canada, but the fact is that we have two U.S. bank accounts," he says, seated in the boardroom of the firm's Toronto office. "We treat ourselves as a U.S. company as much as Canadian."

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, outgoing U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft pushed the U.S.A. Patriot Act to expand the American government's authority to investigate suspected terrorists. The bill quickly was passed and signed into law by President George W. Bush.

"A new era in America's fight against terrorism is about to begin," Ashcroft said as Bush signed the bill.

Under the act, financial institutions in the United States must keep tabs on their customers and alert authorities if they see anything suspicious that might indicate money laundering or terrorist financing.

Money being sent to, or received from, an odd source � such as a company the client ought to have no business dealings with � fits the bill. That's how Saul came to be interested in the business dealings of a small catering company.

With offices in New Jersey, Florida, Chicago and Washington, and accounts with Wachovia and Harris banks of the United States, Toronto-based Cambridge falls under the act's far-reaching provisions.

Linda Drysdale, a PriceWaterhouseCoopers consultant who advises Canadian banks on the Patriot Act, says it is not new for banks operating in the U.S. to be subject to American law. Any person or company must always adhere to the laws of the country they are in.

But there are features of this new law that take things a step further, she says. For instance, while authorities such as the FBI or the RCMP have always been able to subpoena information about a bank's customers to investigate specific crimes, the Patriot Act gives U.S. authorities greater search powers.

Specifically, the FBI no longer has to spell out a reason for its request for information.

"In the past, you had to have a reason to look into a specific person," Drysdale said. "The Patriot Act allows the government to look at a much greater swath of information."

Canadian banking customers could be subject to searches under the Patriot Act � officially titled the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 � if their bank accounts or credit cards in any way operate in the United States. Drysdale said this applies to more people than most would expect.

For instance, many banks use American call centres or data processing houses to handle their accounts. In October, Visa cardholders with the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce received a notice with their bills saying that their financial information was subject to the Patriot Act because the bills are processed in the U.S.

`There can be no substitute for an informed citizenry that demands of government and corporate leaders the highest standards of privacy protection'

Jennifer Stoddart, privacy commissioner

Considering the publicity that surrounded the CIBC disclosure, Drysdale said some companies are beginning to consider the impact of the Patriot Act when deciding whether to outsource their back office work to the United States.

"It's not the only factor, but it's a factor," she said.

In British Columbia, restrictions have been placed on the public sector and its service providers on outsourcing personal information outside of Canada.

In August, federal privacy commissioner Jennifer Stoddart submitted a paper to B.C.'s privacy commissioner, then studying the issue, saying that Canadians need to become better informed about when their personal information may be subject to foreign laws � and to let their banks and any other companies holding private data know that they expect their privacy to be protected.

"There can be no substitute for an informed citizenry that demands of government and corporate leaders the highest standards of privacy protection," Stoddart wrote.

Jeff Keay, a spokesperson for the Toronto Dominion Bank, says criticisms that the Patriot Act gives the U.S. government too much power are overblown.

"The Patriot Act is a little bit of a hot button," he said, arguing that U.S. authorities have always been able to go through the RCMP to get the information they wanted. "We have to co-operate with a lawful request," he said. "The benefit of free flow (of information) across borders outweighs the problems."

Still, the act has caused Canadian banks to boost spending on customer surveillance to catch terrorist money-laundering activities. According to a KPMG study released in the fall, banks across North America ranked the Patriot Act as a top factor in their plans to boost spending on customer surveillance � ranking a close second behind domestic legislation.

Asked to grade the importance of various factors in their anti-money laundering activities on a scale of one to five, the Patriot Act received an average score of 4.7 out of five, behind only domestic legislation at 4.86. Guidance by domestic regulators received a 4.67 grade.

By comparison, European bankers gave the Patriot Act only a 2.7-point grade.

The banks reported that spending on anti-money laundering activities has increased an average of 61 per cent over the past three years. While most expect the pace of spending growth to slow over the next few years, they do expect anti-money laundering costs to keep rising as money-laundering techniques become more sophisticated.

Under the act, banks and other financial institutions must alert authorities if they spot anything suspicious in the financial dealings of their customers. They must investigate what is happening, and report their findings if they have any reason to believe something illegal is occurring.

In Canada, reports are made to the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, or FINTRAC. American reports are made to Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN. After that, law enforcement agencies may be brought in to investigate.

In one of the most contentious parts of the Patriot Act, however, banks are not allowed to let their customers know whether they are under investigation.

Saul said that can make it difficult to find out what is going on in a customer's account because customers could become suspicious if he asks too many questions. He might ask to see an invoice, for instance, saying he is not sure about the accounting standards or regulations in the other country in which his customer is dealing.

That's what he did with the catering company. As it turned out, the caterer was ordering custom-made pots and pans, leaving Saul with nothing to report � this time.

