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| Whose Security? What Intelligence? The Need for an Independent Public Inquiry into the 7/7 London Bombings Public launch of new report "Inside the Crevice: Islamist terror networks and the 7/7 intelligence failure", by Nafeez Ahmed 6.30-9pm Weds 3 October 2007 at Garden Court Chambers, Lincoln's Inn Fields, WC2 (Holborn tube station) Chair: Frances Webber Garden Court Chambers Speakers include: Nafeez Ahmed Institute for Policy Research & Development (IPRD) Detective Superintendent (ret.) Des Thomas former Deputy Head, CID Constabulary, Hampshire Les Levidow CAMPACC Rachel North 7/7 survivor, author, Out of the Tunnel James Oury Oury Clark Solicitors, representing the 7/7 Inquiry Group Why was London attacked on 7th July 2005? Why were the attacks not prevented? Initial government responses claimed the Islamist terrorists were 'clean skins', previously unknown to the security services; therefore more staff and more severe anti-terror measures are needed to prevent future attacks. But there are great discrepancies in the government's account of events leading up to 7/7, in particular Operation Crevice. Moreover, British 'security' policies at home and abroad have systematically undermined public safety for over the last decade. Meanwhile, 'anti-terror' powers are serving to divert attention and resources from real threats of terrorist attacks in this country. This critique has been developed in a parliamentary briefing paper, Inside the Crevice. In August 2007 it was circulated to members of several UK parliamentary committees, including the Intelligence & Security Committee, Home Affairs Committee, Defence Committee, Foreign Affairs Committee, Joint Human Rights Committee, and Communities & Local Government Committee, as well as ministers and government officials. The report is cited in the pre-action protocol letter drafted by Oury Clark Solicitors on behalf of the 7/7 Inquiry Group, sent to the Home Secretary. It is also cited in their application for judicial review of the government's decision not to hold an inquiry into the London bombings. Key themes and questions raised in the report, which calls for radical reform of British security policies, will be discussed at this event. Co-Sponsored by Baroness Helena Kennedy QC; Institute for Policy Research & Development [IPRD] www.globalcrisis.org.uk; Campaign Against Criminalising Communities [CAMPACC] www.campacc.org.uk; Garden Court Chambers, www.gardencourtchambers.co.uk; Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, www.haldane.org For full text of report go to www.globalcrisis.org.uk Information: Nafeez Ahmed e-mail nafeez@globalcrisis.org.uk Tel 07860 825 735 or CAMPACC e-mail estella24@tiscali.co.uk Tel 020 7586 5892 Institute for Policy Research and Development www.globalcrisis.org.uk |
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| This report draws significantly on research originally intended for publication in the book The London Bombings: An Independent Inquiry (Duckworth, 2006), but which was deleted from the text due to sub-judice rules regarding the Crevice trial. The close of the trial means that these censored extracts can now be freely produced, and they are supplemented below with additional data and analysis. |
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| September 2007 Inside the Crevice By Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed; Foreword by Detective Superintendent Des Thomas (ex-CID chief) http://www.globalcrisis.org.uk/main/PDF/In...e%20Crevice.pdf |
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| Nafeez appears to be trying to be all things to all men and is getting a reputation for agreeing with whomever he happens to be speaking with. From sharing a drink with the lovely Rachel North and reportedly agreeing with her concerns, vis a vis the conspiraloons; to telling Keith Mothersson that he wanted to use the term alleged bombers in his recent book, only to be over-ruled by his publishers! |
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| The London bombers belonged to the same network as those who were partially arrested in March 2004 under Operation Crevice. || Among the five escapees was chief bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan who was on a Scotland Yard “target list” of suspected terrorists for 15 months. |
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| We now know that this covert policy was intensified through 2006, and is currently being applied across the entire Middle East, albeit focusing on Iraq, Lebanon and Iran. Recent terror plots and incidents, such as the failed attempts in London and Glasgow in May 2007, cannot be fully understood in abstraction from this geopolitical context. On CNN last year, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh summarized his latest exclusive on the strategy. Hersh’s discovery was that the Bush administration is actively sponsoring al-Qaeda affiliated groups across the entire Middle East, with a focus on Lebanon, to counter regional Shi’ite Iranian influence. Moreover, much of the finances for these covert operations are being funnelled by Saudi Arabia through Iraq, with US connivance: This administration has made a policy change, a decision that they are going to put all of the pressure they can on the Shiites, that is the Shiite regime in Iran, the Shiite - and they are also doing everything they can to stop Hezbollah - which is Shiite, the Hezbollah organization from getting any control or any more of a political foothold in Lebanon. ... we are interested in recreating what is happening in Iraq in Lebanon, that is Sunni versus Shia... we have been pumping money, a great deal of money, without congressional authority, without any congressional oversight, Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia is putting up some of this money, for covert operations in many areas of the Middle East where we think that the - we want to stop the Shiite spread or the Shiite influence. They call it the ‘Shiite Crescent.’ And a lot of this money... has gotten into the hands - among other places, in Lebanon, into the hands of three - at least three jihadist groups. There are three Sunni jihadist groups whose main claim to fame inside Lebanon right now is that they are very tough. These are people connected to al Qaeda who want to take on Hezbollah... My government, which arrests al Qaeda every place it can find them... is sitting back while the Lebanese government we support, the government of Prime Minister Siniora, is providing arms and sustenance to three jihadist groups whose sole function, seems to me and to the people that talk to me in our government, to be there in case there is a real shoot-‘em-up with Hezbollah... ... So America, my country, without telling Congress, using funds not appropriated, I don't know where, by my sources believe much of the money obviously came from Iraq where there is all kinds of piles of loose money, pools of cash that could be used for covert operations... We are simply in a situation where this president is really taking his notion of executive privilege to the absolute limit here, running covert operations, using money that was not authorized by Congress, supporting groups indirectly that are involved with the same people that did 9/11, and we should be arresting these people rather than looking the other way...106 Hersh’s reporting makes it difficult to avoid the inference that al-Qaeda remains a nominally useful mercenary outfit for Anglo-American regional geostrategy, this time not in Afghanistan as during the Cold War, but instead in the Middle East. Moreover, the international structure of state-sponsorship has not significantly changed, with the US at the helm, Saudi Arabia providing the funds, and Pakistan providing military intelligence support. In March 2007, Hersh reiterated this conclusion in the New Yorker magazine, citing White House insiders and other US government officials, all confirming in perhaps the clearest terms possible that the US was deliberately attempting to control al-Qaeda terrorist activity through Saudi Arabia (among others) to be re-directed against Iran: The ‘redirection,’ as some inside the White House have called the new strategy, has brought the United States closer to an open confrontation with Iran and, in parts of the region, propelled it into a widening sectarian conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has cooperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by- product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda. ... The clandestine operations have been kept secret, in some cases, by leaving the execution or the funding to the Saudis, or by finding other ways to work around the normal congressional appropriations process, current and former officials close to the Administration said. ... Flynt Leverett, a former Bush Administration National Security Council official, told me that ‘there is nothing coincidental or ironic’ about the new strategy with regard to Iraq. ‘The Administration is trying to make a case that Iran is more dangerous and more provocative than the [al-Qaeda] Sunni insurgents to American interests in Iraq, when—if you look at the actual casualty numbers—the punishment inflicted on America by the Sunnis is greater by an order of magnitude,’ Leverett said. ‘This is all part of the campaign of provocative steps to increase the pressure on Iran. The idea is that at some point the Iranians will respond and then the Administration will have an open door to strike at them.’ ... This time, the US government consultant told me, Bandar and other Saudis have assured the White House that ‘they will keep a very close eye on the religious fundamentalists. Their message to us was ‘We’ve created this movement, and we can control it.’ It’s not that we don’t want the Salafis to throw bombs; it’s who they throw them at—Hezbollah, Moqtada al- Sadr, Iran, and at the Syrians, if they continue to work with Hezbollah and Iran’. Finally, Hersh repeated his findings on CNN in May 2007, the same month as the London and Glasgow incidents: “The key player is the Saudis. What I [Hersh] was writing about was sort of a private agreement that was made between the White House, we’re talking about Richard—Dick—Cheney and Elliott Abrams, one of the key aides in the White House, with Bandar [Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi national security adviser]. And the idea was to get support, covert support from the Saudis, to support various hard-line jihadists, Sunni groups, particularly in Lebanon, who would be seen in case of an actual confrontation with Hezbollah—the Shia group in the southern Lebanon—would be seen as an asset, as simple as that. We're in the business now of supporting the Sunnis anywhere we can against the Shia... Civil war. We’re in a business of creating in some places, Lebanon in particular, a sectarian violence..”107 |
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| 2.3 MI5 officers confirm they were diverted from surveillance of Khan Not only Khan and Tanweer, but all four London bombers had been under MI5 surveillance and were placed on a list of 100 key UK-based Islamist terrorists, along with a hitherto unidentified “fifth man” who fled Britain just before 7/7 |
| QUOTE (Bridget @ Sep 19 2007, 08:17 PM) | ||
p 15:
This is the first time I've ever heard of Lindsay and Hussain being under surveillance. |
