History > 2006 > UK > Terrorism (I)

David Parkins

The Guardian        p. 33        16.2.2006

British Prime Minister Tony Blair

Comment

Making bad law worse

Creating a new offence of glorifying terrorism is hypocritical

and a threat to legitimate debate

Louise Christian        The Guardian        Thursday February 16, 2006

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2006/feb/16/t
errorism.uk

Terror trial

hears tapes of plot to blow up club

· Gang discussed UK targets and training, court told
· Bombing campaign 'was to be part of global jihad'

Friday May 26, 2006
Guardian
Sandra Laville

A British terror cell discussed blowing up the Ministry of Sound nightclub in London as part of a bombing campaign to kill and maim people in Britain as a contribution to the global jihad, the Old Bailey heard yesterday.

One of the defendants said he believed the gang, which the jury heard had links to al-Qaida, would not be blamed for killing innocent people if they attacked the nightclub, which has a capacity of 1,800. In secret security recordings, Omar Khyam, 24, of Crawley, West Sussex, was heard discussing targets as part of a terror campaign in Britain.

Another alleged plotter, Jawad Akbar, appeared to suspect that the men were under surveillance. "Bruv, you don't think this place is bugged, do you?" he asked. "No, I don't think this place is bugged bruv," Mr Khyam replied.

The recordings reveal that the men apparently discussed the best targets for an attack in the UK, for which they could get training in camps in Pakistan. Mr Khyam discussed targeting utility companies by using recruits with inside knowledge to cut off electricity, water and gas power supplies across the country.

Mr Akbar disagreed, suggesting that the Ministry of Sound nightclub would be a softer target, the court heard yesterday.

"What about easy stuff where you don't need no experience and nothing, and you could get a job, yeah, like for example the biggest nightclub in central London where no one can even turn round and say 'oh they were innocent' those slags dancing around?" Mr Akbar said.

He said that in the UK it was nightclubs and bars which were "really, really big". "Trust me, then you will get the public talking yeah, yeah ... if you went for the social structure where every Tom, Dick and Harry goes on a Saturday night, yeah, that would be crazy, crazy thing man."

Mr Khyam asked: "If you get a job in a bar, yeah, or a club, say the Ministry of Sound, what are you planning to do there then?" Mr Akbar replied: "Blow the whole thing up.

Mr Khyam then said: "The resources from this country, the electricity, the gas, going into alarm engineers, stuff like this yeah, that I'm saying is good, get brothers in each and every field, from the gas to the electricity to the water to the alarm engineers, everything."

Mr Akbar replied: "I think the club thing you could do, but the gas would be much harder. There's people who even get in with their searching stuff, but it's only the bouncers that search you." Mr Khyam replied: "The explosion in the clubs, yeah, that's fine, bro, that's not a problem. The training for that is available ... to get them into the Ministry of Sound really isn't difficult."

The court also heard from Gary Smart, the general manager of the Ministry of Sound. If the packed club were to be attacked "it is clear that the consequences could be devastating. With such a large number of people in such a confined space, the impact could result in loss of life, injury or structural damage," Mr Smart told the court.

During the recorded conversation, which the prosecution said occurred at Mr Akbar's home in Uxbridge, west London, on February 22 2004, the men also discussed the use of terror in the jihad. Mr Akbar said: "I still agree with you on the point that terror is the best way and even the Qur'an says it, isn't it? Yeah? I'm not denying that, yeah."

Mr Khyam and his brother Shujah Mahmood, 19, Mr Akbar, 22, and Waheed Mahmood, 34, all from Crawley; Salahuddin Amin, 31, of Luton, Bedfordshire; Anthony Garcia, 23, of Ilford, London; and Nabeel Hussain, 21, of Horley, Surrey, deny conspiring to cause explosions likely to endanger life between January 1 2003 and March 31 2004.

Mr Khyam, Mr Garcia and Mr Hussain also deny a charge under the Terrorism Act of possessing 600kg (1,322lb) of ammonium nitrate fertiliser for terrorism. Mr Khyam and Mr Mahmood deny possessing aluminium powder for terrorism.

The court has been told that the gang had links to al-Qaida and that some members had trained at terror camps in Pakistan where they plotted to kill people in Britain and practised making explosions using ammonium nitrate fertiliser and aluminium powder.

The case continues.

    Terror trial hears tapes of plot to blow up club, G, 26.5.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,1783394,00.html

Ten held in police counter-terror raids over claims of channelling cash to Iraq insurgency

· Targets include offices of Islamic charity
· MI5 involved in operation which used 500 police

Thursday May 25, 2006
Guardian
Riazat Butt, Vikram Dodd and Jeevan Vasagar


Ten people were arrested yesterday in a series of raids by counter-terrorism police targeting the alleged funding and support of the insurgency in Iraq.

A total of 500 officers carried out raids on 19 addresses across England, including the offices of an Islamic charity which is accused by the United States of funding international terrorism and of ties to al-Qaida.

Police said they could not rule out that money from Britain was being used to fund suicide bomb attacks in Iraq against UK and US forces and against civilians.

The operation, which involved MI5, was led by Greater Manchester police, and followed a year long investigation.

Three people were last night being held under the Terrorism Act, and five people were arrested under immigration powers and face deportation because they allegedly threaten national security. Two people were arrested and then released without charge.

All those arrested were of Libyan origin. Police raids occurred in London, Bolton, Birmingham, Middlesbrough, Liverpool and Manchester.

At the centre of the raids was a British-based charity called Sanabel, which says it raises money to aid Muslims around the globe.

In February the US Treasury department froze its assets, alleging Sanabel raised money for the jihad, and for the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which in turn is accused of links to al-Qaida. One of those arrested yesterday under immigration powers was Tahir Nasuf, 44, who is listed by the Charity Commission as a trustee of Sanabel.

Sanabel offices in Birmingham and Manchester and its personnel are believed to have been monitored by anti-terrorism officers for some time before yesterday's raid. Last night computers and financial documentation were being examined by officers for possible links to terrorism - links the charity says do not exist.

In February, after the US published allegations against the charity, Mr Nasuf said: "It is wrong what they said. I am just a volunteer worker. There is no relationship, nothing at all. I have done nothing. Sanabel is nothing to do with the other group. I am angry."

Yesterday, outside Mr Nasuf's Manchester home, his sister-in-law said the raid had terrorised the family. "My sister told me that before fajr [early morning prayer] policemen came to the house dressed in black. She was very scared, she has four children, and didn't know what was going on.

"There was lots of shouting. They took her husband away, she doesn't know why. He's been arrested before and he had done nothing wrong then."

Charity Commission records show that in the financial year ending in 2004 Sanabel spent around £44,000 on work it described as providing clean water and education to children in the developing world.

The Guardian has learned that the raids came amid mounting concern among counter-terrorism officials that funding and support for the Iraqi insurgency is coming from Britain.

A counter-terrorism source said that investigations into fund raising are finding that time after time money is going to Iraq, which the source described as a "hotspot for us". The source said: "People involved in jihad need to have money to live and travel. Money is also needed for bombs and other jihad activity."

Michael Todd, chief constable of Greater Manchester police, said the raids were not connected to any threat to the UK. "We are talking about the facilitation of terrorism overseas. That could include funding, and providing support and encouragement to terrorists.

"This is an intelligence-led operation. We have been gathering intelligence, together with our security service colleagues, for at least a year, looking at the funding and support of terrorist activities overseas."

Eyewitnesses to the raids described dramatic scenes. Leo Paredes, 27, a student, was woken at 3am by the sound of police breaking down his neighbour's door in south Manchester.

He said eight officers in black clothes and wearing masks knocked through the front door while others went in the back. "They were smashing the front door with a battering ram to try to break it down," he said. "It was like a movie."

Hassan Amiri, 17, who lives next door to the address that was raided, said he was woken at 3am by police shouting at the back of the house.

"I looked out of the window and there were six or seven armed police officers in black uniforms at the back of the house next door shouting 'Stand where you are'. I didn't know what was going on until I heard on the news that it could be terrorism. You don't expect that in your neighbourhood."

The Libyans arrested yesterday are not the first to be detained for allegedly threatening national security. A leading British Libyan dissident yesterday claimed Britain was being duped by the Libyan regime into arresting its opponents.

Ali Zew, from the the National Conference of the Libyan Opposition, said: "The regime can feed false information to Britain, and the regime has done so in the past. Libyan dissidents in the UK have no connection to terrorism, they are just against the regime."

    Ten held in police counter-terror raids over claims of channelling cash to Iraq insurgency, G, 25.5.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,1782517,00.html

Terror suspect numbers soar

MI5 source reveals a 'current, relentless and increasing' security threat since 7 July attacks as radical imam is set to be released from jail

Sunday May 14, 2006
The Observer
Antony Barnett, Jamie Doward and Mark Townsend


The number of Islamic terror suspects in Britain being targeted by the security service MI5 has soared to 1,200, a 50 per cent rise since the London suicide bombings last July.

In a stark warning about the threat posed by Islamic radicals living in Britain, a senior intelligence source told The Observer that some of the public and politicians were failing to realise the risk facing the UK: 'In July 2005 we had 800 targets. I wish it was still at that level.'

He said that MI5 had identified another 400 targets since the bombings, suggesting that, rather than the threat to security from British-based terrorists being reduced, it had escalated since the attacks which killed 52 people. In September 2001, the security services estimated the number of UK-based terror suspects posing a 'risk to national security' at around 250, a figure that now stands almost five times higher. The intelligence source offered no explanation as the reason for the continued growth in Islamic radicalisation, but said the threat was 'current, relentless and increasing'.

Disclosure of this dramatic rise in potential terror suspects comes as it emerges that the radical imam who played a critical role in influencing one of the 7 July bombers is to walk free from prison within weeks. Abdullah al-Faisal was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2003 after being convicted of inciting murder and racial hatred.

The government's official account of the 7 July bombings published last week makes it clear that Jermaine Lindsay attended at least one of Faisal's lectures and listened to his lectures on tapes.

At his trial a court was told how Faisal, who branded non-Muslims cockroaches that should be exterminated, called on his followers to learn how to use rifles, fly planes and use missiles to kill 'unbelievers'. In one tape, Faisal - who attended Brixton Mosque in south London, where the shoebomber Richard Reid met Zacharias Moussaoui, the only man to be jailed for his part in the 11 September attacks on America - tells Muslim women to prepare their children for jihad by giving them toy guns.

The Observer understands Faisal is soon to be released having served little more than half of his sentence. In preparation for his release, an order for deportation to his native Jamaica was filed by Home Office officials on 30 March. His lawyers are believed to have made representations to the Home Office in an attempt to secure his release on parole pending deportation. The move is likely to raise concerns that Faisal will be free to preach his extremist views once he has been returned to Jamaica, from where a number of Islamic terrorists have originated, including Lindsay.

Meanwhile this week lawyers acting on behalf of the family of one of the victims of the London bombings will notify the Home Secretary, John Reid, they are launching legal action over the government's response to the 7 July attacks.

Having sought legal opinion following last Thursday's publication of the two investigations into the attacks, City law firm Leigh Day & Co will commence a legal challenge against the government's decision not to hold a public inquiry into the atrocities. Opposition politicians joined survivors of the attacks and victims' families calling for such an inquiry.

Acting on behalf of the family of Behnaz Mozakka, 47, who was killed when Lindsay detonated his explosive on the Piccadilly line tube, lawyers will cite a number of key unanswered question that the government has a 'duty to answer'.

Their case will be brought using human rights legislation which indicates that a state has a duty to investigate where it can be claimed that a government could bear some responsibility.

    Terror suspect numbers soar, O, 14.5.2006, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1774409,00.html

Evidence points to al-Qaida link to 7/7 bombs

Friday May 12, 2006
Guardian
Alan Travis and Richard Norton-Taylor

There is now "considerable" circumstantial evidence that al-Qaida was linked to the July 7 London bombings that killed 52 innocent people, the government claimed for the first time last night.

The new home secretary, John Reid, said the evidence published yesterday in the first official accounts by the police and security services of the events of 7/7 showed that while there was no "direct verifiable" al-Qaida link, the circumstantial evidence was considerable.