January 3, 2005 at 12:31 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

An update on the `war on terror'

TheStar.com - An update on the `war on terror'

In order to counter groups such as Al Qaeda, the West must make better use of the `soft' power of diplomacy to accommodate Islam, and not just rely on coercive, `hard' power

JONATHAN STEVENSON

Despite U.S. government rhetoric that often suggests the West is winning the "war" on terrorism, Al Qaeda remains a highly viable and dangerous transnational terrorist network.

The U.S.-led military intervention in Iraq appears to have inspired more young Muslims to take up Osama bin Laden's cause. Perhaps the most pressing counterterrorism challenge for the U.S. and the West, then, is salvaging some positive political dividend from the fraught occupation of Iraq.

A close second is making progress in resolving the Israeli�Palestinian conflict, which fuels terrorist recruitment and makes the governments of Muslim countries more reluctant to co-operate with the United States.

The United States-led invasion and occupation of Iraq produced a confluence of circumstances propitious to Al Qaeda: a strategically bogged-down America hated by much of Islam and regarded warily even by its allies.

To many Muslims, stoked by bin Laden's rhetoric, the Iraq war is confirmation of Washington's intention to dominate Islam politically, economically and militarily; its intention to loot Islam's natural resources, in particular oil; and its inexorable support for Israel.

Iraq has, therefore, reinforced Al Qaeda leadership's extreme and non-negotiable agenda, which aims for the debilitation of the U.S. as a superpower through apocalyptic terrorism, the overthrow of "apostate" Arab regimes, and the establishment of a global Islamic caliphate.

The occupation of Iraq and the burgeoning Sunni Muslim insurgency that it has prompted has drained military resources from other areas of terrorist-related political instability such as Afghanistan, and executive attention from the security of the U.S. homeland, which is still Al Qaeda's prime target.

The terrorist network has remained essentially dispersed while also managing to refocus operationally on Iraq and the Arab world.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, bin Laden's prot�g� in Iraq, has made a large political impact with relatively few personnel through decapitations and car bombings. Since the Iraq war began, jihadist recruits appear to have increased.

Nevertheless, as of late 2004, while the goals of Al Qaeda's leadership remained extreme, the network remained subject to influences that were more atomizing than cohesive.

The Al Qaeda leadership retains immense iconic power due to its rhetorical talents, improbable survival, and, in bin Laden's case, charisma � all of which he is able, despite his immobility and isolation, to showcase via frequent videotapes.

Operationally, Al Qaeda middlemen can still provide financial or logistical assistance to local affiliates. These factors draw recruits and sustain militant morale.

Groups like the Moroccan Islamic Combat Group (MICG), which committed the Madrid bombings last March, may coalesce around, or at least draw on, alumni of Al Qaeda's Afghan training camps, thousands of whom remain in circulation.

Having been indoctrinated by Al Qaeda itself, those alumni are presumptively loyal to its leadership and possess basic terrorist technical knowledge. Such formative connections help Al Qaeda to continue to influence the strategic direction of the global movement.

At the same time, since the U.S.-led intervention in Afghanistan forced Al Qaeda's hard-core members to disperse, the Al Qaeda leadership has been besieged and isolated, probably in western Pakistan's "tribal areas" near the Afghan border.

It has had little operational control over increasingly far-flung assets. Law-enforcement and intelligence efforts have also compromised residual connections between Al Qaeda and local affiliates.

Thus, Al Qaeda affiliates (e.g., the Moroccan Islamic Combat Group) appear increasingly independent in operational terms � a point suggested by bin Laden's merely applauding this month's terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Jeddah rather than claiming credit for it.

Furthermore, ideological cracks could eventually emerge from differing agendas and degrees of commitment among jihadists.

Methodologically, Al Qaeda proxies have so far just used conventional terrorist devices robustly, while the Al Qaeda leadership is demonstrably interested in weapons of mass destruction. Should that leadership push to use WMD, fears some jihadists may have of Western retaliation could compromise the transnational terrorist confederation.

On balance, Al Qaeda's transnational character reinforces a strong tendency to decentralize, while its messianic cast and present strategic circumstances promote opportunism and expansion.

These attributes yield geographical pervasiveness and self-perpetuation, but cut against the consolidation of the Al Qaeda leadership's operational control and ideological or even methodological uniformity.

Re-establishing these attributes would require re-centralization, which could call for a new and highly vulnerable physical base. Defensively, the group remains better off in its present hard-to-detect "virtual" form.

Despite the continued failure to kill or capture bin Laden or second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri, the co-operative multinational law-enforcement and intelligence effort improved in late 2003 and 2004.

More apparent jihadist threats to the Pakistani and Saudi Arabian regimes made their security agencies more co-operative and effective.

Yet "hard" counterterrorism measures can at best contain the problem.

The strategic objective of the global war on terror is to completely isolate Al Qaeda's maximalist leadership and disempower local jihadist affiliates.