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| Rebekah Wade, MI5 and the G8 bombings - an hypothesis [1. I've mentioned this Wade thing before but feel it needs its own, expanded entry. 2. I've come to think of the July 7th bombs as the 'G8 bombings', for they appear to have been timed to coincide with start of the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland.] On Thursday 3rd November, 2005, the Daily MIrror ran an important story. FEARS were last night growing over the ability to stop terror attacks after the security blunders that let the London bombers slip through the net. [sic] The four men who brought carnage to streets of the capital on July 7 were watched by intelligence officers a year before they killed 52 people on Tube trains and a bus. But security chiefs called off the operation after it was decided the gang posed no threat. Last week the Mirror revealed how 30-year-old ringleader Mohammed Sidique Khan was filmed with a terror suspect last year and spotted chatting to an al-Qaeda fixer. No action was taken against him. And last night a police source said the other three bombers - Shehzad Tanweer, 22, Jermaine Lindsay, 19, and Hasib Hussain, 18 - were also being tracked. They were on a list of up to 100 people throughout the country feared to be Islamic fanatics. A fifth man, thought to be an al-Qaeda operative, was being watched. He is on the run, believed to be in Pakistan, and could return to attack Britain again. Field agents kept an eye the men's behaviour for several weeks but decided there was nothing out of the ordinary and pulled the plug. The police source said the four "did not fit the preconceived terrorist profile". [my emphases] So, all four (or five) G8 bombers were under surveillance by MI5 as potential terrorists until about July 2004. Then, Able-Danger-like, MI5 loses all interest in and stops watching them. Of all the fewer-than-100 fanatics under MI5's surveillance, it's those very four (or five) who will bomb London 12 months on. The Mirror's story, if true, looked very bad for MI5 - MI5 was shown to be utterly incompetent, or worse. It was a story that ought to have got a lot of attention. But then the Rebekah Wade affair happened. Even I, who would never read buy the Sun and have never watched an episode of Eastenders, was transfixed by the 4am arrest of the Sun's editor for spousal abuse. I had glanced at the Mirror's scoop on the web that morning, and had thought it important, but then my mind was so distracted by the unfolding Rebekah Wade drama that I forgot even to bookmark the story. As things got ever more surreal, when Ross Kemp's - Mr Wade's - on-screen brother's ex-girlfriend slapped the latter around, a la Wade, thoughts about MI5 incompetence and/or skullduggery were nearly banished completely. As Max Clifford said: "You couldn't make it up. One story like this is big, but two stories on one day about two actors who play brothers on one of the country's biggest TV shows is massive." Wade and Kemp had been, the previous evening, consoling David Blunkett on his second resignation from the Cabinet in a year. That afternoon, at his parting press conference, Blunkett had been asked if he believed he had ever been bugged. He sighed and smiled and said, "On my walks in Derbyshire I have even suspected at times that the birds in the trees were wired up." I don't think he was referring only to the press when he made his remark - I suspect Blunkett suspects that MI5 had a hand in his downfall. Be that as it may, Wade and Kemp returned home after midnight. Sometime around 3am, a 999 call is placed from within their house. The cops arrive, Kemp has a minor facial wound, and Wade is nicked. Who placed the call? Kemp has a split lip and he calls 999 to get his wife, the Sun's editor, arrested for spousal abuse? Did he fear for his life? If not, why wasn't he arrested for wasting police time? Why would Kemp want to ruin his wife's public reputation? The story of how Wade came to arrested doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If my theory holds, MI5 pulled the Rebekah Wade stunt in order to distract attention from the Mirror's embarrassing scoop. I wonder what Wade may have done to piss off MI5 - was it her friendship with Blunkett, or something that she had previously published, or was her record irrelevant compared to the burning need, perhaps at only several hours' notice, to create a diversion from the Daily Mirror exclusive that morning? And I also wonder at the role of Max Clifford, his part in Blunkett's, and others', downfall, and his role on November 3rd, 2005 - might there be more to Max Clifford than meets the eye? |
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| EXCLUSIVE: TERROR COPS TRACKED ALL 7/7 BOMBERS Furious MPs demand new terror security shake-up By Bob Roberts And Graham Brough 03/11/2005 FEARS were last night growing over the ability to stop terror attacks after the security blunders that let the London bombers slip through the net. The four men who brought carnage to streets of the capital on July 7 were watched by intelligence officers a year before they killed 52 people on Tube trains and a bus. But security chiefs called off the operation after it was decided the gang posed no threat. Last week the Mirror revealed how 30-year-old ringleader Mohammed Sidique Khan was filmed with a terror suspect last year and spotted chatting to an al-Qaeda fixer. No action was taken against him. And last night a police source said the other three bombers - Shehzad Tanweer, 22, Jermaine Lindsay, 19, and Hasib Hussain, 18 - were also being tracked. They were on a list of up to 100 people throughout the country feared to be Islamic fanatics. A fifth man, thought to be an al-Qaeda operative, was being watched. He is on the run, believed to be in Pakistan, and could return to attack Britain again. Field agents kept an eye the men's behaviour for several weeks but decided there was nothing out of the ordinary and pulled the plug. The police source said the four "did not fit the preconceived terrorist profile". A year later, the gang travelled to London from Yorkshire carrying their deadly cargo of explosives in rucksacks and blew themselves up in the morning rush-hour. Angry MPs last night called for an overhaul of the surveillance system for suspected terrorists. Shadow homeland security minister Patrick Mercer said: "These men appear not to have been as unknown to the security services as was first thought. "If this is true, it suggests there are many more questions that need to be asked about our intelligence preparations prior to July 7. We will be demanding that these