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Home Department Terrorism Patrick Mercer (Newark, Conservative) | Hansard source To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people in the UK are suspected of having attended jihadist terrorist training camps abroad. Charles Clarke (Home Secretary) | Hansard source It is not our policy to comment on operational and intelligence matters. source:Theyworkforyou |
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| After all, bin Laden's guards were trained in what can only be described as a terrorist training camp near Fort William by the Special Air Service of the British Army. source:Theyworkforyou |
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| Hamza set up terror camps with British ex-soldiers US intelligence agencies reveal the jailed cleric's network of training facilities around UK Jamie Doward and Diane Taylor Sunday February 12, 2006 The Observer Former British soldiers taught Abu Hamza's followers to use guns at a camp in Wales as part of an ad hoc terror training network set up by the jailed cleric, according to US intelligence agencies. But the British security services were either unconcerned or ignorant about Hamza's activities, despite warnings that he was considered a risk from foreign governments and intelligence agencies as early as 1995. Evidence collected by the American agencies shows that, as early as 1997, Hamza was organising terror camps in the Brecon Beacons, at an old monastery in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, and in Scotland, suggesting that he ran a far more extensive training network than has been officially acknowledged until now. The revelation that Hamza, who was sentenced last week to seven years in prison for soliciting murder and preaching racial hatred, was organising terrorist training camps across Britain almost a decade ago will further embarrass the police and security services. [Note: Hamza was originally due to appear in court on 7/7] Transcripts of interviews conducted with suspected al-Qaeda terrorists held by America in Guantánamo Bay reveal that the British ex-soldiers, some of whom fought in Bosnia, were recruited to train about 10 of Hamza's followers at the Brecon Beacons camp for three weeks in 1998. The former troops taught them to strip and clean weapons and gave them endurance training and lessons in surveillance techniques. The training camps in Tunbridge Wells, at which no ex-soldiers were present, were held in 1997 and 1998 and were attended by about 30 people who were trained to use AK47 rifles, hand guns and a mock rocket launcher. The value of testimonies provided by Guantánamo detainees is contested by human rights lawyers. But the descriptions of what happened at the camps - unlike other allegations levelled by US intelligence agencies - has been corroborated by several witnesses. The training sessions, attended by men, women and children, were advertised at Finsbury Park mosque in north London, where Hamza had preached until he was removed in 2003 after a police raid on the mosque revealed a small arsenal including blank-firing pistols, a stun gun, gas masks and knives. The sessions included lectures, prayers and debates on the jihad, or holy war. Hamza is understood to have attended several of them, although he was at the camps only for a few hours at a time. The Observer has learnt that two foreign governments - Egypt and Yemen - sought Hamza's extradition from Britain in the Nineties. The Egyptian authorities asked for Hamza and several other suspects in 1995 to face terror charges there, but the British government refused. [Who else were they asking for in 1995?] 'We tried hard to explain to both the British authorities and to other European countries that this is not a situation where they should be guaranteeing a safe haven to these people,' a spokesman for the Egyptian embassy said. In 1999, the Yemeni President, Ali Abdullah Saleh, wrote to Tony Blair requesting Hamza's extradition. US authorities allege Hamza provided a satellite phone and money to terrorists holding hostages in Yemen that year and spoke to them several times. One of those hostages, Laurence Whitehouse, whose wife had been killed during a botched rescue attempt, called yesterday for the government to reveal any links between the kidnappers and Hamza. Nazir Ahmed, a leading member of the British Muslim community and a Labour peer, told The Observer he was dismayed the government had not taken action against Hamza sooner. He had raised concerns about Hamza with the government in 2003, assuring the then Home Secretary David Blunkett that 'Muslim people in Britain would be glad to see the back of Abu Hamza and Omar Bakri [the militant cleric now exiled in Lebanon]'. Andrew Dismore, the Labour MP for Hendon, north London, said evidence he had taken to authorities was dismissed as not strong enough, yet a lot of it later emerged at Hamza's trial. 'There is a case for the [House of Commons] intelligence and security committee to see what lessons should be learned,' he added. |
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| Police hunt 'mercenary' terror gang recruited by al-Qa'ida Sophie Goodchild, Severin Carrell Jul 10, 2005 Police and intelligence agents are investigating the theory that a gang of white 'mercenary terrorists' was hired by al-Qa'ida to carry out last week's devastating attacks on London. The Independent on Sunday can reveal today that investigations into the bombings of three Tube trains and a bus, which left at least 49 people dead, are focusing on the possibility that criminal gangs were paid to mount the worst atrocities in British history. Last night, amid fears of further attacks, police evacuated 20,000 people from the centre of Birmingham after receiving intelligence of a threat. Officers later carried out a controlled explosion, but emphasised that the alert had no connection with the bombs atrocities in London . Among new revelations about the highly sophisticated nature of Thursday's attacks, intelligence officials disclosed that they were examining the prospect that so-called 'clean skins' " who could have been Muslims from the Balkans with no previous links to terror groups " were recruited to evade heightened security in the capital. .... continues |