Fulfilling that objective requires Western policies that convince Al Qaeda's regional and local cohorts that the political circumstances of Islam and of local Muslims no longer warrant terrorism. This, in turn, entails a much better Western political accommodation with most of Islam � more a function of "soft" political, economic and diplomatic power than of coercive "hard" power.

The current global strategic landscape � in particular, the violent U.S. occupation of Iraq and the Israeli�Palestinian conflict � hinders efforts to strike such an accommodation.

Furthermore, the United States' current counterterrorism approach leverages hard, rather than soft, power in an effort to concentrate jihadists into a small geographical area where they are easier to target and less dangerous to the American homeland.

Yet the decentralizing tendencies of the terrorist network inhibit jihadists from congregating in one place, while U.S. military aggression in Muslim lands swells recruits. Thus, the global jihad has been able to focus on both Iraq and other areas.

President George W. Bush's counterterrorism policy is not likely to change substantially unless Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, the dominant voice in Bush foreign policy so far, formally reappointed early last month, steps down � if then.

Even so, appreciation for the importance of soft power to the global counterterrorism campaign seems to be growing on both sides of the Atlantic.

Bin Laden's deep and general sense of cultural and religious humiliation does not drive all, or even most, of his followers.

The Israeli�Palestinian conflict, U.S. occupation of Iraq, American support for authoritarian Arab regimes, and relative economic deprivation (more in Asia than in the Arab world) are more proximate spurs to jihadist recruitment and activity.

So ameliorating the Israeli�Palestinian conflict, sound state-building in Iraq, political reform and improved economic performance in the Muslim world, and better assimilation and integration for Muslims in the West � especially Europe � are increasingly acknowledged as paramount.

More broadly, the effective application of soft as well as hard power would make the West appear less threatening to Muslims, most of whom would then be disinclined to regard asymmetric terrorist challenges to the U.S. and the existing international order as politically efficacious.

To gain traction in implementing this agenda, however, the West will need to gain the confidence and co-operation of Arab and other Muslim regimes.

This will be prohibitively difficult to do until Iraq has been stabilized and the negotiations on a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict are underway.

Robust U.S. counterinsurgency operations in late 2004 did not appear to break the insurgency's back.

While Yasser Arafat's death potentially opened up new opportunities for reconciliation between the Palestinians and the Israelis, the secular Palestinian political leadership must be clarified and consolidated before those opportunities can be exploited.

As the year 2004 ended, then, the two critical eventualities seemed soberingly distant � but not as far off, at least, as they seemed a year earlier.

Jonathan Stevenson is senior fellow for counterterrorism at the International Institute for Strategic Studies�U.S. in Washington.

January 3, 2005 at 11:52 AM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Bin Laden's number two warns US the fight will go on

Bin Laden's number two warns US the fight will go on
DOHA (AFP) - Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahiri warned in his second video appearance in a year that his Al-Qaeda terror network would go on with its fight against the United States.

And he told Arab and Muslim nations that they could face the same fate as Saddam Hussein's Iraq if they renounced holy war, taking to task in particular the governments in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and his home country Egypt.
"I have a final piece of advice for America ... you must choose between two ways of behaving towards Muslims: either you deal with them on the basis of respect and mutual interest or you treat them as easy prey," he said in an extract of the video shown by Arab satellite news channel Al-Jazeera.

"But you must know that we are a nation of patience and perseverance ... We will persevere with our fight against you until the end of time," said the number two of the Al-Qaeda terror network.

The tape was apparently recorded before the November US election won by incumbent George W. Bush over his Democrat challenger John Kerry, as Zawahiri told Americans to "elect who you like -- Bush, Kerry or the devil himself."

"The two candidates are in competition to satisfy Israel," he said, also highlighting the continuation of the "crime against Palestine for 87 years" an apparent reference to the Balfour Declaration when Britain publicly favoured making Palestine a homeland for Jews.

But in the extracts shown by Al-Jazeera, Zawahiri said: "The results of the election don't concern us. What matters to us is the way the United States behaves towards Muslims."

"What matters to us is to rid our countries of the aggressors, to confront those who attack us, who violate what we hold sacred, or steal our riches."

He said the fall of Baghdad in April 2003 after the US-led war could be repeated in other nations "which renounced holy war and helped in the invasion of Iraq."

The last time Zawahiri was seen was in a video shown on Al-Jazeera just two days before the third anniversary of the September 11 attacks of 2001, in which he forecast a US defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Washington believes Zawahiri, who faces a death sentence in Egypt and like bin Laden has a 25-million-dollar US bounty on his head, is the main strategist and key ideologist in the Al-Qaeda hierarchy.

In an audiotape message aired on October 1, also on the Doha-based Al-Jazeera, Zawahiri called on young Muslims to resist the "crusader campaign" and threatened the interests of several Western and Asian countries.

In Monday's tape, Zawahiri lashed out at the authorities in bin Laden's birthplace Saudi Arabia for having "introduced the crusaders (and) for allowing US planes to bombard Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan from its air bases," according to Al-Jazeera.