questions are answered." And Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Mark Oaten said the blunder shows the need for more cash to carry out surveillance operations properly. The MP said: "This shows the importance of giving our intelligence services more resources and more people on the ground so they have the manpower they need to do their job. "The Government should learn protecting this country from terrorists is not just about new laws, it is about money as well." The police source also said there were no suspicions about the men's behaviour in the immediate run-up to the attack. Tanweer was filmed arguing with a cashier about being short-changed at a petrol station hours before he blew himself up. He was also seen playing cricket with friends the night before the attacks on the capital. The source added: "The Russell Square bomber (Hussain) is actually seen going into shops and bumping into people." It is known a fifth man must have been involved with all four suicide bombers. Police found an unused explosive rucksack in the men's car which was abandoned at Luton. Metropolitan Police chief Sir Ian Blair has warned more terror attacks are being planned. He said: "The sky is dark. Intelligence exists to suggest that other groups will attempt to attack Britain in the coming months." |
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| 3.3 Al-Qaeda, 7/7, and Warning Signs The preceding evidence suggests that the plan to attack the London Underground was only one of a broader terrorist strategy to conduct multiple attacks in the UK and US. It was not a separate plot planned by an isolated cell, but a particular dimension of an overall multi-tiered al-Qaeda attack plan involving a single interconnected network across the UK. Much of this was confirmed by American and British security sources before, and immediately after 7/7. In September 2004, Pakistani intelligence officials warned that al-Qaeda’s third in command, Abu Faraj al-Libbi, had “taken charge” of al-Qaeda sleeper cells in the US and UK. Over the previous 10 months, al-Libbi had “sent coded messages to ‘several’ Islamic militants in Britain,” including some among the eight Britons arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act in Operation Crevice. According to one investigator: The coded messages deciphered recently have revealed to us that he was not only co-ordinating pre-election terrorist acts in the US, but had sent several messages to several militants in the UK in the last eight to 10 months . . . to share notes with them about future terror attacks in the UK. At least two British-based militants reportedly travelled from London to Pakistan “and met Abu Faraj to finalise details of attacks.”57 According to US law enforcement officials, the terror network involved in both the Bluewater and subway plots was “run by” Abu Faraj al-Libbi, according to “British officials,” eight of the men arrested under Operation Crevice “were linked to a cell run by al-Libbi.” They were not only planning terrorist attacks in the UK, but also in the US, explaining Khan’s contacts with US-based terrorist suspects. A federal indictment unsealed in New York in April 2005 “alleges that three of those men conducted surveillance on the New York Stock Exchange and Citicorp building in New York, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in Washington, and the Prudential building in Newark, N.J.” That information prompted “a heightened terror alert in New York and Washington in the summer and fall of 2004”, despite their arrest. British officials also confirmed that “Al-Libbi had contact with the al-Qaeda suspects in London before their arrests” in 2004. In particular, al-Libbi was planning a large-scale operation to target public transport systems. Documents found in al-Libbi’s possession after his arrest in Pakistan in May 2005 confirmed his specific interest “in repeating the Madrid train bombings in Europe.” Although Operation Crevice did break up active al-Qaeda cells, according to the US official, “British authorities recently expressed ‘concern that they didn’t get everybody.’”58 This is a crucial revelation, for the reports cited above show that the other members of the al-Qaeda cells who authorities failed to “get” were in fact only five individuals including Sidique Khan. Moreover, British investigators did not merely dismiss the five individuals who escaped arrest – a group apparently including all four London bombers along with an identified fifth man. To the contrary, they were clearly concerned that they had not apprehended all suspects in connection with the London, New York and Washington terrorist plots being prepared by multiple cells operating as part of a single al-Qaeda network, run by senior operations chief Abu Faraj al-Libbi. In May 2005, al-Libbi was arrested and detained by Pakistani authorities, who quickly gave US investigators access to him. A US security official confirmed that: “US intelligence had picked up warnings recently that the al-Qaida terror network or its followers were seeking to duplicate the dramatic 3/11 Madrid train bombings in another European city.”59 Other US intelligence sources confirmed that al-Libbi had specifically warned of an impending attack on the London public transport system, particularly trains, among other targets, during the course of his interrogation. “A captured al Qaeda leader warned United States interrogators that the London mass transit system was a likely target for an attack”, the officials told ABC News. Al-Libbi had specifically “detailed plans to target London and selected US cities, but did not specify a time for the attacks” in the interrogations.60 Most critically, US intelligence sources confirm that based on al-Libbi’s briefing, “Britain was warned two months ago that Al-Qaeda was planning a ‘Madrid-style’ attack on the London transport network”.61 What was done with this and other warnings, and why did they accompany the downgrading of Britain’s alert status from “critical” to “severe”? Prior to his