Mr Reid's evidence included:

· The ringleader, Mohammed Sidique Khan, visited Pakistan and possibly Afghanistan in 2003 and is likely to have had training and met al-Qaida contacts. Planning for the attack started shortly after a return visit with the second bomber, Shehzad Tanweer, between November 2004 and February 2005.

· The way they acted was "more than amateurish" with the "compilation of a simple explosive but a tragically, awesomely effective one".

· Khan's "martyrdom" video, broadcast on al-Jazeera, in which he paid tribute to al-Qaida and "one or two of their connections". Mr Reid said: "It is quite possible for that organisation to claim any succesful act of terrorism as that elevates them, but there is considerable circumstantial evidence there."

The existence of a firm al-Qaida link has always been denied.

The two reports published yesterday -the Home Office narrative of 7/7 and the parliamentary intelligence and security committee inquiry - show that Khan and Tanweer had time and again crossed the radar of the security services as "peripheral figures" in other inquiries but they were not classed as key targets.

Only limited attempts were made to investigate them because resources meant there were more pressing priorities who were considered more dangerous at the time. Ministers insisted that none of the four bombers were ever "fully identified" by the security services although the MPs detail at least one missed opportunity.

    Evidence points to al-Qaida link to 7/7 bombs, 12.5.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/story/0,,1773194,00.html

Bombers slipped through net of watching MI5

· Security service forced to prioritise separate investigation
· Greater resources no guarantee future attacks would be foiled

Friday May 12, 2006
Guardian
Ian Cobain, Richard Norton-Taylor and Rosie Cowan


A lack of resources allowed the July 7 bombers to slip through the security net, according to two reports published yesterday, and police and the intelligence services are highly unlikely to be able to prevent all similar attacks in the future.

Two of the four suicide bombers had come to the attention of the security service, MI5, time and again, yet the reports' authors concluded that there was no reason for the authorities to have known that they posed a threat.

While one report urged greater cooperation with intelligence agencies overseas, it also concluded that it "seems highly unlikely that it will be possible to stop all attacks", even if the UK authorities were to become more "intrusive" in the way they carried out their responsibilities.

Despite media reports based on leaks prior to publication, which suggested that the group had no links to al-Qaida, the reports from the Home Office and the cross-party Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) make clear that the four men were unlikely to have been acting unassisted.

They probably received expert bombmaking assistance from an unknown individual, and they also had a series of highly suspicious contacts with an unknown individual or individuals in Pakistan for several months before the bombings. However, 10 months after the attacks that killed 52 and injured more than 700, it is clear from the two reports that many questions remain unanswered.

Police and the security service still cannot be sure whether anyone else was involved, who they may have been, or the role that they may have played. In addition, the bombers probably carried out a test explosion but no one knows where or when.

David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said the reports "raised more questions than answers", while victims' relatives renewed their calls for a public inquiry. John Reid, the home secretary, said the entire operation had cost less than £8,000, and had been carried out by men driven by a desire for martyrdom and "fierce antagonism to perceived injustices by the west against Muslims".

He ruled out a public inquiry, and said that he intended to meet relatives of victims to give them a chance to ask questions about the findings.

The ISC report said the security service had come across two of the bombers, Mohammed Sidique Khan, 30, a classroom assistant from Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, and Shezhad Tanweer, 22, from Leeds, while investigating other terrorism cases. They had also been observed in Pakistan, where it was "likely that they had some contact with al-Qaida figures", according to the committee.

The report reveals that before the bombings a photograph was shown to a number of detainees being held in an unidentified foreign country, but it was not shown to a detainee who later identified a press photograph as being of Khan. That, says the committee, was a "missed opportunity". The committee also reveals that in February 2005 MI5 received a report that two men had travelled to Afghanistan in the late 1990s or early 2000s. It was only after the London bombings one was identified as Khan.

A telephone number of a third bomber, Germaine Lindsay, 19, was discovered in MI5's files after the attacks, although the reason for its presence is not made clear by either report. Intelligence officials say the phone was recovered from Lindsay's home after the attacks, but it was unclear whether other people may have used it.

In an important finding, the committee says MI5 could probably have identified Khan and Tanweer before the attacks if they had investigated the two men more fully. But, it adds - and this is a central theme of the committee's report - priority was given to other terror suspects considered more dangerous. With the resources at their disposal, MI5 could not have followed Khan and Tanweer, who were regarded as "peripheral" figures and had not been identified until after the bombings.

As far back as 2003, MI5 had on its records a phone number registered to a "Siddeque Khan"and details of contacts between that number and an individual under investigation.

A review of surveillance data showed that Khan and Tanweer "had been among a group of men who had held meetings with others under security service investigation in 2004".

MI5 told the committee there was no evidence that these meetings had been connected with terrorist plans, the report says. But in 2004 two men identified after the bombings as being Khan and Tanweer had attended a number of meetings which were under surveillance by MI5 as part of an "important and substantial ongoing investigation".

The committee states: "The security service did not seek to investigate or identify them at the time although we have been told that it would probably have been possible to do so had the decision been taken.

"The judgment was made (correctly with hindsight) that they were peripheral to the main investigation and there was no intelligence to suggest they were interested in planning an attack against the UK.

"Intelligence at the time suggested that their focus was training and insurgency operations in Pakistan and schemes to defraud financial institutions."

Later in 2004 MI5 launched a new investigation into individuals who had been on the periphery of the earlier operation. Two of the men are now known to have been Khan and Tanweer. Even then, however, "resources were soon diverted again to higher priorities".

The committee concludes: "If more resources had been in place sooner, the chances of preventing the July attacks could have increased."

It adds: "Greater coverage in Pakistan, or more resources generally in the UK, might have alerted the agencies to the intentions of the July 7 group."

But police and MI5 had "more pressing responsibilities" at the time, including the need to thwart a known plot to attack targets within the UK. It was "understandable", the committee said, that "it was decided not to investigate [Khan and Tanweer] further, or seek to identify them".

Main conclusions

The Home Office

· The four bombers more than likely had expert bombmaking assistance.

· It was a simple operation, using easily available material, and probably cost no more than £8,000.

· There were a series of suspicious contacts with person or persons unknown in Pakistan prior to the attacks.

· "The extent to which others may have been involved in indoctrinating the group, have known what they were planning, or been involved in the planning, is unknown," the report says.

· Bombers motivated by perceived injustices in the west's treatment of Muslims and desire for martyrdom.

Intelligence and security committee

· Two of the bombers - Khan and Tanweer - had crossed MI5's radar several times while meeting other suspects.

· Decision not to fully investigate due to lack of resources time when another attack was being planned.

· Chances of preventing the attacks might have been greater had MI5 taken "different investigative decisions".

· The decision not to investigate further was "understandable" given the lack of resources.

· Three planned attacks against the UK have been thwarted since 7/7 but police and the security service are unlikely to prevent all future attacks.

    Bombers slipped through net of watching MI5, G, 12.5.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/story/0,,1773036,00.html

British-born terror shocked police

Friday May 12, 2006
Guardian
Richard Norton-Taylor and Rosie Cowan


The London bombings were a wake-up call for the security and intelligence agencies and the police who who had been "working off the wrong script", yesterday's report reveals.

They were shocked that a group of four "home-grown" young men were prepared to kill innocent civilians and themselves in a suicide attack. Police officers told the parliamentary intelligence and security committee that what they learned in July had "overturned their understanding of ... those who might become radicalised to the point of committing terrorist attacks".

"We were working off a script which actually has been completely discounted from what we know as reality," Andy Hayman, the Metropolitan police officer in overall charge of terrorist operations told the committee in a private session.

Sir David Pepper, director of GCHQ, the government's eavesdropping centre, told the committee: "What happened in July was a demonstration that there were *** [deleted] conspiracies going on about which we essentially knew nothing, and that rather sharpens the perception of how big, if I can use [the US defence secretary Donald] Rumsfeld's term, the unknown unknown was."

Paul Murphy, the chairman of the committee and the former Northern Ireland secretary, said yesterday that in many ways the most worrying aspects of the inquiry into the London attacks was how "plots were hatched in the great cities of England". Dari Taylor, a committee member, said she had been "startled" by the speed of the radicalisation.

The July attacks, the committee says, "emphasised that there was no clear profile of a British Islamist terrorist".

Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, the head of MI5, told the committee that it had been a surprise that the "first big attack in the UK for 10 years was a suicide attack". Such attacks were still not expected to be "the norm", a view expressed by the Joint Intelligence Committee shortly before the London bombings.

Yesterday's parliamentary committee report questions this judgment. There were clearly grounds for concern that some British citizens might engage in suicide attacks, it says, as the "shoe bombers" and the British-born Tel Aviv bombers had done.

The difficulty in spotting those likely to become involved in al-Qaida-style terrorism is highlighted by the Home Office narrative. It points out that there is "no consistent profile to help identify those who may be vulnerable to radicalisation". Those involved have come from all types of ethnic and social backgrounds. Some were relatively well-off and well-educated, some were not. Some had suffered abuse or hardship as children or had been involved in petty crime, others were law-abiding and had stable upbringings.

As for the process of radicalisation, the report says "attendance at a mosque linked to extremists may be a factor".

But it goes on: "Evidence suggests that extremists are increasingly moving away from mosques in order to conduct their activities in private homes or other premises to avoid detection." The report adds that extremists are making more use of the internet.

In many cases, the role of a mentor and the bonding of a group of fellow extremists appears to have been critical. "Mentors may first identify individuals from within larger groups who may be susceptible to radicalisation; then 'groom' them privately in small groups until individuals in the group begin feeding off each other's radicalism."

There seem to be several common factors in this "grooming". The initial conversations may focus on being a good Muslim, and talk of injustices to Muslims around the world, but with no overt reference to extremist propaganda at first.

"They will then move on to what extremists claim is religious justification for violent jihad ... and if suicide attacks are the intention - the importance of martyrdom in demonstrating commitment to Islam."

The narrative concludes: "There is little evidence of overt compulsion. The extremists appear rather to rely on the development of individual commitment and group bonding and solidarity."

    British-born terror shocked police, G, 12.5.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/story/0,,1773030,00.html

3.30pm update

Two 7/7 bombers were under surveillance

Thursday May 11, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
David Batty and agencies

Two of the July 7 suicide bombers were under surveillance by British intelligence but were not fully investigated because of a lack of resources, a parliamentary committee said today.

The cross-party intelligence and security committee (ISC) found "intelligence gaps" in security services monitoring of potential terrorist threats to the UK.

However, it concluded there was no evidence of an "intelligence failure" that could have prevented the attacks on London's transport system.

The committee found that MI5 officers assigned to investigate Mohammed Sidique Khan, the ringleader of the four suicide bombers, and Shehzad Tanweer, who carried out the Aldgate tube bombing, were diverted to another anti-terrorist operation.

"Prior to the 7 July attacks, the security service had come across Siddeque Khan and Shazad Tanweer on the peripheries of other surveillance and investigative operations," its report said.

"At that time, their identities were unknown to the security service and there was no appreciation of their subsequent significance.

"As there were more pressing priorities at the time, including the need to disrupt known plans to attack the UK, it was decided not to investigate them further or seek to identify them.

"When resources became available, attempts were made to find out more about these two and other peripheral contacts, but these resources were soon diverted back to what were considered to be higher investigative priorities."

The committee said the chances of preventing the July 7 attacks could have been increased if MI5 had fully investigated Tanweer and Khan, but concluded the decision not to do so was "understandable" given other terrorist threats.

It added that a lack of resources had hindered making further investigations into the pair.

After the attacks, MI5 discovered a telephone number for Germaine Lindsay, who bombed a train between King's Cross and Russell Square, in its files, the ISC noted.

The home secretary, John Reid, today set out to parliament the findings of a Home Office "narrative" of the July 7 attacks.

It concluded that the four bombers were motivated by "a mixture of anger at perceived injustices by the west against Muslims and a desire for martyrdom".

The bombs were made from readily available materials, and the whole operation cost the bombers less than £8,000 to prepare and execute.

Mr Reid told MPs it had been difficult to defend the UK against terrorism perpetrated by "ordinary British citizens with little known history of extremist views, far less violent intentions".

"At least three were apparently well integrated," he said. "Their radicalisation, to the extent that we know how and where it happened, was conducted away from places with any obvious association with extremism.