He also denounced the absence of an independent judiciary and a representative political system in Saudi Arabia, a strictly conservative Muslim kingdom.

Turning to Egypt, he criticized the human rights situation and the way the government regards the "Palestinian resistance," while Pakistan came under fire for "recognizing Israel" and helping Americans "kill Muslims in Afghanistan and Waziristan," on the Afghan-Pakistani border.

Since the September 11 attacks, Zawahiri has surfaced occasionally in taped audio or video messages calling for more strikes on the United States.

The United States tends to examine such tapes closely for hidden messages amid suspicions that Al-Qaeda communicates secretly about operations to its followers through them.

The former leader of Egypt's fundamentalist Jihad group, implicated in the 1981 assassination of president Anwar Sadat and the massacre of foreign tourists at Luxor in 1997, Zawahiri has appeared in several videos at Bin Laden's side.

He is listed on the US government's indictment for the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and he was sentenced to death in absentia by an Egyptian court a year later.

Bin Laden himself last appeared in a video broadcast in late October, shortly before in the US presidential election threatening new September 11-like attacks.

Zawahiri, an eye surgeon by training from a wealthy Egyptian family, has come to symbolize the radical Islamist movement.

November 30, 2004 at 01:08 AM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Hain denies Canary Wharf terror threat

News

By Andrew Grice, Political Editor

27 November 2004

Peter Hain, the Leader of the Commons, has denied media reports that the security services foiled a plot by al-Qa'ida to fly planes into the skyscrapers at London's Canary Wharf.

The reports by the Daily Mail and ITV News came on the eve of the Queen's Speech on Tuesday and were seen as an attempt by the Government to justify the "safety and security" measures dominating its legislative programme.

In a pre-recorded interview for Channel 4's Morgan & Platell programme tonight, Mr Hain said: "If there was a specific threat to Canary Wharf or anywhere else, we would have said so ... That leak, if it was a leak, did not come from a government minister or as far as I know a government source."

Asked if there have been any specific threats against Britain since the 11 September terror attacks, he said: "I don't know of a specific threat. But what I do know is that the intelligence services ... have constant intelligence on al-Qa'ida-type cells in Britain."

Counter-terrorist officials have made checks to discover whether details of a plot had been uncovered during investigations or upcoming court cases. A source said yesterday there was no material to back up the media reports and he believed they were wrong. MPs suspect the two news organisations were briefed by a senior official or minister. The reports have fuelled claims that the Government is trying to create a "climate of fear" to justify draconian measures such as identity cards.

Mr Hain also denied a BBC report that there was a specific threat to the House of Commons this month. "I would have expected as Leader of the House to have known about a specific threat and I certainly wasn't informed," he said.

He stood by his claim that Britain would be "safer" under Labour even though it led to accusations that he was "playing politics" with terrorism. He said: "I believe that Britain will be safer under Labour, just as I believe Britain will be more prosperous under Labour, that there'll be more schools under Labour, more hospitals under Labour." He added : "We have enormously increased, in fact doubled, the spending on the security services and counter-terrorism measures, and are recruiting a thousand more MI5 staff, to make sure we have a strong preventative strategy and that is another reason why I believe we will be safer under Labour."

November 28, 2004 at 12:32 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

London 'terror plots' thwarted

Times Online - Britain

By Greg Hurst
PLANS by al-Qaeda terrorists to crash aircraft into Canary Wharf and at Heathrow have been thwarted by the security services, it was claimed last night.

Pilots would have been trained for suicide missions in strikes modelled on the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, according to a report on ITV News. But the claims were greeted with scepticism, given their timing on the eve of the Queen�s Speech, which will outline a legislative programme dominated by Bills to tackle terrorism, organised crime and disorder.

One senior security source approached by The Times was unaware of such a plot, and pointed out that al-Qaeda rarely repeated terrorist outrages.

ITV News attributed its claim to a �senior authoritative source�, saying that crashing aircraft into Canary Wharf and Heathrow were among four or five al-Qaeda plans to have been prevented by British security services.

The intervention stopped the training of pilots for such attacks, it reported.

Neither the Home Office nor Scotland Yard would comment on the claims.

November 22, 2004 at 09:25 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Britain's '9/11' foiled by security force

The Scotsman - Top Stories - Britain's '9/11' foiled by security forces

CHRIS MCAULEY AND RUSSELL JACKSON

Key points
• Security forces thwart al-Qaeda plan to attack Canary Wharf and Heathrow
• Security chiefs claim they have foiled four or five terrorist attacks
• Upcoming Queen’s speech expected to be dominated by security

Key quote
"The significance of this would depend on whether these suicide training exercises were disrupted within the United Kingdom, and what they actually consisted of in terms of preparation, such as the indoctrination of key individuals" - Dr Magnus Ranstorp, director of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at St Andrews University

Story in full AN AL-QAEDA terror plot involving aircraft being flown simultaneously into the towers of Canary Wharf and Heathrow Airport has been foiled by British security forces, it emerged last night.