capture in Pakistan, al-Libbi had extensive contacts with a British terror network planning operations in the year leading up to the 7 July attacks – essentially the same network to which the London bombers were affiliated. These contacts were already known to US and British investigators. The information on a terrorist strike potentially on London’s public transport systems culled directly from al-Libbi himself pointed directly to the need to intensify surveillance of that same network, and of all individuals linked to it. Al-Libbi was clearly running both the Bluewater and the London Underground plots. If British investigators were troubled by the fact that five operatives associated with the Bluewater plot had evaded arrest, they clearly believed that they still constituted a potential threat requiring continued surveillance. The decision to categorize the 7/7 plotters as low-level suspects with no reason to see them as involved in terrorist activity, precipitating the cessation of surveillance, therefore, came from hitherto unidentified senior levels: it was not justified by the evidence that disturbed British investigators on the ground. Other warnings received by the British should have heightened concerns. One of particular interest here came from Saudi security sources – the parliamentary cross- party intelligence committee report makes brief reference to this warning but dismisses it as follows: We have looked in detail into claims that the Saudi Arabian authorities warned the British Agencies about the attacks. We found that some information was passed to the Agencies about possible terrorist planning for an attack in the UK. It was examined by the Agencies who concluded that the plan was not credible. That information has been given to us: it is materially different from what actually occurred on 7 July and clearly not relevant to these attacks.62 Unfortunately, this does not cohere with evidence in the public record. According to the Observer, Saudi security sources believe the warning they passed on to Britain was materially the same, and was connected to both the 7/7 plan and the earlier Bluewater plot. The newspaper reports that in December 2004, Saudi intelligence provided MI6 with details of an imminent terrorist plot to bomb the London Underground. The terror cell involved would consist of four people. Senior Saudi security sources told the Observer that the plot “involved a Saudi Islamic militant who fought with insurgents in Iraq and was financed by a Libyan businessman with links to Islamic extremists in the UK.” The militant was arrested after returning to the Gulf kingdom from Iraq on a false passport in the name of a fellow insurgent known to have been killed. Under interrogation he told Saudi intelligence officers that “he was on a mission to fund a plot to target the Underground or a London night club within six months” - in other words, by July 2005. The reference to a nightclub clearly indicates elements of the wider al-Qaeda plot uncovered in Operation Crevice to target a shopping centre, nightclubs and/or trains. The operation was allegedly funded by a Libyan businessman with close links to Islamist extremists in Britain, who is already known to the international intelligence community, but whose location is now unknown. One Saudi source remarked: “When we heard about the bombs in London we immediately recalled the warning we had given Britain – in particular the fact that four individuals carried out the attack and that it happened almost in the timescale we were told about.” Moreover, the Saudis confirm that the Americans have already taken the warning very seriously in hindsight, such that the CIA and FBI “are understood to be trying to trace the businessman.”63 If the Saudi warning is not credible, as MI5 has told the parliamentary inquiry, why are the CIA and FBI pursing it? Remarkably, it contained very specific information alerting British security services to the threat of an imminent strike: it revealed the target – the London Underground; precisely established a maximum time-scale for the operation’s execution – July 2005; and confirmed the size of the cell involved, four men. At first glance, the casual observer is inclined to wonder how British authorities might be able to focus intelligence operations to discover a cell of four terrorists. However, British officials were already well aware from Operation Crevice that five associated terrorist suspects were at large. Out of these five, four apparently consisted of the would-be London bombers, whereas the fifth man with apparent foreign connections had escaped abroad, reportedly to Pakistan, at least for the time being. This left the cell of four London bombers, who were already under MI5 surveillance. The idea that British counter-terrorist officers had no idea where to look is therefore questionable. The available evidence shows that MI5 did indeed re- investigate Khan, Tanweer and the other members of the 7/7 cell from January 2005, shortly after the Saudi warning of an imminent attack on the London Underground and just as Omar Bakri had issued a fatwa declaring Britain a legitimate target of al- Qaeda’s “jihad”. This surveillance continued through to the end of June 2005, two weeks before 7/7. The evidence discussed here strongly suggests that the 7th July 2005 London bombing plot was the successor to the failed Bluewater operation, and further, that both the Bluewater and the 7/7 cells were incubated by Omar Bakri and his al- Muhajiroun network. British intelligence officials knew that some members of the network were at large, and the escapees consisted of the four would-be London bombers and an unidentified fifth man who were all already under surveillance in connection with multiple plots. Moreover, elements of the network that was partially wound up in 2004 had extensive contacts with senior al-Qaeda leadership in the planning of specific terrorist operations against targets in the United States and United Kingdom, including London’s public transport system. Thus, it is patently untrue for MI5 to say it received no warning whatsoever of the London bombings. In the year before the July attacks, British intelligence services received vital clues as to the target, likely date, method, and even the key operatives to participate in the plot. |