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| Terror camp fears over school years ago By David Sapsted Last Updated: 2:20am BST 06/09/2006 A Muslim school in the Sussex countryside being searched by more than 100 police officers was first reported to the Government as being a suspected training camp for terrorists more than seven years ago. Police descended on Jameah Islamiyah at Mark Cross over the weekend and their searches are expected to last days, if not weeks. Although there is no suggestion that either the owner or his staff knew of any illegal activities going on at the 54-acre site surrounding the dilapidated, former convent, it emerged yesterday that the Yemeni ambassador to London warned the Government in January 1999, that the site was being used to train young Islamic extremists. The warning came after a group of British Muslims was arrested in Aden over an alleged bomb plot. Robin Cook, then foreign secretary, told the Commons: "There have been investigations into the matter. The training provided purports to be survival training and also martial arts. We have not established that there was any breach of British law during such training." At the time, Sussex police said that the reports of the school grounds being used as a terrorist training camp appeared "totally unsubstantiated". It is known that in the late 1990s Abu Hamza, the jailed cleric, held a camp at the school, a charitable institution that currently has only 12 students, aged 11 to 16, in a complex of buildings with almost 100 rooms. Bilal Patel, who bought the site in 1993 for £800,000 when it was being run as a ballet school, said that he had asked Hamza and his 15 or so followers to leave because their behaviour was "strange". He said that he had received a letter from Hamza which he had handed over to the police because he "did not like" the contents. "When Hamza arrived we were immediately concerned about his strange behaviour," said Mr Patel, a former imam in south London. "He and his followers set up camp in the grounds and kept themselves to themselves. We had to tell Abu Hamza that we did not want him to come back again because he was so strange." According to Sky News yesterday, there were also reports that some of those being held at Guantanamo Bay had receiving training at a camp in the woodland surrounding the school. Clearly, though, police did not believe they were at any risk when they moved on to the site early on Saturday morning: none was armed and officers conducted their searches in normal uniforms, rather than protective suits. "We are interested in the people who have visited here," one officer said yesterday. "There has been a lot of speculation about training camps. The radicalisation of would-be recruits is very important to us." The school offers itself as a retreat for Muslim families and groups, as a training base for Islamic teachers and as a site for camps for Islamic groups. Parties were frequently seen arriving at the school in coaches from London or by mini-bus from Tunbridge Wells station. The school received a critical report from Ofsted inspectors just before Christmas. It was criticised for a lack of involvement with the local community or nearby schools, failures in general education and the poor fabric of the buildings. |
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| We're told by some former CIA people who were in Afghanistan that he really wasn't involved in any of the fighting. That he wasn't really a fighter in Afghanistan. That's not true. He was involved ... in fighting in Afghanistan. In the beginning, he ... join[ed] ... under the banner of the Afghan factions. And then he thought he can have his own camp and his own establishment inside Afghanistan. And he built one or two guest houses in Peshawar, with three or four camps inside Afghanistan. That was a complex. This complex was known to be ... used only by Arabs who are coming from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait ... Algeria, Egypt, Yemen. [Seventy or 80 percent are from] Saudi Arabia. And only 20 percent are from all other countries. So the best estimates are that you had between 30 to 40 thousand people who have been through this complex, either having training or joining battle themselves. Now he ran at least five or six battles. Heavy battles with the Soviet Union. Direct battles. Apart from the battles which he attended [with] the Afghan factions. And more than once he was almost killed by artillery or by rocket attacks from the Soviet side. ... |
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| But there's some confusion here apparently. Today in the United States, we hear from law enforcement about Al Qaeda. Yes. But to you that's something different. Well, I [really] laugh when I hear the FBI talking about Al Qaeda as an organization of bin Laden. ... [It's really a] very simple story. If bin Laden is to receive Arabs from Saudi Arabia and from Kuwait--from other regions--he is [to] receive them in the guest house in Peshawar. They used to go to the battle field and come back, without documentation. What do you mean without documentation? There [was] no documentation of who has arrived. Who has left. How long he stayed. There's only [a nice general reception]. And you go there. And you join in the battle field. ... Very simple organization. Now, he was embarrassed by many families when they called him and ask what happened to our son. He don't know. `Cause there's no record. There's no documentation. Now he asked some of his colleagues to start documenting the movement of every Arab coming under his umbrella. ... It is recorded that [they] arrived in this date and stayed in this house. ... And then there was a record of thousands and thousands of people. Many of them had come only for two weeks, three weeks and then disappeared. That record, that documentation was called the record of Al Qaeda. So that was Al Qaeda. There's nothing sinister about Al Qaeda. It's not like an organization--like any other terrorist organization or any other underground group. I don't think he used any name for his underground group. If you want to name it, you can name it "bin Laden group." But if they are using the term Al Qaeda ... Al Qaeda is just a record for the people who came to Peshawar and moved from there back and forth to the guest house. And moved back to their country. And if they want to follow the number, they must be talking about 20, 30 thousand people. Which is impossible to trace. And I think most of those records are in the hands of the Saudi government anyway, because people used the Saudi airlines, [at] a very much reduced fare. Twenty-five percent of the total fare of a trip to Islamabad. ... So Al Qaeda ... [is] not a secret organization at all, is it? It's not a secret organization at all. It was common knowledge to many people who went there. ... Al Qaeda was public knowledge. It was a record of people who ended up in Peshawar and joined, and move from Peshawar to Afghanistan. It was very [benign] information. A simple record of people who were there just to make record available to bin Laden if he's asked by any family or any friend what happened to Mr. so-and-so. |
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| According to trial documents, the satellite telephone was bought in 1996 with the help of Dr Saad al Fagih, 45, a bearded surgeon who heads the London-based Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia. This fundamentalist Muslim group is dedicated to the overthrow of the Saudi Arabian government but is not part of Al-Qaeda. Al Fagih, who has been regularly used by the BBC as an expert on Bin Laden, has in the past explained that Muslim scholars said the killing of civilians, including children, was allowed by the Koran as "collateral damage" in the holy war. It was al Fagih's credit card which was used to help buy the 10,500 Compact-M satellite phone in the United States and it was shipped to his home in north London, according to American court documents. His credit card was also used to buy more than 3,000 minutes of pre-paid airtime. |
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| “We are a broad church,” says a Guardian spokesman. http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives...he_guardian.php |