The 9/11-style attacks on the two high-profile London targets are among four or five al-Qaeda strikes that security chiefs believe they have stopped, it was reported.

According to a senior authoritative source last night, training programmes for suicide pilots have been disrupted and the devastating attacks foiled. The Home Office and Metropolitan Police declined to comment on the reports.

Security has been heightened around strategic centres across the capital in the wake of the 2001 attacks, which have plunged the world into a series of conflicts aimed at defeating terrorism.

Last night, Dr Magnus Ranstorp, the director of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at St Andrews University, said Canary Wharf would be an obvious target as it was the financial centre of London�s Docklands district, and Heathrow was the capital�s main airport. He said: "If this is the case, then of course there may have been different degrees of development and preparation for such attacks - it may not have been fully operational plans that were either days or hours away.

"There has already been a security clampdown around Heathrow, and that decision in itself was not taken lightly given the political and economic consequences of such an action.

"If this is the case it would justify what the security services and principal counter-terrorism officials have been saying for some time, that there is a danger and they have been working over-time to try and prevent this threat.

"Canary Wharf, and the City itself, is an obvious target as it is in the financial district of London and therefore remains a major economic target for terrorists.

"It is a great credit to the law enforcement and security services who are carrying out one of the more advanced counter-terrorism operations in Europe."

Regarding the alleged disruption of suicide pilot training courses, Dr Ranstorp said: "The significance of this would depend on whether these suicide training exercises were disrupted within the United Kingdom, and what they actually consisted of in terms of preparation, such as the indoctrination of key individuals.

"There are different degrees of preparation - from initial planning to training to deployment - so the significance of this would depend on at what stage the operations were disrupted."

More than 2,700 people died in the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon more than three years ago.

News of the plots against British targets came ahead of a Queen�s Speech, which is expected to be dominated by the issue of security. Numerous bills tackling terrorism, organised crime and anti-social behaviour have been trailed.

Home Secretary David Blunkett�s more controversial proposals, such as the use in court of evidence acquired by wire taps, will be shelved until after the General Election expected in May.

However, the government�s programme will set the scene for a poll campaign Tony Blair is said to want to fight on security. Opponents have accused the Home Secretary of deliberately creating a climate of fear.

Mr Blunkett has recently insisted that Labour will campaign on hope not fear, but then warned that forthcoming trials will show al-Qaeda are "on our doorstep and threatening lives". His comments came after Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens spoke of his frustration at not being able to talk about anti-terror successes.

MI5 chief Eliza Manningham-Buller also spoke publicly about Britain�s success in thwarting fanatics. Mr Blair faced accusations of alarmism 18 months ago when troops in armoured vehicles surrounded Heathrow Airport.

However, the government insisted that the dramatic action came in response to specific intelligence.

It was not clear whether it was this event that thwarted one of up to five strikes reportedly prevented since the 2001 US attacks, and which ITV News was reporting last night.

November 22, 2004 at 09:08 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Terrorism

Terrorism - Notes toward a definition. By Christopher Hitchens

Notes toward a definition.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, Nov. 18, 2002, at 12:32 PM PT

If any of the terms in our new lexicon has undergone a process of diminishing returns, it is the word "terrorism." This is partly because it is carried over from an earlier lexicon. It is also partly because even that previous lexicon was experiencing a little fatigue, in consequence of the word's ambiguity and hypocrisy. The president himself, declaring us at war with this word, seemed unconsciously to try and hurry us past it, by slurring and condensing it into "terrism" or (it seems on some days) "tourism."

But we need a more exhaustive and exclusive and discriminating definition of it, or recognition of it. The clue may lie in turning the lexicographical pages even further back. In the 1970s, Claude Chabrol produced a brilliant film called Nada. It precisely captured both the pointless nastiness and the sinister grandiosity of some of the movements of violence that disfigured that decade. The Baader-Meinhof gang in Germany, the Red Brigades in Italy, the Red Army Faction in Japan�all gave themselves permission to kill, but without any announced goal or objective beyond more of the same. There were other groups in the same epoch, such as the Basque ETA or the Palestinian "Black September," which used unscrupulous and hateful tactics but whose aims could be understood. Chabrol's title, however, recalled an earlier usage for promiscuous cruelty�nihilism. Terrorism, then, is the tactic of demanding the impossible, and demanding it at gunpoint.

I may as well get the obvious out of the way. In London and Belfast during the same period, I was more than once within blast or shot-range of the IRA and came to understand that the word "indiscriminate" meant that I was as likely to be killed as any other bystander. I also remember seeing a car bomb explode outside the High Court in London, and I remember a friend of mine being taken hostage by Provisional IRA gangsters. However, at no point in this period did I fail to remind myself that the British policy in Ireland was stupid and doomed and�much more important�open to change.

