History > 2007 > UK > Terrorism (IV)

Dave Brown

political cartoon

The Independent

26.7.2007

Gordon Brown

Gordanamo Bay // Guantanamo Bay

Blow to Brown plan

to extend detention

beyond 28 days

Monday July 30, 2007
Guardian
Vikram Dodd

The government suffered a blow yesterday to its attempt to extend the time terror suspects can be held without charge, when a parliamentary committee found there was no evidence to justify holding people beyond the current 28-day limit.

The report by the joint committee on human rights was critical of aspects of the government's approach and policy, branding as "Kafkaesque" part of the control order system, which restricts the liberty of suspected terrorists the government says it cannot prosecute.

The report backed making intercept evidence admissible against suspects and wanted more parliamentary scrutiny of terror laws and powers.

But the hardest blow for government will be the committee's rejection of the need to boost the time suspects can be held without charge. In its report the committee concludes: "A power with such a significant impact on liberty as the proposed power to detain without charge for more than 28 days should, in our view, be justified by clear evidence that the need for such a power already exists, not by precautionary arguments that such a need may arise at some time in the future."

The deeply contentious issue led to the first Commons defeat for Tony Blair when he attempted to extend the limit to 90 days in 2005, and MPs voted for the 28-day limit. The government wants that extended to up to 56 days. Andrew Dismore, the committee's Labour chairman, demanded: "Where is the supporting evidence to extend the detention period? As far as we've heard there has not yet been a case where 28 days was inadequate."

In a rebuff to the security services the report says intercept evidence would be of "enormous benefit" in bringing more prosecutions against alleged terrorists.

Blow to Brown plan to extend detention beyond 28 days, G, 30.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2137634,00.html

Revealed:

MI5's role in torture flight hell

· British source tells of betrayal to CIA
· 'I was stripped and hauled to US base'

Sunday July 29, 2007
The Observer
David Rose

An Iraqi who was a key source of intelligence for MI5 has given the first ever full insider's account of being seized by the CIA and bundled on to an illegal 'torture flight' under the programme known as extraordinary rendition.

In a remarkable interview for The Observer, British resident Bisher al-Rawi has told how he was betrayed by the security service despite having helped keep track of Abu Qatada, the Muslim cleric accused of being Osama bin Laden's 'ambassador in Europe'. He was abducted and stripped naked by US agents, clad in nappies, a tracksuit and shackles, blindfolded and forced to wear ear mufflers, then strapped to a stretcher on board a plane bound for a CIA 'black site' jail near Kabul in Afghanistan.

He was taken on to the jail at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba before being released last March and returned to Britain after four years' detention without charge.

'All the way through that flight I was on the verge of screaming,' al-Rawi said. 'At last we landed, I thought, thank God it's over. But it wasn't - it was just a refuelling stop in Cairo. There were hours still to go ... My back was so painful, the handcuffs were so tight. All the time they kept me on my back. Once, I managed to wriggle a tiny bit, just shifted my weight to one side. Then I felt someone hit my hand. Even this was forbidden.'

He was thrown into the CIA's 'Dark Prison,' deprived of all light 24 hours a day in temperatures so low that ice formed on his food and water. He was taken to Guantanamo in March 2003 and released after being cleared of any involvement in terrorism by a tribunal.

A report by Parliament's intelligence and security committee last week disclosed that, although the Americans warned MI5 it planned to render al-Rawi in advance, in breach of international law, the British did not intervene on the grounds he did not have a UK passport. The government claimed he was the responsibility of Iraq, which he fled as a teenager when his father was tortured by Saddam Hussein's regime.

The report confirmed that al-Rawi, 39, was only held after MI5 sent the CIA a telegram, stating he was an 'Islamic extremist' who had a timer for an improvised bomb in his luggage. In reality, before al-Rawi left London, police confirmed the device was a battery charger from Argos.

The committee accepted MI5's claim, given in secret testimony, that it had not wanted the Americans to arrest him, in November 2002, concluding the incident had damaged US-UK relations.

But al-Rawi alleged that the CIA told him they had been given the contents of his own MI5 file - information he had given his handlers freely when he was working as their source. He said an MI5 lawyer had given him 'cast iron' assurances that anything he told them would be treated in the strictest confidence and, if he ever got into trouble, MI5 would do everything in its power to help him.