"The willingness of these men to use suicide bombing as their method and to attack vulnerable, civilian targets ... made them doubly difficult to defend against.

"That is not a comfortable message. But it is important that we are honest about it if we are to defend ourselves against the threat effectively."

Mr Reid ruled out a parliamentary inquiry into the bombings, but said he would be convening a series of meetings with families of the victims.

The reports were published as the security service MI5 announced it would focus its resources on preventing international terrorism in future, handing over its work on serious crime cases to the Serious Organised Crime Agency, set up last month.

Michael Henning, a broker from Kensington, west London, who survived one of the bombs, said it was a "scandal" that a lack of resources might have allowed the attacks to happen.

The ISC highlighted how the number of suspected terrorists known to British intelligence had risen substantially since the September 11 2001 attacks on New York and Washington and the Iraq war.

Between September 11 2001 and July 2005, the number of "primary investigative targets" rose from 250 to 800.

Today's report warned that more still needed to be done to improve the way the UK's security services and police special branches work together to tackle the threat of "home-grown" terrorism.

It also criticised the government's joint intelligence committee's March 2005 assessment that suicide bombings "would not become the norm in Europe", suggesting this could have led security agencies to underestimate the possible threat of "home-grown" terrorism.

"We are concerned that this judgment could have had an impact on the alertness of the authorities to the kind of threat they were facing and their ability to respond," the report said.

"We remain concerned that, across the whole of the counter-terrorism community, the development of the home-grown threat and the radicalisation of British citizens were not fully understood or applied to strategic thinking.

"A common and better level of understanding of these things among all those closely involved in identifying and countering the threat against the UK, whether that be the security service, or the police, or other parts of the government, is critical in order to be able to counter the threat effectively and prevent attacks."

The committee said greater co-operation between Britain and Pakistan could also have alerted the intelligence agencies to the July 7 bombers' plans.

In particular, it identified "intelligence gaps" between the two countries over visits to Pakistan by Khan and Tanweer between 2004 and 2005 to contact extremist groups and attend training camps.

The Home Office report added that the pair were assessed as "likely to have met al-Qaida figures during this visit.

But the ISC noted MI5 had discounted the theory that a terrorist mastermind had fled the country before the London bombings were carried out.

Mr Reid told MPs he would be developing consultations with Britain's Muslim community to "fight the distortion of Islam which turns young people into terrorists".

There would be an "inevitable" rise in intrusive activity by security services in the face of the terror threat, the ISC warned.

However, it added that even with greater resources and more investigations, it would be "unlikely" that all future attacks could be prevented.

The committee chairman, the former Northern Ireland secretary Paul Murphy, said: "We found that there was no prior warning from intelligence, domestic or foreign, of the plans to attack on July 7.

"None of the four bombers had been identified by the intelligence security agencies as a terrorist threat.

"The fact that the attacks were not prevented showed that there were and are clear areas for improvement."

The committee concluded that "it was not unreasonable" to reduce the threat level to the UK from "severe general" to "substantial" given there was "no specific intelligence of 7 July plot nor of any other group with a current credible plot".

However, it raised concerned that the reduction in the threat level was unlikely to have made any difference to the alertness and preparedness of the security services and police.

"We question the usefulness of a system in which changes can be made to threat levels with little or no practical effect," said the committee.

A revamp of the terror alert system should be undertaken to better inform the authorities and the public about the level of threat faced, it recommended.

"This will help avoid inappropriate reassurance about the level of threat in the absence of intelligence of a current plot," the report said.

The Home Office report also revealed new details about the London bombings.

Bomber Hasib Hussain stopped to buy batteries before blowing up the Number 30 bus in Tavistock Square, possibly indicating he had difficulty setting off his device.

    Two 7/7 bombers were under surveillance, G, 11.5.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/story/0,,1772529,00.html

11.15am

More resources 'could have stopped July 7 attacks'

Thursday May 11, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Staff and agencies


The chances of preventing the July 7 London bombings could have been increased if the security services had been given more resources, a parliamentary committee said today.

The cross-party intelligence and security committee (ISC) also warned that more still needed to be done to improve the way the UK's security services and police special branches work together to tackle the threat of "home-grown" terrorism.

It said the chances of preventing the bombings on three tube trains and a bus might have been greater had different investigative decisions been made by the security services between 2003 and 2005.

The report confirmed that Mohammed Sidique Khan, the ringleader of the four suicide bombers who carried out the attacks, had been under surveillance by British intelligence but was not fully investigated.

MI5 officers assigned to investigate him were diverted to another anti-terrorist operation.

However, the committee said his true identity had not been revealed, and it was only after the attacks had taken place that the service was able to identify him.

M15 had come across Khan and another of the bombers, Shehzad Tanweer, on the periphery of other surveillance operations.

"Nonetheless we conclude that in light of the other priority investigations being conducted and the limitations on security services resources the decisions not to give greater investigative priority to these two individuals were understandable," the report said.

"As there were more pressing priorities at the time, including the need to disrupt known plans to attack the UK, it was decided not to investigate them further or seek to identify them.

"When resources became available, attempts were made to find out more about these two and other peripheral contacts, but these resources were soon diverted back to what were considered to be higher investigative priorities."

The ISC ruled out an "intelligence failure" being to blame for the failure of security services to prevent the July 7 bombings.

But it found there were "intelligence gaps", including a lack of cooperation between Britain and Pakistan over visits by two of the 7/7 bombers to Pakistan to contact extremist groups and attend training camps.

"Greater coverage in Pakistan, or more resources generally in the UK, might have alerted the agencies to the intentions of the July 7 group," it said.

However, the report discounted the theory that a terrorist mastermind had fled the country before the London bombings were carried out.

The report was published as the security service MI5 announced it was suspending work on serious crime cases to focus its resources on preventing international terrorism.

Michael Henning, a broker from Kensington, west London, who survived one of the bombs, said it was a "scandal" that a lack of resources might have allowed the attacks to happen.

The committee recommended a more transparent threat level and alert system, warning there would be an "inevitable" rise in intrusive activity by security services in the face of the terror threat.

It also recommended a revamp of the terror alert system but said it should recognise the limitations of intelligence gathering and that attacks could be at the planning stage without being detected.

"We recommend that these limits are reflected in a more standardised and formalised way within the threat level system and in all threat level reports," the report said.

"This will help avoid inappropriate reassurance about the level of threat in the absence of intelligence of a current plot."

    More resources 'could have stopped July 7 attacks', G, 11.5.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/story/0,,1772529,00.html

Guantánamo is symbol of injustice, says Goldsmith

Thursday May 11, 2006
Guardian
Richard Norton-Taylor


Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, last night called for the immediate closure of Guantánamo Bay in the most full-blown attack on the US detention centre by a member of the government.

Going far further than cabinet ministers, notably Tony Blair, have done in their criticism, he described the existence of the camp on Cuba as "unacceptable".

He added: "It is time, in my view, that it should close. Not only would it, in my personal opinion, be right to close Guantánamo as a matter of principle, I believe it would also help to remove what has become a symbol to many - right or wrong - of injustice."

The "historic tradition of the United States as a beacon of freedom, liberty and of justice deserves the removal of this symbol", he said.

Speaking at a conference on international terrorism at the Royal United Services Institute in London - at which he defended the government's succession of anti-terror laws - Lord Goldsmith said it was "essential in some cases to be flexible" and accept some limitation of rights. But he said: "There are certain principles on which there can be no compromise. Fair trial is one of those."

That was the reason, he said, why the government was unable to accept the US military tribunals proposed for those detained at Guantánamo Bay. Lord Goldsmith's remarks reflect growing anger among lawyers about Guantánamo Bay. Last week, Lord Justice Latham and Mr Justice Tugendhat said evidence that British residents held in the camp were deprived of their fundamental rights was a "powerful" argument for demanding that the government insist on the release of British residents there. But they added: "Decisions affecting foreign policy are a forbidden area" for the courts.

The Bush administration has consistently defended the treatment of detainees at Guantánamo, insisting that its existence is legal under international law.

Lord Goldsmith last night described the European convention on human rights, which imposes an absolute ban on torture, as "the bedrock of protection for fundamental rights in Europe".

However, he questioned whether Britain should be stopped from deporting foreign terrorist suspects to countries where they may be tortured if they pose a risk to the British public.

    Guantánamo is symbol of injustice, says Goldsmith, G, 11.5.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,,1772226,00.html

7/7 ringleader 'had direct link with terror cell'

Sunday May 7, 2006
The Observer
Antony Barnett, Jamie Doward and Mark Townsend

Britain's intelligence services will face a fresh barrage of criticism on Thursday when a parliamentary committee publishes a report into the London terror attacks that shows a direct link between the bombers' ringleader and a terrorist cell.

The Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) has been studying the lessons of the 7 July bombings and will make wide-ranging recommendations on how the security services should adapt to the changing face of terrorism.

Its report will be published alongside the government's official account into the bombings, which confirms that the four bombers - all from the north of England - carried out a cheap and simple plot to bomb London using techniques they had found on the internet.

The ISC has found there was a direct link between the bombers' ringleader, Sidique Khan, who killed six people when he blew himself up on a tube train at Edgware Road, and a terrorist cell that had been under surveillance by the security services.

The revelation will prove damaging. Previously it was believed Khan was linked to the cell only through a third party. That he had direct links to the group under surveillance raises questions over why he was not placed under closer supervision.

After the London bombings, it emerged that Khan travelled to Pakistan, where he met with radical Muslim groups. But the committee heard that, though the intelligence agencies had been monitoring Khan in the UK, they did not believe him to be a terrorist threat, instead thinking he was intent on committing fraud.

The ISC report also looks at how the Foreign Office deals with warnings from overseas of potential attacks. It raises questions over the paucity of intelligence-sharing between British and Pakistani intelligence services.

According to those familiar with its contents, the report will also say that intelligence failures surrounding the London bombings were chiefly down to a lack of resources.

    7/7 ringleader 'had direct link with terror cell', O, 7.5.2006, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1769381,00.html

The real story of 7/7

It was England's worst terrorist attack, killing 52 people and injuring more than 700. This week, the Home Office publishes its official account of the London suicide bombings of 7 July. Using police and intelligence records, Mark Townsend presents the definitive account of how four friends from northern England changed the face of western terrorism

Sunday May 7, 2006
The Observer

3am Hasib Hussain rolls sleepily from the sofa in the living room of his parents' home in Holbeck, Leeds. Dressed in the grey T-shirt, jeans and trainers that would become familiar to millions, the 18-year-old wanders through the red-bricked terraces of Beeston and waits outside the front door of his best friend, Shehzad Tanweer.

3.15am In a deserted and dark Colwyn Road, Hussain and Tanweer, 22, stand beside a silver-blue Nissan Micra that Tanweer had hired days earlier. Although their movements at this stage are not captured on CCTV, it is thought they are now joined by Sidique Khan, 30, whose role as a primary school teaching assistant in Beeston had earned the respect of those still sleeping in the surrounding streets.

3.30am After a sort drive across south Leeds, the trio pull up outside 18 Alexandra Grove, Hyde Park. Inside, lying in the bath upstairs, is the bomb-making factory that Khan had put together using recipes from the internet. Primitive in essence, the peroxide-based explosives were made from drain cleaner, bleach and acetone, bought without attracting suspicion in nearby shops. Costing a few hundred pounds, the London bombs, based on a derivative of TNT called triacetone triperoxide or TATP, were paid for by Khan. No evidence exists of support from al-Qaeda. Speculation that the four suicide bombers used the services of an Egyptian chemist studying at Leeds University are dismissed in the Home Office narrative, to be published on Thursday.

3:45am The trio carefully load five identical black rucksacks into the boot of the Nissan Micra. Each contains 10lb of explosive material with detonators packed inside plastic bottles, which in turn are packaged within containers from a nearby garden centre.

4am-5am Speed cameras track the car heading south through the city's leafy suburbs. To their left they pass Beeston, where Khan lives, an impoverished district of Leeds soon to become the focus of the world's media. The bombers join the southbound M1 at junction 40 and their progress is tracked as they journey south along the spine of England.