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| This surveillance continued through to the end of June 2005, two weeks before 7/7. |
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| the deleted sections do contain some significant information. the removal of these sections was very frustrating for me, as i believe strongly that this material is in the public interest. in due course i hope to find avenues to publish this stuff separately. not all of it would be entirely new to you, but definitely some of it will be new, and a little surprising. |
| QUOTE (cmain @ Sep 25 2007, 09:04 PM) | ||
Source: Thread on Nafeez' book "The London Bombings: An Independent Inquiry" Is there anything "new" and "surprising" in "Inside the Crevice?" |
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| MI5 was aware that Khan had visited an al-Qaeda terrorist training camp in northern Pakistan: The aim of the camp, security sources say, was to train would-be terrorists such as Khan to plan and carry out bomb attacks in Britain. A source said that when Khan returned from the camp in the summer of 2003 he was fully versed in how to make bombs. The intelligence agency should have picked up the early warning signs about Khan and Tanweer’s intentions as they travelled together around England during 2004. [emphasis added]24 The Crown Prosecution Service confirmed the veracity of this report in the crevice trial, where it wanted to introduce the evidence of Khan’s attendance at the al- Qaeda camp in 2003. The trial judge observed that the Crown’s evidence was to prove “that the purpose of the training camp was to plan and cause explosions in the UK”.25 So according to these British intelligence sources, Khan went to an al-Qaeda camp in Pakistan specifically designated to train terrorists to conduct attacks using explosives in the UK. When he arrived back in the UK in 2003, he knew how to construct an explosive device. The implication is that as early as the summer of 2003, MI5 knew that Khan associated with al-Qaeda, had trained to carry out a terrorist attack in the UK, and was able to build bombs. |
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| 7/7, British Geostrategy in the Balkans, and Islamist Terror Networks: “Out of Bounds” With the assistance of the American and European intelligence services, the British criminal investigation of the 7/7 attacks has quietly pursued such clear international linkages, without formally publicizing the conclusions. According to British military and defence analyst Paul Beaver, the new CIA chief Porter Goss quietly visited Sarajevo and Tirana in the wake of the London bombings “to express grave concerns of Washington because of [these governments’] cooperation with radical Islamic groups.” According to Beaver, “a part of the investigation dealing with the London blasts is aimed at links between radical Islamists in Bosnia and Kosovo with international terrorist groups.”95 Yet the details of this investigation and its implications for British security policies have never been explained to the British public by the government. According to senior Bosnian government sources, British anti-terror investigators arrived in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, in late January 2006 to investigate the Bosnian link to the London bombings. British investigators were interested in “four British citizens of Afro-Asian origin who had been under surveillance in Bosnia, one of which is believed to be the brother of one of the London suicide bombers.” The four reportedly arrived in the western Bosnian city of Bihac in late October 2005, and “were under surveillance for suspected radical Islamic activities in Britain.” They were traced to Sarajevo in December, where they remained for about a month before leaving the country. An official from the Bosnian Federation police service revealed that the four British citizens spent most of their time in Sarajevo at the Saudi-funded King Fahd Mosque, “which is frequented by naturalized Bosnians from Arab countries and fundamentalist Bosnian Muslims who have joined the Wahhabi movement of strict Islam.” While in Sarajevo, the four also reportedly visited the suburb of Hadzici several times, which “appeared to be the base for a Bosnian, or even European, ‘terror cell.’”96 Just under a week after the 7/7 terrorist attacks, the Global Information System intelligence service for governments run by the International Strategic Studies Association reported cryptically that “despite firm linkages to 9/11, Madrid, and London attacks, Bosnian Jihadist networks remain ‘out of bounds.’”97 There is a simple reason for this: British and American governments have actively fostered these terrorist networks all the way through to the early twenty-first century. This is a policy that has been conducted with wilful and reckless indifference as to its consequences in terms of the corresponding erosion of national security and ensuing loss of innocent lives. The sponsorship of extremist networks abroad in the Balkans, the recruitment of the al-Qaeda affiliated UK group al-Muhajiroun in Kosovo, was tied to a ‘Covenant of Security’ at home which granted Islamist extremists connected to al-Qaeda in the UK a virtual immunity to do as they pleased. Even now, British authorities remain reluctant to shut down the successor network to al-Muhajiroun, many of whose chief activists are implicated in violations of criminal and anti-terror laws but remain free to continue highly questionable activities. Detailed investigation thus not only reveals deep ambiguities in Anglo-American policy in the Yugoslav wars, it also unearths the extent to which the British and Americans promoted the interlocking networks that planned the London bombings. |