The same held, in different degrees, for Zimbabwe and for the Palestinians. It's glib and evasive to say that "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter," because the "freedom fighters" are usually quite willing to kill their "own" civilians as well. But then, so are states. In an excellent recent essay in Newsweek, the conservative Fareed Zakaria points out that as between Russia and Chechnya, there is simply no comparison in the scope and scale and intensity of civilian-casualty infliction. Yeltsin and Putin win the filthy prize every time. I hate and despise Hezbollah and Palestinian suicide-murderers, as they ought to be called, but they'd have to work day and night for years to equal the total of civilians killed in Lebanon alone, or by Sharon alone. Lebanese and Palestinian irregulars are, by the way, entitled by international law to resist foreign occupation that has been internationally condemned. Fact. So when Sharon says�as he did on his visit to Ground Zero�that "there is no good terrorism and bad terrorism," he suggests a tautology that operates at his own expense. All parties to all wars will at some time employ terrorizing methods. But then everybody except a pacifist would be a potential supporter of terrorism. And if everything is terror, then nothing is�which would mean we had lost an important word of condemnation.

This doesn't mean that we are stuck with some dismal moral equivalence. The IRA or the Al Aqsa Brigades can be reminded, as can states and governments, that some actions or courses of action (bombs detonated without warning in civilian areas; kidnapping; rape) are crimes under every known law. And the evidence is that such awareness, along with some of its moral implications, does become available to them. (The same thought can also be instilled by other less pedagogic means.) Then of course, you should try and imagine Nelson Mandela or Salvador Allende�leaders of peoples who really did have a beef with the "empire"�ordering their supporters to crash civilian planes into civilian buildings. Excuse me if I say no more, though Mandela was in fact on a Defense Department "terrorism" list as late as the early-1980s.

Now put the case of al-Qaida. Its supporters do not live under a foreign occupation, even if you count the apparently useless and now embarrassing American bases in Saudi Arabia. It is partly a corrupt multinational corporation, partly a crime family, partly a surrogate for the Saudi oligarchy and the Pakistani secret police, partly a sectarian religious cult, and partly a fascist organization. Its most recent taped proclamation, whether uttered by its leader or not, denounces Australia and celebrates the murder of Australians�for the crime of assisting East Timorese independence from "Muslim" Indonesia! But this doesn't begin to make the case against Bin Ladenism. What does it demand from non-Muslim societies? It demands that they acknowledge their loathsome blasphemy and realize their own fitness for destruction. What does it demand for Muslim societies? It demands that they adopt 17th-century norms of clerical absolutism. How does it demand this? By a program of indiscriminate attacks on the civilian population of both. (Yes, both: The Afghan population was reduced by as many Hazara Shiites as the Taliban could manage to kill.) This is to demand the impossible, and to demand it by means of the most ruthless and disgusting tactics.

Enfolded in any definition of "terrorism," it seems to me, there should be a clear finding of fundamental irrationality. Al-Qaida meets and exceeds all of these criteria, to a degree that leaves previous nihilist groups way behind. Its means, its ends, and its ideology all consist of the application of fanatical violence and violent fanaticism, and of no other things. It's "terrorist," all right.

What this means in practice is the corollary impossibility of any compromise with it. It's quite feasible to imagine Hezbollah or Hamas leaders at a conference table, and one has seen many previously "intransigent" forces of undemocratic violence, including the Nicaraguan Contras and the Salvadoran death-squads and the Irgun, make precisely that transition. Even Saddam Hussein, who is certainly irrational but was not always completely so, could perhaps, and certainly until recently, have decided to save his life and his regime. But some definitions cannot be stretched beyond a certain point, and the death wish of the theocratic totalitarians, for themselves and others, is too impressive to overlook. One has to say sternly: If you wish martyrdom, we are here to help�within reason.

Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair and a regular contributor to Slate. His most recent book is Blood, Class and Empire. He is also the author of A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq.

October 27, 2004 at 10:45 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Terror's new soldiers

USNews.com: U.S. tactics damage al Qaeda but fuel a menacing movement (11/1/04)

U.S. tactics have hurt al Qaeda but fuel a menacing movement
By David E. Kaplan and Kevin Whitelaw

He was known simply as "Electronic." Nabbed last week in Pakistan holding a Canadian passport, Abdul Rahman, allegedly an Arab communications expert for al Qaeda, is among the latest of thousands of suspects seized since 9/11. But now a new generation of militants is emerging. As with so much in the war on terrorism, it's hard to tell if it is being won or lost.

Terrorism concerns are driving much of the debate in the presidential campaign, which has unfolded amid a stream of terrorism alerts at home and attacks abroad. Yet many Americans still have only a limited understanding of who, exactly, the enemy is and whether the nation is safer. In his standard stump speeches, President Bush makes his case: "Because we acted, a free Afghanistan is fighting terror; Pakistan is capturing terrorist leaders; Saudi Arabia is making arrests; Libya is dismantling its weapons programs; the Army of a free Iraq is fighting for freedom; and more than three quarters of al Qaeda have been brought to justice."