4.30am Germaine Lindsay says goodbye to his wife Samantha Lewthwaite, 21, heavily pregnant with their second child, and leaves their rented semi-detached home in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, in a hired red Fiat. Negotiating the B489, Lindsay arrives at Luton train station around 5am. The 19-year-old attaches a pay-and-display ticket to the vehicle's windscreen, from which DNA would later be extracted to identify his remains.

6:30am After 160 miles on the M1, the Nissan Micra turns off at junction 11, arriving at Luton train station car park at around 6:50am. There, amid the first of the day's commuters, is the imposing frame of Lindsay, a carpet fitter from Huddersfield. Like the others, Lindsay is judged in the narrative to have been exasperated by western foreign policy. Palestine, Chechyna and, in particular Iraq, are cited as factors motivating their deadly mission.

7am The four don their military-style rucksacks in the increasingly busy car park. Khan had loaded the Nissan Micra with more explosives than required. Contrary to speculation though, no fifth bomber was ever expected to carry a fifth rucksack of explosives holding two nail-encased bottles that were later found wedged beneath the front passenger seat. In the boot 14 components for explosive devices are also left. CCTV cameras, designed to capture car thieves, film the four engaged in a final prayer.

7.21am Looking like day-trippers, the four stroll onto the southbound platform of Luton station. Leading the group is Hussain, his hands tucked in pockets. Lindsay follows, his white trainers poking from beneath a pair of loose jeans. Khan comes next, with only a white cap visible. Bringing up the rear is Tanweer, who had spent the previous night playing cricket. Tanweer appears relaxed, his rucksack slung over one shoulder.

7:40am The four bombers catch a Thameslink train, which winds through the affluent commuter belt of Hertfordshire towards King's Cross.

8:26am The quartet are captured walking across the concourse of London's busiest station. They are chatting; Hussain is laughing. Minutes later, they are huddled in a final, earnest conversation.

8.42am Tanweer catches the Circle Line east towards the heart of the City, entering the second carriage of six on train number 204 where he stands by its rear sliding doors.

8.43am Khan boards Circle Line train number 216 headed west. He stands by its first set of double doors in the second carriage.

8.49am Lindsay gets onto Piccadilly Line train number 311 travelling towards the West End and stands by rear doors in the front carriage. The train is described as 'extraordinarily full'. More than 900 passengers are crammed on board. Hussain, meanwhile, waits for a Northern Line service towards Camden.

8.50am Tanweer places his rucksack on the floor around 40 seconds after the tube pulls out from Liverpool Street. Twenty feet below Spitalfields' historical streets, the cricketer detonates his device. Yards away, Michael, a consultant, witnesses a 'flash of orange-yellow light and what appeared to be silver streaks, which I think was some of the glass going across.' Then, silence and darkness. Smothered in blood, Michael assumed he was dying.

8.51am Khan lowers his rucksack onto the floor next to his carriage's rear sliding doors less than 20 seconds after the train leaves Edgware Road station. Moments later, passengers recall 'an orange fireball' sweeping through carriages. John McDonald, a teacher, standing yards from where Khan killed himself, said: 'Small splintered pieces of glass were sticking in my head and face. I could not breathe; my lungs were burning.' Above ground, London Fire Brigade receive the first emergency call.

8.53am Lindsay's delayed train leaves King's Cross three minutes after the bombers' agreed deadline for simultaneous detonation. Train 311 has travelled just 261m towards Russell Square when Lindsay detonates his pack 20m below the district of St Pancras. Again, passengers hear a violent bang. For the third time in a matter of minutes, pitch blackness descended on a packed crowd of tube passengers.

8:55am Panic engulfs train 216, trapped below Paddington Basin. The low groans of the dying are heard. Shrieks emanate from outside carriages as passengers are hurled from the tube by the blast. McDonald sees a man known only as Stan trapped inside the hole where Khan had detonated his device. 'Stan was calm and conscious and looking at me.'

9am A broken-down train having thwarted his intention to catch the Northern Line, Hussain resurfaces, looking bewildered and bemused, onto the King's Cross concourse and stumbles into the first signs of pandemonium. The teenager wanders absent-mindedly into Boots the chemist before leaving the station.

9:06am Inside train 206, passengers check bodies for a pulse. At least four are deemed dead. As the dust clears, a shaft of light illuminates Stan. His shirt has been blown off, the lower half of his charred body disappears beneath the mangled train floor. 'It was very peaceful and serene. The maintenance light from the tube threw a soft beam of light onto Stan's face,' said McDonald.

9.10am Emergency services are called to the underground. Moments later, the capital's alert system, devised in the wake of 9/11, is activated.

9.12am Passengers from train 204 fumble through the tunnel to Liverpool Street, past the twisted remains of the second carriage. Michael remembers bodies on the track. 'Two were motionless; one was just showing signs of movement.' In the gloom, he passes a woman blankly cradling the head of a hideously injured commuter. 'The whole body dynamic looked wrong, the way the lady was lying.' She is Martine Wright. She has lost both her legs above the knee. For another hour the 33-year-old will be held in the gloom, the last person to be pulled alive from the Aldgate tube bombing.

9.15am Amid fears more explosions will follow, Transport for London chiefs decide to evacuate the entire underground system for the first time in the network's history. A series of 'bangs' is explained by a massive, mysterious power surge on the network. Seemingly alone in the darkness, McDonald attempts to keep Stan alive. 'I kept on telling him not to worry. I asked that, if he understood me, to blink his eyes twice, which he did.'

9:16am First passengers to escape train 311 reach Russell Square after 15-minute walk through tunnel. Many are injured, some have blood pouring from their ears. Commuters claim no ambulance or doctors are waiting for them. Chaos descends upon the capital. Metropolitan police told by the underground control centre that explosions have occurred.

9:10am Hussain wanders along the gridlocked Euston Road. He calls Khan. There is no answer. He dials Tanweer. Again nothing. Lindsay, too, is incommunicado. He leaves messages for all three, the youngster's tone increasingly frantic. At the same time, TfL change their explanation of events from 'power surge' to 'network emergency'. Scotland Yard announce there have been seven major 'incidents'.

9:25am Those wounded in the Aldgate blast taken by bus with police escorts to the Royal London hospital. Meanwhile, on train 216, McDonald draws strength from Stan's bravery. 'I could see he was dying from his injuries. He never shouted or cried. He knew he was dying, he remained calm and peaceful.'

9:30am More than 150 bleeding and soot-smothered passengers emerge from Edgware Road station and congregate outside a nearby Marks & Spencer store. Former fireman Paul Dadge ushers Davinia Turrell, 24, from the scene as she clutches a surgical burns mask to her face. The photograph of the 'mask woman' becomes the first iconic image of 7 July.

9.33am Half-a-mile-away Hussain boards number 30 bus which has been diverted off the now closed Euston Road. As the double-decker crawls south along Woburn Place, Hussain sits down at the rear of the upper floor.

9.35am Aboard train 216, two passengers appear from the gloom and, taking guidance from McDonald, squeeze beneath the second carriage and finally free Stan. 'One of the men was calling Stan's pulse to me, which was fading and finally stopped. He died being held by his fellow passengers. They laid him down gently on the track.'

9:38am Bus passengers note a peculiarly distracted 'man of Mediterranean appearance' who keeps dipping into his rucksack at the rear of the number 30 bus to Hackney.

9.40am British Transport Police announce major incidents on the underground at five stations. Scores of ambulances arrive at affected stations.

9.47am Bomb explodes on number 30 bus in Tavistock Square outside the British Medical Association. Two minutes later, police receive a 999 call from the scene. 'There's people lying on the road. There's people trying to get out. I think there's an ambulance on the way, but there's people dead and everything,' said one.

Here the Home Office narrative ends. Within hours, Islamic terrorist groups attempt to claim responsibility. That the perpetrators might be four British men acting alone is not contemplated.

10.00pm More than 12 hours later, in the lounge of a terraced home in Holbeck, Leeds, a mother is fretting. Her teenage son was meant to be in London for a night out with 'mates'. Unable to contact him, Maniza Hussain contacts Scotland Yard's missing persons helpline. The police get their first break.

    The real story of 7/7, O, 7.5.2006, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1769440,00.html

Attorney General calls for Guantanamo to close

Lord Goldsmith risks row with White House by denouncing detention centre as 'unacceptable'

Sunday May 7, 2006
The Observer
Jamie Doward and Mark Townsend

The Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, is set to trigger a diplomatic row between Britain and the United States by calling for Guantánamo Bay to close.
The decision by the government's chief legal adviser to denounce the detention centre in Cuba as 'unacceptable' will dismay the Bush administration, which has continually rejected claims that the camp breaches international laws on human rights.

But Goldsmith will tell a global security conference at the Royal United Services Institute this week that the camp at Guantánamo Bay must not continue. 'It is time, in my view, that it should close.' An urbane lawyer who eschews the limelight, Goldsmith is not known for shooting from the hip in such unequivocal terms; however, it is clear he has harboured grave doubts for some time over the legality of Guantánamo under international law.

'There are certain principles on which there can be no compromise,' Goldsmith will say. 'Fair trial is one of those - which is the reason we in the UK were unable to accept that the US military tribunals proposed for those detained at Guantánamo Bay offered sufficient guarantees of a fair trial in accordance with international standards.'

Although privately some senior ministers believe Guantánamo should be closed down, no one has so far condemned the camp in such open and trenchant terms. To date, the strongest criticism of the camp has come from Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland minister, who said on Newsnight in February that it was his personal belief that the camp should close, while the Prime Minister said only that it is an 'anomaly' that will have to end one day.

Goldsmith's speech will be welcomed by human rights groups and senior members of the judiciary who have long campaigned for the government to use its influence to persuade its ally to close the camp. The former Law Lord, Lord Steyn, now chairman of the human rights group, Justice, said last month that 'while our government condones Guantánamo Bay the world is perplexed about our approach to the rule of law.'

Steyn made it clear that if the British government were to criticise Guantánamo it would have significant consequences. 'You may ask: how will it help in regard to the continuing outrage at Guantánamo Bay for our government now to condemn it?' Steyn said. 'The answer is that it would at last be a powerful signal to the world that Britain supports the international rule of law.'

In February, a high court judge, Mr Justice Collins, condemned America's approach to human rights after reading a report by the UN human rights commissioner which found evidence of torture at the camp. 'America's idea of what is torture is not the same as ours and does not appear to coincide with that of most civilised nations,' Collins said.

Last week, two high court judges heard a legal argument that the government should demand the release of three British residents held in Guantánamo on the grounds that they had been subjected to torture. Lawyers for the men said the government should lobby for their release because they were being detained 'unlawfully'. But Lord Justice Latham and Mr Justice Tugendhat said that, while the argument was a powerful one, 'decisions affecting foreign policy are a forbidden area'.

Goldsmith will use his speech to acknowledge the judges' concerns and point out that the increased terrorist threat has increased divisions between the government and legal experts.

'I would suggest that the greatest challenge which free and democratic states face today is how to balance the need to protect individual rights with the imperative of protecting the lives of the rest of the community,' Goldsmith will say.

'The UK government is constantly being criticised for striking the wrong balance. Sometimes the criticism comes from the right, from those who see the Human Rights Act as a charter for criminals and terrorists which impedes the executive's freedom of manoeuvre at every turn. Sometimes the criticism comes from the left, from those who see in every government initiative a threat to civil liberties. Such criticism is inevitable.'

    Attorney General calls for Guantanamo to close, O, 7.5.2006, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,,1769383,00.html

US-style terror alerts for UK

MPs to recommend clearer public warnings in wake of London bombings

Monday April 17, 2006
Guardian
Richard Norton-Taylor and Oliver Burkeman in New York

A cross-party committee investigating the background to the July 7 bombings is expected to recommend a transparent official public warning system for the threat posed by terrorist attacks. It would be similar to the kind that has proved controversial in America.

The idea, which is likely to be one of the conclusions in the intelligence and security committee's annual report next month, has caused consternation among the security services. The issue is at the heart of an intense debate involving MI5, the Home Office, and the committee, in the wake of the attacks on London.

At present, threat levels are determined by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (Jtac) which handles more than 50,000 items of intelligence every year.

Jtac came under the spotlight when leaks revealed that it lowered the terrorist threat level from "severe general" to "substantial" just a month before the July 7 suicide bombings. It then raised the threat level to "critical". It was about to downgrade the threat level again on the morning of the failed attacks of July 21.