| QUOTE (numeral @ Sep 26 2007, 06:00 AM) |
This bit is news to me. Khan in a training camp in 2003? Did I miss this? |
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| LONDON (July 2005 Attack) • Accepting Jihad/Decision to Commit Jihad. For some of the 7/7 bombers, the acceptance of their obligation for jihad began in July 2003. Travel abroad played prominently in directing them to conduct an attack in the U.K., solidifying the group’s commitment to jihad, and providing them the advice and experience for acquiring the capability. o In July 2003, Mohammed Siddique Khan traveled to Pakistan and received military and explosives training at a camp in Malakand, in the North-West Frontier Province in Pakistan. The original purpose of the trip was for Khan to deliver funds raised in the U.K. for jihadi groups, such as Kashmiri fighters or the Taliban. However, following his arrival at the Islamabad airport, Khan decided to stay and attend a jihadi training camp.63 During his training, Khan met Mohammed Junaid Babar, a New Yorker of Pakistani origin who later confessed after being arrested to being a key al-Qaeda operative who was involved in an attempt to assassinate Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in 2003. He also met Momin Khawaja, an Ottawa-based software technician who later designed and built electronic detonators to be used to trigger a huge fertilizer-and-fuel bomb along with four British conspirators (Operation Crevice). 64 o In late November 2004, Mohammed Siddique Khan and Shezhad Tanweer traveled to Karachi, Pakistan and met Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, a former major in Saddam Hussein’s army, who was regarded as one of al- Qaeda’s most experienced, intelligent and ruthless commanders. Recognizing the potential for re-directing already radicalized British Muslims, who traveled to the region with the desire to become mujahedeen in Afghanistan or Iraq, Abd al-Hadi was responsible for re-tasking both Khan and Tanweer to attack the U.K.. 65 Pakistani records show the pair departed Pakistan on the same flight in early February 2005. Upon their return to the U.K. in February 2005, Khan and Tanweer immediately began planning an attack to punish Britain. |
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| The Micra arrives at Luton and parks next to the Brava. The 4 men get out of their respective cars, look in the boots of both, and appear to move items between them. They each put on rucksacks which CCTV shows are large and full. The 4 are described as looking as if they were going on a camping holiday. One car contained explosive devices of a different and smaller kind from those in the rucksacks. It is not clear what they were for, but they may have been for self-defence or diversion in case of interception during the journey given their size; that they were in the car rather than the boot; and that they were left behind. Also left in the Micra were other items consistent with the use of explosives. A 9mm handgun was also found in the Brava. The Micra had a day parking ticket in the window, perhaps to avoid attention, the Brava did not. |
| QUOTE (numeral @ Sep 26 2007, 08:21 AM) | ||
Also new to me.
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| British in Bosnia to probe 7 July terror link ISN SECURITY WATCH (15/01/06) – A high-ranking Bosnian official has told ISN Security Watch that British anti-terror investigators are due to arrive in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, this week to investigate a Bosnian link to the 7 July bombings of London’s transport network that killed 52 people, including the suicide bombers. The source, who is close to the investigation, said the British investigators were interested in four British citizens of Afro-Asian origin who had been under surveillance in Bosnia, one of which is believed to be the brother of one of the London suicide bombers. British anti-terror investigators are scheduled to arrive in Bosnia on 19 January, the source said. In late October 2005, Bosnian police arrested five teenagers on suspicion of plotting terrorist attacks on Western embassies in Sarajevo. Only days later, police in Denmark arrested six teenagers believed to be linked to those arrested in Bosnia. The first two men arrested in Sarajevo were identified as Cesur Abdulkadir and Mirsad Bektasevic, whose confiscated mobile phones and laptop computers led to the arrest in December of three more suspects in the Sarajevo suburb of Hadzici. One of the suspects is believed to be the leader of a Bosnian militant cell. According to the source, who spoke on condition on anonymity, at the same time that Bektasevic had arrived in Sarajevo from Sweden and Abdulkadir from Denmark, a young man of Afro-Asian origin with Danish citizenship arrived from Denmark. Bosnian police alerted the Danish authorities after finding the Danish citizen’s contacts in the mobile phone and laptops confiscated from Bektasevic and Abdulkadir. A high-ranking Bosnian police source said Danish police had revealed that a raid on the suspect’s parents’ home in Denmark had uncovered US$500,000 in cash, and that investigators were still tracing the money to determine its origin. The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said none of the suspects had yet been indicted, but that their period of detention, which was about to expire, would be extended as the investigation continued. Also in late October, Bosnian authorities received information about the arrival in the western Bosnian city of Bihac of four British citizens of Afro-Asian origin, who were under surveillance for suspected radical Islamic activities in Britain, though there were no concrete suspicions. After the first arrests were made in October, police temporarily lost the track of the four British citizens, but traced them to Sarajevo in December. According to the official sources, the four stayed in Sarajevo for approximately one month and then left the country. Bosnian police currently do not know their