But take that final statistic: The three-quarters figure refers only to al Qaeda's top leadership before September 11. This included some of al Qaeda's most capable operatives, including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who are now in custody. But Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, remain at large. And many leadership gaps have been filled by other operatives, albeit men less experienced.

"Petri dish." More worrisome, the nature of the enemy is changing. The al Qaeda of 9/11 is gone. Once a sprawling, multimillion-dollar operation with its own training camps, businesses, and even guesthouses, al Qaeda lost much of its infrastructure in the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and later crackdowns. In its place has emerged a more elusive foe, a loosely affiliated network linked together by local militants, the Internet, and a shared ideology of radical Sunni Islam. "Al Qaeda has transformed from a group," says terrorism consultant Rohan Gunaratna, "into a movement."

Al Qaeda was always a sum of many parts, relying on local groups from Indonesia to Uzbekistan. But bin Laden has spread his ideology successfully enough that new, homegrown groups are emerging. Local jihadists in Spain and Turkey conducted some of the past year's deadliest bombings--and few were veterans of al Qaeda's camps. "The next battle will be over the localized groups that are springing up," says Cofer Black, the State Department's counterterrorism chief. "They are vulnerable to radical thought." One intelligence analyst sees conditions in many Muslim communities--poverty, inequality, and anger over the Israeli-Palestinian crisis--as a "petri dish for jihadists." He warns, "We're cranking out more and more jihadists, and they're getting smarter."

And then there's the Iraq war. No issue more sharply divides the two presidential candidates, who disagree about whether the Iraq invasion was even part of the war on terrorism. Bush argues that the war is key to transforming the region and that fighting terrorists there has kept them away from America. But experts on radical Islam broadly agree that at least the short-term effects aren't good. Officials who monitor what one analyst calls "the internal conversations in Islam" --in the media and the mosques--report alarming levels of anti-Americanism. "Our actions have gotten the fundamentalists more energized than anybody in the last century," says Milt Bearden, who ran CIA operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan during the 1980s. "They believe Bush has declared war on Islam."

Terrorists' dentists. All of which makes it much harder to gauge success. Intelligence officials frequently refer to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's memo last year, in which he asked: "Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?" Data are hard to come by. A report issued by the British-based International Institute for Strategic Studies last week estimates that at least 20,000 jihadists were trained in al Qaeda's Afghan camps since 1996 but that only some 2,000 rank-and-file members have been captured or killed.

This much is clear--the war is getting harder to fight. Despite technological advantages and unprecedented global cooperation, U.S. intelligence agencies are not well suited to tracking scattered bands of militants. "As it morphs from an organization to a movement, how do you delineate who is related and who is affiliated--who is a terrorist and who is a cousin?" says a senior U.S. intelligence official. "Even terrorists have dentists."

More broadly, many observers worry that the nation has not fully mobilized to counter the threat. "There is a tremendous reluctance on the part of those who have been through the Cold War to admit that another one is aborning," says a senior U.S. official. The solutions range from addressing some of the vast inequities to an overhaul of America's public-outreach efforts. "We're not going to get this right," warns James Pavitt, who retired last summer after running the CIA's Clandestine Service, "if we don't deal with the root causes--economic, social, and cultural."

October 25, 2004 at 07:41 AM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

The ruthless Chechen warlord behind the school siege

Times Online - World

Richard Beeston (left), The Times Diplomatic Editor, explains who is responsible for the Russian school siege and what may happen next
"The siege at Beslan school No 1 is almost certainly the work of Shamil Basayev, the most ruthless of the Chechen warlords. It is being reported in Moscow that two of Basayev's field commanders led the incident.

"Basayev is behind most of the acts of Chechen terrorism of the last decade. He is very well organised, utterly ruthless, and prefers big, high profile operations like the Moscow theatre siege.

"He started out as a secular, nationalist rebel against the Russian forces who occupied Chechnya in the 1990s, but became radicalised after the Russians killed 11 members of his family.

"I first met him during the siege of Grozny in the winter of 1994/95, when he was commanding the defences of the city. He is of medium built, with a big bushy black beard, and was extremely polite.

"When I met him again in 1996, shortly after he had led the recapture of Grozny from the Russians, he had just been shot in the foot, and blood was oozing from his boot - yet although he must have been in extreme pain he never flinched and never even mentioned it as we spoke.

"He wrote me a letter of safe passage, sealed it with an official stamp he produced from his pocket and even lent me a car he had just commandeered from a Russian.

"He may be personally charming but over the years he has only grown more ruthless, more experienced and more committed, like the Chechen rebel movement itself. He has been influenced by the rise of al-Qaeda and has links with it.