Confusion about the criteria which determine the terrorist threat levels agreed by Jtac assessors is compounded by the existence of a separate "alert" status, critics say. This sets the level of protection that should be given to public and official buildings and transport systems but not to the infrastructure of the UK as a whole. It is set on the advice of MI5 and appears in the entrance halls of public buildings. Black is the lowest state of alert and red the highest.

Under the Jtac system "moderate" is the lowest threat level and "severe specific", which assumes an attack is imminent, the highest. A public official warning system would be unified and is likely to appear on government websites and would be available to the media.

Patrick Mercer, Conservative spokesman on homeland security, believes the threat assessments should be made public. "Currently, the threat levels are deeply confusing", he told the Guardian. He said he failed to understand why the government did not publish them.

The Home Office is understood to be grappling with the problem. The security and intelligence agencies are concerned that if the threat levels are published they could be misinterpreted. It would also place them under greater scrutiny. Recommending a downgrade in the threat level early last June, Jtac said many of its concerns focused on a "wide range and large numbers of extremist networks and individuals in the UK". It did not foresee "home grown" bombers, let alone suicide bombers who attacked London tube trains and a bus on July 7.

Security sources have said they are concerned about the "integrity" of the threat assessment system, and the need to avoid the temptation to keep it artificially high. They also say that the system in the US, where threat alerts are regularly announced, could lead to a "crying wolf" syndrome in the UK. Other Whitehall officials are concerned about how to keep the public alert while avoiding alarm or panic.

Critics of the high-profile American terror threat system, first introduced in 2002, say it is useless at best, and, at worst, subject to being manipulated for political ends.

In theory, the colour-coded hierarchy of threats has five levels - low, guarded, elevated, high and severe - but it has never fallen to low or guarded, and never risen to severe. Instead, it has been raised from elevated to high, on a nationwide scale, five times, including around the first anniversary of 9/11 and the start of the war in Iraq. In New York, it has been at high all along.

One of the most controversial uses of the elevated level came in August 2004, in the thick of the election campaign, immediately after a Democratic convention thought to have been a triumph for John Kerry. "I am concerned that every time something happens that's not good for President Bush, he plays this trump card, which is terrorism," Mr Kerry's former rival for the Democratic nomination Howard Dean told CNN at the time.

But since the specific criteria for each threat level are kept secret, it is impossible to know when raising it is justified - or, indeed, whether the lack of an actual terrorist strike on each such occasion so far shows that it works, or that it is pointless.

Nor is it made clear exactly how ordinary people should respond. "A terrorist alert that instills a vague feeling of dread or panic, without giving people anything to do in response, is ineffective," the security expert Bruce Schneier has written.

The US homeland security department's published guidance says that during a time of elevated threat citizens should "ensure disaster supply kit is stocked and ready". When the threat is high, they should "exercise caution when travelling ... expect some delays, baggage searches and restrictions at public buildings."

    US-style terror alerts for UK, G, 17.4.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,1755302,00.html

Terror law an affront to justice - judge

Control orders breach human rights

Thursday April 13, 2006
Guardian
Vikram Dodd and Carlene Bailey

A high court judge branded the government's system of control orders against terrorism suspects "an affront to justice" yesterday and ruled that they breached human rights laws.

The ruling by Mr Justice Sullivan came after a challenge to the first control order issued against a British Muslim man, alleged by the security services and the home secretary to have been planning to travel to Iraq to fight UK and US forces.

At least 11 control orders have been issued, allowing the government to restrict the liberty and movement of people it claims endanger public safety because of their involvement in terrorism but who can not be tried in the courts.

The judge said the anti-terrorism measures were "conspicuously unfair" and dismissed supposed safeguards of suspects' rights as a "thin veneer of legality". He had to say "loud and clear" that the laws were unfair otherwise "the court would be failing in its duty."

But he said the laws passed had been drafted in a way that prevented the courts overturning control orders.

In this case, the judge said, Charles Clarke had made his decision to issue the order based on "one-sided information", but he was "unable to envisage the circumstances" allowing the court to quash the home secretary's decision. As a result, the judge said, he would have to leave the order in place, even though he ruled that it contravened human rights law.

The ruling gives hope to two Muslim men who will go to the high court next month to challenge control orders they are subject to. They are relying on broadly similar arguments to the ones Mr Justice Sullivan found so convincing.

The judgment led government critics to point out that twice in two years the courts have found that anti-terrorism laws breached human rights. It also came on the eve of new laws coming into effect designed to tackle the threat of Islamist violence.

The Home Office rejected the court's ruling and vowed to appeal. "The ruling will not limit the operation of the act," the Home Office said in a statement. "We will not be revoking either the control order which was the subject of this review, nor any of the other control orders currently in force on the back of this judgement.

"Nor will the judgment prevent the secretary of state from making control orders on suspected terrorists where he considers it necessary to do so in the interests of national security in future."

The independent reviewer of the government's anti-terrorism laws, Lord Carlile, said if the appeal was not successful ministers would have to consider amending the law.

He told the BBC: "I hope we will not get another piece of rushed legislation. I think this really does need mature reflection."

Muddassar Arani, solicitor for the Briton, who is of Arab heritage, said: "This was the first British Muslim subject to a control order and he's being treated as a second-class citizen.

"It is clear the home secretary is acting as the judge, jury and prosecutor."

The man, a student originally from South Yorkshire, was stopped by counter-terrorism officials on March 1 2005 trying fly to the Middle East from Manchester airport, and then again the next day at Heathrow. He says he was travelling to Syria for a holiday, but security services say he was planning to fight in Iraq.

In September 2005 Charles Clarke signed a control order against him, revoking his passport, banning him from buying plane tickets, and banning him from airports and train terminals from where he could travel abroad.

The judge said the system was unfair because the man could not know the evidence, which was so sensitive it had to be kept secret from the accused.

A special advocate could not properly represent him, because the secret evidence could not be discussed with the client. The judge said: "If, as in this case, the substantial part of the case against him is not disclosed to the individual in question, it is difficult to see how the very essence of the right [of access to the court] is not impaired."

Mr Justice Sullivan said the court cannot review whether the facts exist to support the home secretary's suspicions and therefore "the overall procedure is manifestly ineffective and unfair".

This meant the Briton's right to access to a court, guaranteed by the European convention on human rights, was denied and the judge ruled the control order system was "incompatible" with human rights law.

Mr Justice Sullivan concluded: "Controlees' rights ... are being determined not by an independent court ... but by executive decision making untrammelled by any prospect of effective judicial supervision." Closing the case and addressing lawyers for the Muslim man, Mr Justice Sullivan made clear his frustration at the control order system: "If you erect a structure where people in the position of your client, to be frank, don't have a chance, the secretary of state is always going to win."

The system of control orders replaced the "Belmarsh system", whereby foreign nationals suspected of terrorist involvement could be detained without charge or trial.

Lawyers for the Briton say counter-terrorism officials racially abused him after he was first stopped travelling.

The government was granted leave to appeal, but last night they faced a torrent of criticism from Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and civil liberties campaigners.

Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said: "Fundamental human rights, such as the right to a fair trial, are what distinguish democrats from terrorists and dictators. The government's policy is in tatters - we hope that this time they are listening."

The judiciary dealt a second blow to Mr Clarke yesterday by finding he was wrong to try to refuse a British passport to an Australian national held in Guantánamo Bay by the US. David Hicks qualifies for a British passport, but the court of appeal rejected a challenge by the home secretary to an earlier court decision that he must grant citizenship.

    Terror law an affront to justice - judge, G, 13.4.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,1752773,00.html

Leak reveals official story of London bombings

· Al-Qaeda not linked, says government
· Internet used to plan 7/7 attack

Sunday April 9, 2006
The Observer
Mark Townsend, crime correspondent


The official inquiry into the 7 July London bombings will say the attack was planned on a shoestring budget from information on the internet, that there was no 'fifth-bomber' and no direct support from al-Qaeda, although two of the bombers had visited Pakistan.

The first forensic account of the atrocity that claimed the lives of 52 people, which will be published in the next few weeks, will say that attacks were the product of a 'simple and inexpensive' plot hatched by four British suicide bombers bent on martyrdom.

Far from being the work of an international terror network, as originally suspected, the attack was carried out by four men who had scoured terror sites on the internet. Their knapsack bombs cost only a few hundred pounds, according to the first completed draft of the government's definitive report into the blasts.

The Home Office account, compiled by a senior civil servant at the behest of Home Secretary Charles Clarke, also discounts the existence of a fifth bomber. After the bombings, police found an unused rucksack of explosives in the bombers' abandoned car at Luton station, which led to a manhunt for a missing suspect. Similarly, it found nothing to support the theory that an al-Qaeda fixer, presumed to be from Pakistan, was instrumental in planning the attacks.

A Whitehall source said: 'The London attacks were a modest, simple affair by four seemingly normal men using the internet.'

Confirmation of the nature of the attacks will raise fresh concerns over the vulnerability of Britain to an attack by small, unsophisticated groups. A fortnight after 7 July, an unconnected group of four tried to duplicate the attack, but their devices failed to detonate.

However, the findings will draw criticism for failing to address concerns as to why no action was taken against the bombers despite the fact that one of them, Mohammed Siddique Khan, was identified by intelligence officers months before the attack. A report into the attack by the Commons intelligence and security committee, which could be published alongside the official narrative, will question why MI5 called off surveillance of the ringleader of the 7 July bombings.

Patrick Mercer, shadow homeland security spokesman, said the official narrative's findings would only lead to calls for an independent inquiry to answer further questions surrounding 7 July.

He said: 'A series of reports such as this narrative simply does not answer questions such as the reduced terror alert before the attack, the apparent involvement of al-Qaeda and links to earlier or later terrorist plots.'

The official Home Office report into the attacks does, however, decide that the four suicide bombers - Siddique Khan, Hasib Hussain, Shehzad Tanweer and Jermaine Lindsay - were partly inspired by Khan's trips to Pakistan, though the meeting between the four men and known militants in Pakistan is seen as ideological, rather than fact-finding.

A videotape of Mohammed Siddique Khan released after the attacks also featured footage of Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. The Home Office believes the tape was edited after the suicide attacks and dismisses it as evidence of al-Qaeda's involvement in the attack.

Khan is confirmed as ringleader of the attacks, though the Yorkshire-born bomber's apparent links to other suspected terrorists are not discussed for legal reasons.

The report also investigates the psychological make-up and behaviour of the four bombers during the run-up to the attack. Using intelligence compiled in the nine months since, the account paints a portrait of four British men who in effect led double lives.

It exposes how the quartet adopted an extreme interpretation of Islam, juxtaposed with a willingness to enjoy a 'western' lifestyle - in particular Jermaine Lindsay, the bomber from Berkshire.

According to the report, the attacks were largely motivated by concerns over foreign policy and the perception that it was deliberately anti-Muslim, although the four men were also driven by the promise of immortality.

    Leak reveals official story of London bombings, O, 9.4.2006, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1750139,00.html

Amnesty demands public inquiry on rendition flights

Wednesday April 5, 2006
Guardian
Richard Norton-Taylor


Amnesty International today calls for an independent public inquiry into all aspects of British involvement in secret CIA "extraordinary rendition" flights. The call comes as it reports details of more than 200 CIA flights passing through British airports.

It also reveals US efforts to ensure conditions and locations where detainees were held were kept secret. Four of the CIA's 26 planes have landed and taken off more than 200 times from British airports over the past five years, Amnesty says. They include Stansted, Gatwick, Luton, Glasgow, Prestwick, Edinburgh, Londonderry and Belfast. Others used are RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, Biggin Hill in Kent, and RAF Leuchars in Scotland, as well as the Turks and Caicos islands, a British overseas territory in the Caribbean.

Amnesty's report - Below the Radar: Secret Flights to Torture and "Disappearance" - shows a pattern of nearly 1,000 flights directly linked to the CIA through "front" companies, most of which, it says, have used European airspace. A further 600 CIA flights were made by planes hired from US aviation companies.