When al-Rawi was in Guantanamo, he asked the American authorities to find his former MI5 handlers so they would corroborate his story but, because he did not know their surnames, MI5 said it could not assist.

The committee report cited MI5 testimony claiming that when al-Rawi was transported in December 2002, it could not have known how harsh his treatment might be. Yet eight months earlier, Amnesty International had published a lengthy report on US detention in Afghanistan, quoting several ex-prisoners who described conditions very similar to those experienced by al-Rawi.

He had conveyed messages between the preacher Abu Qatada and MI5 when Qatada was supposedly in hiding in 2002. At MI5's behest, he came close to arranging a meeting between the two sides.

Al-Rawi has now spoken out in an effort to help his friend Jamil el-Banna, who remains in Guantanamo. A Jordan-ian who also lived in London for years, where his wife and five children are British citizens, he too has been cleared by the Americans. However, he has been unable to leave Guantanamo because Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, says she is reviewing his right of residence on national security grounds.

Sarah Teather, the Liberal Democrat MP for Brent East in London, where el-Banna lives, said his case revealed 'decrepitude at the heart of the government'. The government had 'no regard for the welfare of his children'.

His lawyers have filed a statement from al-Rawi as part of a judicial review case. In the action, they accuse MI5 of having a 'causative role' in both men's ordeals, stating it was 'complicit' in the illegal rendition and guilty of an 'abuse of power'.

    Revealed: MI5's role in torture flight hell, O, 29.7.2007, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2137144,00.html

UK wanted

US to rule out Bin Laden torture

Saturday July 28, 2007
Guardian
Richard Norton-Taylor


Ministers insisted that British secret agents would only be allowed to pass intelligence to the CIA to help it capture Osama bin Laden if the agency promised he would not be tortured, it has emerged.

MI6 believed it was close to finding the al-Qaida leader in Afghanistan in 1998, and again the next year. The plan was for MI6 to hand the CIA vital information about Bin Laden. Ministers including Robin Cook, the then foreign secretary, gave their approval on condition that the CIA gave assurances he would be treated humanely. The plot is revealed in a 75-page report by parliament's intelligence and security committee on rendition, the practice of flying detainees to places where they may be tortured.

The report criticises the Bush administration's approval of practices which would be illegal if carried out by British agents. It shows that in 1998, the year Bin Laden was indicted in the US, Britain insisted that the policy of treating prisoners humanely should include him. But the CIA never gave the assurances.

"In 1998, SIS [MI6] believed that it might be able to obtain actionable intelligence that might enable the CIA to capture Osama bin Laden," the committee says in its report. It adds: "Given that this might have resulted in him being rendered from Afghanistan to the US, SIS sought ministerial approval. This was given provided that the CIA gave assurances regarding humane treatment." British intelligence made a similar request in 1999, and obtained the same response from Whitehall, but in the event MI6 did not provide the information.

But 1998 and 1999 were not the only times Britain had Bin Laden in its sights. In January 1996 the Home Office wrote to him when he was in Sudan. The letter, seen by the Guardian, advised him that Michael Howard, then home secretary, had "given his personal direction that you be excluded from the United Kingdom on the grounds that your presence...would not be conducive to the public good."

    UK wanted US to rule out Bin Laden torture, G, 28.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,2136535,00.html

Leading article:

Tired games

and time-honoured tricks

Published: 26 July 2007
The Independent

Gordon Brown was confronted with his first terrorist crisis just hours after moving into No 10. His response was impressive in its solidity and calmness. Both he and his Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, eschewed the emotive language so often favoured by their predecessors. As a newspaper, we welcomed this change of tone, as did many civil liberties campaigners and British Muslims. Mr Brown, it seemed, had adroitly seized the chance to rebuild some of the trust Tony Blair had eroded. And we dared hope that this was a harbinger of a more enlightened approach to the threat of terrorism.

Perhaps if our hopes had not been raised so high, the Prime Minister's statement in the Commons yesterday would have been less of a disappointment. But a disappointment it was. Much of the substance revisited territory we had hoped never to see again - whatever government was in power. Most disturbing was Mr Brown's desire to reopen the question of how long a suspect may be detained without being charged.