whereabouts. “It appeared that one of those four people was the brother of one of the suicide bombers in the 7 July attacks on the London transport network, a senior Bosnian official told ISN Security Watch. “That is the reason for British officials’ visit [on 19 January],” he said. The source would not reveal the name of the suspect believed to be the brother of one of the London suicide bombers. A Bosnian Federation police official also told ISN Security Watch on condition of anonymity that while the four British citizens were in Sarajevo, they spent most of their time at the Saudi-funded King Fahd Mosque, which is frequented by naturalized Bosnians from Arab countries and fundamentalist Bosnian Muslims who have joined the Wahhabi movement of strict Islam. The official said the four suspects had also visited the Sarajevo suburbs of Vogosca and Hadzici several times during their stay. The source said the investigation had shown that Hadzici appeared to be the base for a Bosnian, or even European, “terror cell”, and that one of the three people arrested in late November in Hadzici appeared to be their leader. Amir Bajric, Bajro Ikanovic, and a third person whose identity has not been revealed, were arrested in Hadzici in late November. Prosecutors said that during the interrogation of Bajric they learned that he and the third unidentified teenager were members of the same extremist group as Bektasevic and Abdulkadir, who were arrested earlier in October. Bajric, Ikanovic, and the third unidentified teenager are suspected of having provided support and logistics for the alleged terror cell. Bosnian police seized 16 kilograms of explosives hidden by the unidentified 19-year-old in a forest near Hadzici. The source said investigators believed that Ikanovic was the group’s leader, saying that the other two had referred to him as “boss” or “emir”. He said Ikanovic had refused to cooperate with investigators. Police sources said Ikanovic, a 32-year-old Bosnian national, had no criminal record. During the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, he fought against Bosnian Serb forces as a member of the Al-Mujaheed Muslim unit, which operated on its own, outside the control of the Bosnian Army. The unit was largely comprised of Bosnian Wahhabis and fighters from Muslim countries. A senior official in the Bosnian Federation police told ISN Security Watch that investigators were also following the movements of three other people in Sarajevo, suspected of having links to the alleged network. “Those three people, all Bosnian citizens, never sleep in one place for more than a couple of days. Yet, all we can do for now is follow them because we have no grounds for tapping their phones or raiding their apartments,” the source said. The source also said that one of the three suspects being followed had been arrested four years ago by NATO forces in Bosnia on suspicion that he was plotting attacks on a US military base in northern Bosnia. A search of his home uncovered a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, three passports, and an Islamic last will and testament. After pressure from human rights groups, who protested over the suspect’s detention for four months without the right to contact a lawyer and without evidence that he was plotting an attack on the US military base, he was released. He now lives in Sarajevo and either works at or owns a car wash in the suburb of Stup. Bosnian police may face similar problems, as they have so far been unable to charge any of the five suspects arrested. “Due to the fact that both Abdulkadir and Bektasevic have refused to cooperate with investigators and have denied that the weapons found in their apartment were theirs and that they were planning a terror attack, all we can do is examine the evidence from the apartment,” one high-ranking police official said. Some 30 kilograms of explosives, dozens of guns, a suicide bombers vest, and a videotaped last will and testament were confiscated in raids on three apartments being rented out by the two suspects arrested in October. The video tape shows the two men asking God for forgiveness for the sacrifice they were about to make. The two suspects are also shown making bombs, including one planted in a lemon and another planted in a tennis ball. Police also found face masks worn by two of the suspects in the videotape and hair samples from those face masks believed to belong to one of the suspects. However, Bosnian forensics teams do not have the technical capability to analyze these samples. The Bosnian authorities sent the videotape, a video camera, and other evidence to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which sources said were analyzing the samples. The FBI’s forensic tests had shown that the video camera was the same one used to record the confiscated video tape containing the bombing-making evidence and the last will and testament. The hair analysis is expected later this month. The voice samples from the videotape could not be verified, the Bosnian police source said. The source also said that comparing the number of weapons found in the apartment rented by Bektasevic and Abdulkadir with the number of weapons seen on the videotape, it was clear that weapons and explosives were still unaccounted for. In the last two months, the source said, police had conducted several anti-terror raids in forests near the town of Kakanj, in the Hadzici suburb, and in the Bjelasnica mountain area, near Sarajevo. “We believe that the majority of missing weapons are located in an abandoned house in one of those three locations and that the videotape was made there,” the source said. However, so far, security forces have been unable to uncover the location. (By Damir Kaletovic and Anes Alic in Sarajevo) Damir Kaletovic is a Sarajevo-based correspondent for ISN Security Watch, and the co-host of Bosnian Federal Television’s “60-Minutes” political talk show. Anes Alic is the Southeastern Europe Regional Editor for ISN Security Watch. He is based in Sarajevo. Source |