Amnesty says detainees were abducted or handed over to US guards by other law enforcement agencies before being "disappeared". In what it says is the only detailed information to emerge from an Eastern European or Central Asian "black site" prison, detainees had described being prepared for transportation by black-masked "ninjas".

It describes the case of three Yemeni men - Muhammad al-Assad, Muhammad Bashmilah and Sala Qaru - held for more than a year at a suspected "black site". After cross-referencing prayer schedule data and the position of the sun and flight times, Amnesty believes the likely location of the prison is Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Macedonia, Albania, Georgia or Azerbaijan.

Information on the numbers and whereabouts of all terror suspects rendered should be publicly available, detainees should be brought before a judicial authority within 24 hours of being held, and any plane carrying detainees, or suspected of doing so, should be identified to the aviation authorities of the country where it lands, Amnesty says.

Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, has said the US would not render a detainee through Britain without the government's permission. He says the Clinton administration asked four times and the UK twice declined its request; there is no evidence the Bush administration had asked.

    Amnesty demands public inquiry on rendition flights, G, 5.4.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1746827,00.html

Official: Iraq war led to July bombings

Sunday April 2, 2006
The Observer
Mark Townsend, crime correspondent

The first official recognition that the Iraq war motivated the four London suicide bombers has been made by the government in a major report into the 7 July attacks.

Despite attempts by Downing Street to play down suggestions that the conflict has made Britain a target for terrorists, the Home Office inquiry into the deadliest terror attack on British soil has conceded that the bombers were inspired by UK foreign policy, principally the decision to invade Iraq.

The government's 'narrative', compiled by a senior civil servant using intelligence from the police and security services, was announced by the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, last December following calls for a public inquiry into the attacks.

The narrative will be published in the next few weeks, possibly alongside the findings of a critical report into the London bombings by the Commons intelligence and security committee.

Initial drafts of the government's account into the bombings, which have been revealed to The Observer, state that Iraq was a key 'contributory factor'. The references to Britain's involvement in Iraq are contained in a section examining what inspired the 'radicalisation' of the four British suicide bombers, Sidique Khan, Hasib Hussain, Shehzad Tanweer and Germaine Lindsay.

The findings will prove highly embarrassing to Tony Blair, who has maintained that the decision to go to war against Iraq would make Britain safer. On the third anniversary of the conflict last month, the Prime Minister defended Britain's involvement in Iraq, arguing that only an interventionist stance could confront terrorism.

The narrative largely details the movements of the four bombers from the point when they picked up explosives in a rucksack from a 'bomb factory' in Leeds to the time when the devices were detonated on the morning of 7 July.

Alongside Iraq, other 'motivating factors' for the bombers, three of whom came from west Yorkshire and one from Buckinghamshire, are identified. These include economic deprivation, social exclusion and a disaffection with society in general, as well as community elders. A videotape of Mohammed Sidique Khan was released after the attacks, in which he makes an apparent reference to Iraq, accusing 'Western citizens' of electing governments that committed crimes against humanity. Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, also appeared on the tape, repeating his claim that Blair's decision to go to war in Iraq was responsible for the outrage.

The Home Office account of the July atrocity also chronicles in detail the trips to Pakistan made by Khan and Shehzad Tanweer and is understood to confirm that the two met al-Qaeda operatives. However, the final report will not name the militants known to some of the London bombers in case criminal proceedings are taken against them.

Leaks last week from the intelligence and security committee similarly confirmed how Khan, the mastermind of July 7, slipped through a security net. MI5 called off surveillance on him in the months before the bombings, in which 52 people were killed. The Home Office narrative supports the parliamentary committee's general view that the security services are not to blame. Despite the trips abroad, however, the narrative says that the London suicide bombers were only ever peripheral players in terrorist organisations and that, on the whole, there was 'nothing exceptional' about them before the attack.

Recent letters to the Home Office from the law firm Leigh Day & Co - acting for the family of one victim - warned that an independent inquiry was essential to explore 'what could be done to prevent such attacks happening again, and how to protect and save lives in the future'.

    Official: Iraq war led to July bombings, O, 2.4.2006, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1745085,00.html

4.15pm

Bomb plotters claimed to be al-Qaida, court hears

Monday March 27, 2006
Press Association
Guardian Unlimited

One of the men accused of plotting an Islamist bombing campaign in Britain claimed to be working for a high ranking al-Qaida figure and offered to organise explosives training, the Old Bailey heard today.

The supergrass Mohammed Babar described two meetings with Omar Khyam, 24, of Crawley, West Sussex, in early 2003 while they were both in Pakistan, including one at a wedding.

Babar told the court how he had to leave the wedding after receiving a call from another of the alleged plotters, Waheed Mahmood, 34, also of Crawley, saying he needed to see him "right away".

Despite being one of the witnesses at the ceremony in Lahore in March of that year, Babar said he went to see Mr Khyam, also known as Ausman, and Mr Mahmood at the city's railway station.

At the meeting, Mr Khyam allegedly told him, "We are working for Abdul Hadi", whom the court has earlier heard described as the third most senior man in al-Qaida.

Babar, a US citizen who is immune to prosecution in the UK and who is giving evidence for the crown, said that when Mr Khyam said "we", he took it to mean not just himself but the others in the group, including Mr Mahmood and another of the defendants, Salahuddin Amin.

Babar was giving evidence in the case of seven British men accused of plotting to carry out a bombing campaign in the UK.

He described a second encounter with Mr Khyam and another man they knew, when he allegedly said he knew someone who could offer them explosives training.

Mr Khyam mentioned there were "brothers" who were using aluminium powder and refined sugar to create explosives, Babar alleged.

"Although they did not say, I was under the impression that it was Ausman [Khyam] and Waheed who were offering the training," the American said.

Babar said he came to Britain in April 2003 to raise money for a military training camp.

He met some of the accused, who said they had set up a similar camp in Kashmir to give training in firearms, explosives and hijacking.

Babar claimed Waheed Mahmood asked him if he knew of anyone who was interested in attending the camp. He said he would only take people interested in fighting in Afghanistan.

But Babar told the court the invitation was only a front for getting potential terrorists to work for them in the UK.

He said: "I didn't think they had any intention of sending people into Afghanistan.

"They only said it so people would come. Then they were telling them it was difficult and they could not go and fight. There was only one other option - working with them in the UK."

The seven men accused of being part of the terror cell are Omar Khyam, 24, his brother Shujah Mahmood, 19, Waheed Mahmood, 34, and Jawad Akbar, 22, all from Crawley, West Sussex, Salahuddin Amin, 31, from Luton, Beds, Anthony Garcia, 23, of Ilford, east London, and Nabeel Hussain, 20, of Horley, Surrey.

They deny conspiring to cause explosions likely to endanger life between January 1 2003 and March 31 2004.

Mr Khyam, Mr Garcia and Mr Hussain also deny a charge under the Terrorism Act of possessing 600kg (1,300lb) of ammonium nitrate fertiliser for terrorism.

Mr Khyam and Shujah Mahmood further deny possessing aluminium powder for use in terrorist activities.

    Bomb plotters claimed to be al-Qaida, court hears, G, 27.3.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,1740821,00.html

Seven with alleged al-Qaida links deny plotting terror bomb campaign

· Men arrested before finalising target, says QC
· Defendants had gathered components, court told

Wednesday March 22, 2006
Guardian
Rosie Cowan, crime correspondent

Seven British men with alleged links to al-Qaida plotted to carry out a terrorist campaign in the UK with homemade explosives containing more than half a tonne of fertiliser, the Old Bailey heard yesterday.

The defendants, mainly of Pakistani descent, had most of the necessary bomb-making components ready but were arrested in March 2004 before they had finalised a target, said David Waters QC, opening the prosecution case.

One of the accused, Omar Khyam, had discussed potential attacks on pubs, nightclubs or trains, and it was significant that another, Waheed Mahmood, worked for a major gas and electricity supplier, according to Mr Waters.

Most of the gang are accused of having undergone training at terrorist camps in Pakistan in the past few years. And they all "played their respective roles" in the plan to make a bomb or bombs, which would be used "to kill or injure citizens of the UK", said Mr Waters.

Khyam, 24, Jawad Akbar, 22, Waheed Mahmood, 33, and Shujah Mahmood, 18, all from Crawley, West Sussex; Anthony Garcia, 27, from Ilford, Essex; Nabeel Hussain, 20, from Horley, Surrey; and Salahuddin Amin, 30, from Luton, Bedfordshire, are charged with conspiracy to cause explosions with intent to endanger life. Khyam, Garcia and Hussain are accused of possessing 600kg of ammonium nitrate fertiliser - discovered by police in a storage unit in west London - for terrorist purposes, and Khyam and Shujah Mahmood are charged with possessing aluminium powder, which can also be used to make bombs. All seven defendants, who sat in the dock flanked by 11 prison officers, deny the charges.

Mr Waters said the court would hear details about another conspirator, Momin Khawaja, currently awaiting trial in Canada, who had a "vital role" in this plot.

A US citizen, Mohammed Babar, who has already admitted his part in the "British bomb plot", will testify at the Old Bailey in a few days' time.

The prosecutor said Babar had pleaded guilty in the US to obtaining ammonium nitrate and aluminium powder for use in UK bomb attacks. Babar, who lived in Pakistan from 2001 to 2004, has been given immunity from prosecution, the court heard.

Training

Most of the defendants, whom Babar called the "Crawley lot", visited him there, where they underwent terrorist training in explosives techniques and worked out how to get bomb components and bring them to the UK.

Khyam and Amin both told Babar they worked for a man called Abdul Hadi, whom they claimed was "number three in al-Qaida".

Khyam, whom Mr Waters described as "very much at the centre of operations", said he wanted to carry out operations in the UK because it was as yet unscathed and should be hit because of its support for the US.

"The majority of that contact [with Babar] was in Pakistan and it involved, for the most part, one theme - the acquisition of training and expertise, particularly in relation to explosives," said Mr Waters.

Babar alleges that he first met Waheed Mahmood at the end of 2001, and later learned he was an al-Qaida supporter. He met Khyam in November 2002, while on a fund-raising trip to England.

Later, in Pakistan in 2003, Babar, Khyam and Amin discussed transporting detonators back to the UK, and small radios were bought so the detonators could be hidden inside, the court heard.

Babar had obtained aluminium powder at Khyam's request and later found out ammonium nitrate was being kept in his flat in Lahore, where Khyam was staying.

Khyam and Amin received two days training in explosives theory and practice in a house in Kohat, Pakistan, and in July 2003 Khyam and his brother Shujah went to a terrorist training camp in Kalam.

Experience

The Old Bailey heard that Garcia also attended, and used his experience to teach others how to dismantle and reassemble weapons. Akbar later joined them. Ammonium nitrate and aluminium powder were taken to the camp and they carried out experiments, one of which blew a hole in the ground, even though they used less than 1kg of ammonium nitrate.

The defendants, who returned to England later in 2003, adopted several measures to avoid detection, including using false names. Waheed Mahmood stressed that laptops and mobile phones should be disposed of on a regular basis and Khyam and Babar used code in their emails, for example "cigarettes" meant "detonators".

But they were arrested on March 30 2004, following a seven-week undercover surveillance operation by Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist and special branch squads and the security services. Bugs were placed at an address where Khyam was staying in Slough, Berkshire, and Akbar's then home in Uxbridge, west London, and in Khyam's car, and the suspects, including Khawaja who came to England for a weekend in February 2004, were followed and taped.

The trial, which is expected to last at least six months, continues.

    Seven with alleged al-Qaida links deny plotting terror bomb campaign, G, 22.3.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,1736523,00.html

Top police 'clear' Met chief over Menezes

· Ian Blair backed by senior officer's account
· Tragic mistake not revealed for 24 hours

Sunday March 19, 2006
The Observer
David Rose

The first detailed police account of the aftermath of the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian killed after being mistaken for a terror suspect, can be revealed today by The Observer.

The testimony by a top Scotland Yard officer confirms that the police did not know for nearly 24 hours that they had shot a man with no terrorist links. His account backs claims by the head of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Ian Blair, that he was unaware until the following morning that de Menezes was innocent.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Alan Given, one of the officers in command of the Met's firearms unit, also reveals that the officers were initially 'buoyant' after the shooting, thinking they had 'protected Londoners' from a dangerous assailant.