In our view, anything that compromises the principle of habeas corpus is too much and detracts from this country's tradition of liberty and justice. But in all the arguments to and fro, we have heard nothing that suggests the police need even the 28 days they have at their disposal now, let alone the 56 days Mr Brown has proposed. Work, as is known, has a habit of expanding to fit the time available. The police are no exception to this rule. Has the Met, which has long angled for 90 days, nobbled the new Prime Minister so soon? We are back to playing politics with terror.

The whole exercise contained worrying echoes of Mr Blair's response to the London bombs two years ago: an initial refusal to panic, a promise that any legislation would be carefully considered, followed by a hard-line statement on the eve of the parliamentary recess. Even the preparation was similar: prime ministerial "toughness" relayed to the popular press - see The Sun's triumphal headline, quoting Mr Brown's pledge to "kick out 4,000" foreign offenders. Here we had the old game of numbers, with a generous dose of xenophobia.

It is a time-honoured trick. In the Commons, of course, Mr Brown was more measured. He broached alternatives to longer detention, including the introduction of continental-style investigations managed by judges. But he left little doubt of his preference. The undertaking to double deportations of offenders, a restatement of support for ID cards, and a plan - stolen from David Cameron's playbook - for a unified border force, completed the package. We have now met the other Gordon Brown.

    Leading article: Tired games and time-honoured tricks, I, 26.7.2007, http://comment.independent.co.uk/leading_articles/article2802594.ece

Four choices on detention

but 28 days is not an option

Brown will not push for 90-day limit backed by Blair
but period is set for extension

Thursday July 26, 2007
Guardian
Alan Travis Home affairs editor

Gordon Brown framed the coming battle over changes to the current 28-day limit on detaining terror suspects without charge by ruling out any renewed attempt to introduce the 90-day limit backed by Tony Blair and rejected by parliament.

The prime minister insisted that MPs will have to agree a new limit of anywhere between 28 and 58 days.

Although Mr Brown only mentioned two alternatives in his statement, the proposals include four options for serious consideration, including the radical idea of switching to a French-style system of investigative judges for terror cases.

The Home Office consultation paper outlining the options also acknowledges that other ways exist of reducing the time pressure on investigators. They include post-charge questioning, using intercept evidence in court, supergrass powers and the new offence of "acts preparatory to terrorism". The Home Office described these measures as individually "useful" but "not the whole answer to the question".

Instead, claiming backing from Ken Jones of the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Met's Sir Ian Blair, and the Lib Dem reviewer of anti-terrorism laws, Lord Carlile, the government says it wants to consult on the four "serious" options: "I hope the house will agree that there has to be a maximum limit set by parliament," said Mr Brown.

Option 1    28-56 days

The government's preferred choice for going beyond 28 days, with every seven days extra approved by the director of public prosecutions and a high court judge. A statement would be made to parliament on each case with the option of a debate in the Lords and Commons. The Home Office document does not put a figure on the upper limit but Mr Brown said it would be "up to 28 days more or a lesser period". Downing Street said yesterday that reports that the PM personally backed 56 days were "over-egged".

Reaction Welcomed by the police who said there might be rare occasions where detention beyond 28 days would be needed. Sharply criticised by human rights groups Liberty and Amnesty International which condemned it as trying to introduce a new form of internment.

Option 2    28-56 days but not yet

The Home Office says this option would mean powers outlined in the first option would only be triggered by a vote of both houses of parliament.

Reaction The government regards this as significantly less practical because it would require a debate in Parliament in the middle of what might be a national emergency. They claim uncertainty could also cause difficulties for police in the middle of an investigation.

Option 3    28-56 days but must declare state of emergency

This has been put forward by Liberty and proposes that the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, which gives the government the power to take emergency powers with immediate effect, might provide an alternative to extending the 28-day limit. Under this proposal the limit could last for a further 30 days but it would require the declaration of a state of emergency.

The Act would allow the government to do this if a terrorist attack has occurred, is occurring or is about to occur.

Reaction Liberty says this would ensure the detention powers were used in a "genuine emergency requiring a temporary response" and as it is secondary legislation the courts would have the power to strike them down if they are abused. This option has already won the support of David Cameron.