"Now he talks very much like an Islamic militant, and increasingly his Salakhin Riadus Shakhidi martyrs group includes Arabs and Muslims from outside the borders of Chechnya, such as Tajiks. I am not surprised to hear that ten members of the hostage-takers were of Arabic descent.

"He has grown more audacious over the years. Despite the loss of his foot, he personally led a raid on police headquarters in Ingushetia province earlier this year, and afterwards sent a mocking letter of thanks to the authorities for providing him with 700 Kalashnikovs and one million rounds of ammunition. He even had his photo taken with his loot in the offices of the Ingushetia interior ministry.

"I very much fear that, far from being the end of his terror campaign, the Beslan siege is only going to be the start of a new phase. In February the Russians assassinated a former Chechen president in Qatar, leading Basayev to declare a new wave of terror outside the borders of Chechnya. He has made all kinds of threats, even promising to kill President Vladimir Putin himself.

"Basayev sees himself in an all-out fight to the end, with his aim to hit the Russians again and again so hard that eventually they capitulate and abandon Chechnya.

"It is hard to see Putin ever giving in to these tactics however. It is possible that the President may emerge from this tragedy with his position strengthened.

"Before the siege his popularity was falling in the polls, but in times of crisis people tend to rally to him because he talks tough and acts tough, and when people are scared they find this reassuring. As with President Bush in America, the threat of terrorism plays to Mr Putin's strengths.

"The situation will be very different, however, if it emerges that he ordered the special forces to storm the school, causing enormous loss of life. It also remains to be seen whether this siege will trigger off a wave of inter-ethnic violence in the Caucasus with North Ossetians taking vengeance on any Chechens they can come across - there are plenty of Chechens scattered in refugee camps around the region whom they can target."

September 3, 2004 at 06:49 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | TrackBack (137) | Top of page | Blog Home

Comment: Minette Marrin: A family�s grief can teach us nothing about the war

Anyone who has a low opinion of Tony Blair and John Prescott ought to have been absolutely delighted by their embarrassing public denunciation by Rose and Maxine Gentle last week.

Gentle and her daughter are in mourning for Fusilier Gordon Gentle of the Royal Highland Fusiliers, their son and brother, who died when he was only 19 on the day the American coalition handed over sovereignty to the Iraqi interim government. He was blown up by a roadside bomb in Basra after serving only three months in the army.

Mother and daughter went to Downing Street where they were received not by the prime minister, who is busy on his lamentable holiday jaunts, but by our deputy prime minister � he of the white-water rescue that wasn�t � to express their anger at Gordon�s death and their demand that Blair should resign. They made various other angry accusations and in the end walked out on Prescott in contempt.

That seems to me entirely reasonable in itself. The Gentles are and ought to be free to make their feelings known like any other citizen. But when they were interviewed on the BBC�s Today programme on Friday in the prime political slot at 8.10am, demanding that our troops should be pulled out of Iraq, I found that I was angry.

This was a classic example of the contemporary infantilisation of public debate � a deliberate emphasis on personal feelings rather than on rational, dispassionate adult argument, on the assumption that, like infants, we the public are not mature enough to respond beyond personal feeling and can�t be expected to. This is convenient commercially since the infantile corresponds so closely to the sensational, and there are megabucks to be made out of all that sensational emoting.

There is probably little that one can or should do to stop the independent media capitalising on this or splashing such personal, emotional responses, and it would be a bad day for Britain if protests like the Gentles� were not aired widely.

But for a public service broadcaster and an influential, reputable political programme such as Today to splash such personal emotion across the airwaves as if it amounted to serious debate is another matter. The BBC should not be taking part in this infantilisation of the listener, least of all when exploiting the bereaved at the same time. It should be a bulwark against the trivialisation of public discourse.

The terrible grief of the Gentles and their understandable anger have no bearing on the rights and the wrongs of the invasion of Iraq or the deployment of troops.

Their dreadful personal loss does not give them any special insight into what is going on in Iraq and certainly no insight that they did not have before Gordon died or that families of surviving soldiers in his regiment do not have. They are entitled to their views but you can be absolutely sure that if Gordon had not died, his mother and sister would have been of no public interest whatsoever. As it is, they teach us nothing.

The death of even one soldier is, of course, terrible. Everyone thinks so. But it can make no difference to my view or yours about the current complexities

in Iraq or about the invasion.

The BBC should have had nothing to do with the Gentles, especially as it seems that they may have links with anti-war lobbyists, who may perhaps be exploiting them as well.

The Gentles� Today interview is a glaring example of the infantilisation of debate, but it is only one of many. The massacre at Dunblane produced plenty, for instance. As soon as media sharks had arrived, in their feeding frenzy they began asking the shocked inhabitants � in almost the same breath � both for their feelings and for their views on gun control.

This was our media at their contemporary worst. For obviously enough there is no special reason to suppose that a particular person in the street has any well-considered views at all on gun