The account - the first from anyone directly involved in the shooting or its aftermath - comes in an exclusive interview with Given, the most senior officer directly responsible for the CO19 tactical firearms team who shot de Menezes at Stockwell tube station on 22 July last year. Given met the officers who killed de Menezes that afternoon, and later attended a series of high-level meetings about the investigation into it.

His evidence goes to the heart of the 'Stockwell II' inquiry by the Independent Police Complaints Commission into Blair's claims that he was not briefed about de Menezes's innocence until the following day. If the inquiry were to find against Sir Ian, it would put pressure on him to resign. 'Stockwell 1' is the already-completed IPCC report into the shooting itself, which has gone to the CPS.

Given said that he saw Assistant Commissioner Alan Brown, who was co-ordinating work by several Yard departments on the shooting, shortly before he went home at 11pm on the Friday. 'When I left, I had no indication that the wrong person had been shot,' said Given. 'Alan had no clue that we had made a mistake. I did not learn the truth until the following day.'

Last week, the commissioner was the subject of a series of media leaks that led to calls for his resignation. He apologised for taping phone calls with IPCC officials and with the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith.

Later reports that his private office knew that de Menezes was innocent by the afternoon of 22 July were denied. Together with other senior officers, Given insisted that Sir Ian had become the target of a 'grossly unjustified' campaign.

Given said that, having briefed the commissioner, he went to Leman Street police station in east London to see the two officers who shot de Menezes, at about 4.30pm on the day of the shooting. 'They were behaving in a very professional way,' he said. 'They'd done the job that we ask firearms officers to do - to go out into potentially dangerous situations and shoot someone.

'They were sombre, clearly concerned that they had shot a man dead. There wasn't even a sniff of the fact that there had been a tragic mistake. There was no rejoicing, but the mood was buoyant.'

Given said he also spoke to Commander Cressida Dick, the firearms team chief who is thought to have given the order to shoot. She, too, had been convinced that de Menezes was a terrorist.

Throughout the day, he revealed, a 'Gold group' met at two-hourly intervals at Scotland Yard, at which senior officers from all the departments involved with the shooting presented their latest findings. Some meetings were attended by Given in person, others by a member of his staff, who briefed him later.

According to Given, Sir Ian 'has tried to be as open and honest as he can,' he said. 'He's now facing a campaign that is grossly unfair, much of it based on information that is totally inaccurate.'

Last week, other senior police figures strongly backed the commissioner, including Chris Fox, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, who suggested that the campaign was fuelled by elements of the media and a minority inside the police who were opposed to Sir Ian's support for racial diversity and ethnic minority recruitment.

Sir Ian, he said, was accused of being 'politically correct,' where in fact, 'what he's trying to do is be fair'.

    Top police 'clear' Met chief over Menezes, O, 19.3.2006, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1734385,00.html

MI5, Camp Delta, and the story that shames Britain

Bisher al-Rawi and Jamil el-Banna are among eight British residents who remain prisoners at the U.S. Naval Air Station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They are jailed because British officials rendered them into the hands of the CIA in Africa, a fact that may explain why the British government refuses to intercede on their behalf. Bisher and Jamil have been wrongfully imprisoned now for more than three years. This is the story of their betrayal by the British government and their appalling treatment at the hands of the CIA and the U.S. military.

Published: 16 March 2006
The Independent
By George B. Mickum

The author, a partner with Washington law firm Keller and Hackman, represents Bisher al-Rawi and Jamil el-Banna. This exclusive report is compiled from conversations with his two clients, their declassified letters and declassified legal responses, and information provided by the US Military

Several weeks after 11 September 2001, two MI5 agents arrived at Bisher al-Rawi's family home to recruit him to work for British Intelligence. The visit was part of an effort to recruit scores of individuals from London's Muslim community for reconnaissance work and to assist the war on terror.

ABU QATADA

In particular, MI5 sought contacts with some of the Muslim clerics preaching in London. Mr al-Rawi was a perfect candidate, educated, fluent in English, and a friend of a Muslim cleric named Abu Qatada. The agents presented identification, introducing themselves to Mr al-Rawi as "Alex" and "Matt". However, they are the same names the agents used throughout the Muslim community in London.

The agents asked Mr al-Rawi wide-ranging questions, which he answered candidly. At the end of the meeting, they asked if would agree to speak to them again.

Two more meetings took place at Mr al-Rawi's family home in London. At the agents' suggestion, Mr al-Rawi started meeting them at a coffee shop in Victoria station. Shortly after, the agents asked Mr al-Rawi to work for MI5 on a more formal basis. He agreed. Over the next nine months, meetings took place in hotel rooms in and around London.

Throughout Mr al-Rawi's relationship with MI5, his agents pressured him to accept payment for his services. He refused all such overtures. The only thing Mr al-Rawi , 38, who is Iraqi born, ever accepted from MI5 was a mobile telephone. He took it to put an end to the agents' demand for him to be contactable.

As his work with MI5 continued, Mr al-Rawi became increasingly alarmed about his relationship with MI5 and his potential exposure. Eventually, he sought assurances from Matt and Alex that his work as an intermediary between MI5 and Abu Qatada would not get him into trouble. Ultimately, he requested a meeting with MI5 and a private attorney, suggesting the human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce. MI5 refused.

To assuage his concerns and convince him to continue working for MI5, the agents set up the first of two meetings with an MI5 lawyer whom they called " Simon". Alex and Matt were present at both meetings. Simon introduced himself to Mr al-Rawi as a lawyer with MI5. He conceded that Simon was not his real name. Simon assured Mr al-Rawi he was running no risk by working with MI5 and that MI5 and Simon himself would come to his aid if Mr al-Rawi found himself compromised. Simon told him that all he needed to do was record the date and time of his conversations with Simon, and MI5 would be able to identify and locate Simon. Mr al-Rawi's refusal to insist on a meeting with a private attorney would have devastating consequences.

Abu Qatada was completely aware of Mr al-Rawi's relationship with MI5. Mr al-Rawi carried questions and answers between the parties, served as a translator, and participated in negotiations with Abu Qatada. "All I did in Britain was try to help with steps necessary to get a meeting between Abu Qatada and MI5. I was trying to bring them together. MI5 would give me messages to take to Abu Qatada, and Abu Qatada would give me messages to take back to them."

It was during this time that Mr al-Rawi's good friend, Jamil el-Banna, a Jordanian British resident, became involved. While the British Government was publicly asserting that Abu Qatada's whereabouts were unknown, Abu Qatada was actively engaged in a dialogue with British officials that involved Mr al-Rawi and Mr el-Banna. Mr al-Rawi asked Mr el-Banna to drive Abu Qatada's wife and son to meet Abu Qatada in London. Mr el-Banna followed Mr al-Rawi, who led the way on his motorcycle. When Abu Qatada was arrested, Mr el-Banna taxied his wife and child home at the request of the British officials on the scene. Mr el-Banna never was arrested: the police thanked him for his assistance. He was never even questioned because everyone was aware of his limited involvement. Based on this involvement, he has been tortured and jailed for three years.

ARREST IN GAMBIA

Mr al-Rawi then turned his energy to his brother Wahab's long-planned mobile peanut oil factory, a project in Gambia.

Gambian authorities detained Mr al-Rawi, Mr el-Banna and their friends immediately after the group landed in Africa. Indeed, shortly after the arrest, Gambian authorities told the arrested group that the British had told them to make the arrests.

There is no question that British officials rendered Mr al-Rawi and Mr el-Banna into the hands of CIA officials in Africa in November of 2002. During one of Mr el-Banna's more than 100 interrogation sessions, his interrogator told him his adopted country had betrayed him

A British citizen, Abdullah El Janoudi, who accompanied Mr al-Rawi and Mr el-Banna to Gambia, confirms that a large American by the name of Lee told him British officials had the group arrested. He also confirms that during the interrogations that took place every two days, the CIA continued to press for incriminating evidence about Abu Qatada that linked him with al-Qa'ida.

In Africa, the CIA had a complete file on Mr al-Rawi that included his hobbies, information that can only have come from British Intelligence. Mr al-Rawi states that "from the very beginning in the Gambia the CIA said, 'The British told us that one of you was helping MI5.' By the second day in the Gambia, they [the CIA] were asking me to work for the US in Britain. I said I would not."

AFGHANISTAN

Although Mr al-Rawi's brother Wahab and another friend were released after a month and returned to England, Mr al-Rawi and Mr el-Banna were rendered at the end of 2002 in a CIA Gulfstream jet, one of a fleet of jets used by the CIA in its "extraordinary rendition" programme, in which the US transports victims to foreign countries for the express purpose of torture.

Mr el-Banna's account of his arrest reads:

Detainee: "When they came and arrested and handcuffed me, they were wearing all black. They even covered their heads ... They took me, covered me, put me in a vehicle and sent me somewhere. I don't know. It was at night. Then from there to the airport right away.

Tribunal president: An airport in Gambia?

Detainee: Yes. We were in a room like this with about eight men. All with covered-up faces.

Tribunal president: Were you by yourself at that time?

Detainee: Yes. They cut off my clothes.

Mr al-Rawi and Mr el-Banna were taken to the notorious "dark prison" in Kabul, Afghanistan. There, both men were imprisoned underground in isolation and darkness and tortured over two weeks. They were held in leg shackles 24 hours a day. They were starved, beaten, dragged along floors while shackled, and kicked. Round-the-clock screams from fellow prisoners made sleep impossible.

Subsequently, they were transferred to the US Air Force base at Bagram, Afghanistan. Although they were chained hand and foot and hooded, while waiting to be transported, their captors beat them. Mr el-Banna, in particular, was beaten repeatedly.

In Bagram, they were imprisoned and tortured for another two months. They were beaten, starved, and sleep deprived. What is particularly noteworthy is the fact that the only information the interrogators were interested in was information about Abu Qatada. Over the years, CIA and military interrogators have repeatedly attempted to suborn testimony from both men, linking Abu Qatada to al-Qa'ida. Mr el-Banna has repeatedly refused offers of freedom, money, and passports in exchange for false testimony.

GUANTANAMO BAY

Ultimately, both men were transported to Guantanamo, a trip so harrowing that a government informer, who was posing as a prisoner and had to be transported and treated the same as other prisoners, stated in a television interview that, at the time, he wished someone would shoot him. Forced to wear darkened goggles, face-masks and earphones, chained at the ankles, handcuffed behind their backs with thin plastic that caused incredible pain, and, in some cases, lasting damage, starving and sick prisoners who had been deprived of sleep were forced to maintain a sitting position, legs forward and chained without moving for nearly 24 hours.

If they moved they were beaten, kicked, hit with blunt objects. The government informer lasted barely one month in the intolerable conditions in Guantanamo before demanding freedom. During the first month at Guantanamo in which both were kept in strict solitary confinement, the pair were interrogated six hours per day and kept in the interrogation room for 14 hours per day, sometimes in freezing temperatures to induce hypothermia, one of the many techniques approved for use by the Bush administration. In some cases they were short-shackled, hands behind heels, for the entire time.

During his lengthy incarceration, Mr el-Banna has repeatedly asked his interrogators to administer a polygraph test, but the military has refused. However, the military's unwillingness to give him a lie detector deviates from standard prison policy. Former interrogators at Guantanamo confirm that a "passed" polygraph test is a prerequisite to be transferred to Camp IV, the lowest security prison camp on the base.

Mr el-Banna is in Camp IV. Mr al-Rawi, who also is in Camp IV, had a polygraph administered, but the military has refused to turn over the results and there is no mention of it in records produced by the military.

Indeed, the military has taken great pains to prevent any exculpatory information from creeping into the official records to ensure prisoners have no chance to exonerate themselves. In Guantanamo, Mr al-Rawi has met perhaps 10 different CIA agents. One agent who went by the name "Elizabeth" told him: "Don't think that leaving here will come without a price." Mr al-Rawi said: "She asked me whether I would work with them, and I said no. [She] suggested, 'How about working with MI5?'"

MI5 MEETINGS

Mr al-Rawi's relationship with MI5 did not end with his arrest. He has met MI5 agents at Guantanamo on numerous occasions. He first met an MI5 agent in the early autumn of 2003, fully shackled. After some perfunctory questions and answers that confirmed his work with MI5, the agent offered him an oblique, belated apology: "Sorry about all this." Several months later, Alex, the MI5 agent with whom Mr al-Rawi worked in London, interrogated him at Guantanamo. Among other things, Mr al-Rawi told Alex the Americans wanted him to work for US intelligence.

In January 2004, Martin and Matt, the other two MI5 agents that Mr al-Rawi worked with in London, met Mr al-Rawi in an interrogation room. During that meeting, agents proposed that Mr al-Rawi return to working with MI5 upon his release. He agreed. The following day, the agents told him it would take them one to six months to get him home.

Former Guantanamo interrogators report that all prisoner interviews with foreign intelligence officials are videotaped. The trial judge in charge of both men's cases granted them motion to preserve that specific evidence along with copious other evidence we have managed to identify.

REVIEW TRIBUNAL

I advised the men more than one month before I travelled to Guantanamo in September 2004, advising them not to appear before the CSRT (Combatant Status Review Tribunal) or participate in the process. My letters were not delivered until after each had participated in his tribunal. I advised them against participating, among other reasons because the tribunals were permitted to rely on information obtained under torture. Both men were not even permitted to review all the evidence against them, and thus had no chance to defend themselves.

The following testimony from a CSRT proceeding demonstrates the Bush administration's commitment to providing prisoners with meaningful due process. In response to the charge "While living in Bosnia, the detainee associated with a known al-Qa'ida operative" the following colloquy, which could have been lifted from the pages of The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland, took place:

Detainee: Give me his name.

President: I do not know.

Detainee: How can I respond to this?

President: Did you know of anybody who was a member ofal- Qa'ida?

Detainee: No, no.

President: I'm sorry, what was your response?

Detainee: No. If you tell me the name, I can respond and defend myself against this accusation.

President: We are asking you the questions and we need you to respond to what is on the classified summary.

Although both men never were anywhere near Afghanistan or Iraq, never were involved in any wrongful activity, never possessed a weapon of any kind, they were powerless to defend themselves against the charge that they had associated with Abu Qatada, "a known al-Qa'ida operative", even though Abu Qatada has never been charged with any crime or been shown to be a member of or involved in al-Qa'ida. But, the full extent of both men's betrayal by MI5 does not end here.

At the tribunal, Mr al-Rawi testified under oath about his relationship with MI5 and his role as a liaison between MI5 and Abu Qatada. He informed the tribunal that MI5 had expressly approved of his role: "During a meeting with British Intelligence, I had asked if it was OK for me to continue to have a relationship with Abu Qatada. They assured me it was."

Mr al-Rawi requested that the MI5 agents Alex, Matt, and Martin appear before the tribunal to confirm his work with MI5 and Abu Qatada. Very much out of character, the tribunal president recognised the obvious importance of such testimony and "determined that these three witnesses were relevant". He instructed the military prosecutor to make inquiries and to determine whether the British Government would make the witnesses available .

The British Government not only refused to allow the witnesses to appear, it refused to confirm the accuracy of Mr al-Rawi's account, thereby ensuring both men's fate and consigning them to indefinite imprisonment. The following account is taken from Mr al-Rawi's CSRT:

President: Detainee has requested three witnesses who would testify that he supported the British Intelligence Agency. We have contacted the British Government and at this time, they are not willing to provide the tribunal with that information. The witnesses are no longer considered reasonably available, so I am going to deny the request for those three witnesses.

Later in the proceeding, the president issued the following clarification: " The British Government didn't say they didn't have a relationship with you, they just would not confirm or deny it. That means I only have your word."

Mr el-Banna's CSRT hearing was so procedurally defective that it would make good farce were the result not so devastating. The only evidence considered by the tribunal was that he drove Abu Qatada's wife and son to visit him during the time British authorities were engaged in discussions with him. In fact, his CSRT hearing was postponed and reconvened three times on 25 September, 28 September, 2 October and 9 October 2004 to allow the military's prosecuting attorney to collect and present additional evidence to the tribunal.

At the conclusion, Mr el-Banna's personal representative, a soldier and non-lawyer who could be compelled under the CSRT rules to testify against him courageously dissented from the tribunal's conclusion, including a formal statement in the CSRT record: "The personal representative states that the record is insufficient to prove that the detainee is an enemy combatant."

Although Mr al-Rawi disclosed his involvement with MI5 during our first meeting in 2004, he has been loath to go public with this information. But there are few options left available to both men.

Congress voted to ban torture by an overwhelming majority in December 2005, but President Bush signed the bill into law with a clarifying "signing statement" that allows him to ignore it whenever he chooses. Of more immediate concern is Congress's recent legislative reversal of the Supreme Court's decision to allow prisoners at Guantanamo to file petitions for habeas corpus . In response to the passage of the Detainee Treatment Act, the US government moved quickly to dismiss all of the habeas cases filed by prisoners at Guantanamo, including those filed by Mr al-Rawi and Mr el-Banna.

NO RETURN

Neither man can return to the UK because their visas have expired. The British Government adamantly refuses to reissue them visas or allow them to return home on humanitarian grounds. If the cases are dismissed, the US military intends to transfer Mr al-Rawi to Iraq and Mr el-Banna to Jordan. There, each will be jailed with the host country's pro-American acquiescence. Recent reconnaissance indicates the US government is negotiating with foreign governments to jail prisoners from Guantanamo indefinitely.

Why the British Government has treated these two men as it has, I cannot say. What seems most likely is that they were simply expendable pawns in Great Britain's and America's attempt to create a case against Abu Qatada

My security clearance allows me to review all of the classified evidence in the cases, including all the evidence the tribunal relied upon to conclude that Mr al-Rawi and Mr el-Banna were enemy combatants. There is no evidence in the record, classified or unclassified, which supports the military's determination that these are enemy combatants. None.

The African business trip that ended in chains and imprisonment

By Robert Verkaik

Jamal el-Banna and Bisher al-Rawi were arrested at Banjul airport, Gambia, in November 2002 on suspicion of links to terrorism.

The two friends were in a party of five businessmen who were trying to start up a peanut oil venture. Two other British nationals detained at the same time were flown home.

The Government argues that Mr al-Rawi, an Iraqi citizen in his late thirties and Mr el-Banna, a Palestinian in his forties, who have both brought up families in Britain, are British residents with limited rights.

After their arrest, the two men were interviewed by the Americans and flown in chains to Bagram in Afghanistan. In early 2003, they were taken to Guantanamo Bay.

Last month Mr Justice Collins ruled that Mr el-Banna and Mr al-Rawi should have their case for judicial review heard in the High Court, and that claims of torture at the camp meant the Government might have an obligation to act. But the Government maintains: "It is only through ... their nationality that persons can ... enjoy the obligations placed on a state by international law."

    MI5, Camp Delta, and the story that shames Britain, I, 16.3.2006, http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article351561.ece

Police 'faked Tube death log'

Special Branch 'altered record' in attempt to switch the blame for de Menezes shooting

Published: 29 January 2006
The Independent
By Sophie Goodchild, Chief Reporter

Extraordinary allegations that Special Branch officers deliberately falsified vital evidence to hide mistakes which led to the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes at a south London Underground station were made last night.

According to claims in the News of the World, police altered the contents of a logbook, which detailed the Brazilian electrician's final movements, in a bid to cover up their blunders.

The 27-year-old was shot dead at Stockwell Tube station, in the wake of the London bombings, by police exercising a shoot-to-kill policy.

Specific words were understood to have been changed to cover up the fact that surveillance officers had wrongly identified Mr de Menezes as terror suspect Hussein Osman.

Alterations were hastily made to amend the wording of the official log once the shocking truth emerged that the dead man was not, in fact, the extremist wanted in connection with the failed 21 July Tube bombings.

This was in a bid to pass the blame for the shooting on to the firearms officers who actually shot the electrician and on to senior officers at Scotland Yard who were in charge of the operation.

These revelations are reportedly contained in the report of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC). Last night, despite calls to the Metropolitan Police, the Home Office and the IPCC, The Independent on Sunday was unable to corroborate or substantiate the claims.

The family of the dead man said the revelations were "shocking" and demanded an immediate public inquiry. Asad Rehman, the family's spokesman, said these latest reports reinforced their belief that there had been a deliberate cover-up over Mr de Menezes death.

"It reinforces their belief that his killing was not the result of a catalogue of errors but that there was something more malign behind this," said Mr Rehman, who has written to the Attorney General and the Crown Prosecution Service demanding an official inquiry into Mr de Menezes' death. "Yet again, the family has to find out through leaks what might have happened to Jean Charles. We believe a public inquiry is the only solution for the real truth to be established."

The story, if proved correct, will add to the controversy surrounding the shooting. Sir Ian Blair, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, is already facing a separate inquiry into complaints made by Mr de Menezes' family that he made misleading comments about the shooting to the public.

The Stockwell killing has also highlighted communications failures between surveillance teams and commanding officers as well as calling into question Operation Kratos, the Met's secret policy on dealing with potential suicide bombers.

The IPCC review of the Stockwell killing was handed to lawyers at the CPS just over a week ago. Copies have also been delivered to Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, as well as to the Metropolitan Police Authority and to Scotland Yard. It is expected that they could take up to a year to decide if there are sufficient grounds on which to bring a prosecution against any of the officers.

However, sources quoted by the News of the World allege that the IPCC report reveals that the log was altered from "it was Osman" to read instead "and it was not Osman".

The alteration should have been signed but was not. This was regarded as a clumsy error by the IPCC investigators. Their report says: "This looks like an attempt to try to distance Special Branch from the decision [to shoot de Menezes].

Extraordinary allegations that Special Branch officers deliberately falsified vital evidence to hide mistakes which led to the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes at a south London Underground station were made last night.

According to claims in the News of the World, police altered the contents of a logbook, which detailed the Brazilian electrician's final movements, in a bid to cover up their blunders.

The 27-year-old was shot dead at Stockwell Tube station, in the wake of the London bombings, by police exercising a shoot-to-kill policy.

Specific words were understood to have been changed to cover up the fact that surveillance officers had wrongly identified Mr de Menezes as terror suspect Hussein Osman.

Alterations were hastily made to amend the wording of the official log once the shocking truth emerged that the dead man was not, in fact, the extremist wanted in connection with the failed 21 July Tube bombings.

This was in a bid to pass the blame for the shooting on to the firearms officers who actually shot the electrician and on to senior officers at Scotland Yard who were in charge of the operation.

These revelations are reportedly contained in the report of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC). Last night, despite calls to the Metropolitan Police, the Home Office and the IPCC, The Independent on Sunday was unable to corroborate or substantiate the claims.

The family of the dead man said the revelations were "shocking" and demanded an immediate public inquiry. Asad Rehman, the family's spokesman, said these latest reports reinforced their belief that there had been a deliberate cover-up over Mr de Menezes death.

"It reinforces their belief that his killing was not the result of a catalogue of errors but that there was something more malign behind this," said Mr Rehman, who has written to the Attorney General and the Crown Prosecution Service demanding an official inquiry into Mr de Menezes' death. "Yet again, the family has to find out through leaks what might have happened to Jean Charles. We believe a public inquiry is the only solution for the real truth to be established."
The story, if proved correct, will add to the controversy surrounding the shooting. Sir Ian Blair, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, is already facing a separate inquiry into complaints made by Mr de Menezes' family that he made misleading comments about the shooting to the public.

The Stockwell killing has also highlighted communications failures between surveillance teams and commanding officers as well as calling into question Operation Kratos, the Met's secret policy on dealing with potential suicide bombers.

The IPCC review of the Stockwell killing was handed to lawyers at the CPS just over a week ago. Copies have also been delivered to Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, as well as to the Metropolitan Police Authority and to Scotland Yard. It is expected that they could take up to a year to decide if there are sufficient grounds on which to bring a prosecution against any of the officers.

However, sources quoted by the News of the World allege that the IPCC report reveals that the log was altered from "it was Osman" to read instead "and it was not Osman".

The alteration should have been signed but was not. This was regarded as a clumsy error by the IPCC investigators. Their report says: "This looks like an attempt to try to distance Special Branch from the decision [to shoot de Menezes].

    Police 'faked Tube death log' , NYT, 29.1.2006, http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article341765.ece