But the government was sceptical, with the Home Office saying it would need a debate in parliament in the middle of what might be a national emergency in the wake of major foiled or actual attacks: "More-over, it is not obvious that all terrorist cases where the police might want to hold one or more individuals for more than 28 days would meet the relevant criteria."

Option 4    Judge-managed investigations

This is described as involving specialist circuit judges assigned to cases after 48 hours' detention. They would oversee the police investigation until its conclusion and would reflect the rights of the suspect as well as the needs of the investigation. The proposal is similar to the examining magistrates' model used in France. The Home Office acknowledges this would require "a major shift" in the way in which cases are investigated and in the adversarial system of prosecution used in this country.

Reaction This option was canvassed by Charles Clarke when he was home secretary but met with strong resistance in the Cabinet. Support is reflected in a current of legal opinion in Britain that believes it is time to move away from the adversarial system. But the government made clear that it is less than enthusiastic, only saying "given the scale of the challenge it is right to consider this option alongside others".

    Four choices on detention but 28 days is not an option, G, 26.7.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2134740,00.html

Brown sets out

sweeping but risky

terror and security reforms

· U-turn over single border force
· New plans to extend detention
· £70m hearts and minds campaign

Thursday July 26, 2007
Guardian
Patrick Wintour and Alan Travis

Gordon Brown moved yesterday to dominate the terror and security agenda, grabbing a Tory proposal for an integrated single border force and then challenging David Cameron to accept that the scale of the terrorist threat requires an extension of detention without charge to up to 56 days.

The move, announced in a ground-breaking Commons statement, follows months of discussions with police and security services on a range of measures, including post-charge questioning of suspects, the use of intercept evidence in court and a proposal that convicted terrorists be treated in the same way as sex offenders.

The scale of the proposals also holds political dangers for Mr Brown since they could damage his rapprochment with liberal Britain, started when he launched his package of constitutional measures in his first week as prime minister.

But Mr Brown insisted: "Liberty is the first and founding value of our country. Security is the first duty of our government."

The sweeping package of proposals unveiled by Mr Brown took in a £70m commitment to tackle extremism, with lessons on citizenship in Britain's 1,000 madrasas as part of a "hearts and minds" strategy to support Muslim community groups.

He revealed that police and the security services are tracking 2,000 individuals, an increase of 400 in the past nine months. A total of 900 shopping centres, sports stadiums and other areas where large crowds gather have been assessed by counter-terrorism advisers.

At the heart of the package was the announcement that the government would commit to a new unified border force to protect ports and airports, an idea championed by both opposition parties and persistently rejected as unworkable by the government.

Mr Brown spoke of a new "highly visible" uniformed border force, which would "strengthen the powers and surveillance of capability of our border guards and security officers" by bringing together the borders and immigration agency, Customs and the UK visas overseas operation. However, Conservative and Liberal Democrat opponents noted that it would not include the police. Nick Clegg, of the Liberal Democrats, dubbed it "border force lite".

The commitment to revisit the controversial detention without charge issue comes after police outlined the way big terrorism cases against one or two suspects can involve the time-consuming investigation of 200 phones, 400 computers, 8,000 CDs, 6,000 gigabytes of data and 70 premises across three continents. But human rights lawyers, some Muslim organisations and civil rights groups expressed disappointment that Mr Brown had decided to reopen the issue of detention without charge less than two years after Tony Blair's plans for 90-day detention were thrown out by the Commons.

Mr Blair was defeated by 33 votes in 2005; in a sign that Mr Brown is moving cautiously, he did not personally commit himself to 56 days yesterday, stressing that he was holding a consultation on up to 56 days. Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, complained: "Lengthy periods of detention without charge failed in Northern Ireland and are counterproductive to providing intelligence for the police".

Amnesty likened the measures to internment.

Mr Cameron also refused to accept Mr Brown's claim that recent terrorist cases had demonstrated that police need more time to investigate detainees in complex international cases.

Sir Menzies Campbell, the Lib Dem leader, also refused to give ground: "We know that it is in the nature of the police to ask for more powers - for the best of motives but often for the worst of reasons. It is in the nature of government to grant such powers, and it should be in the nature of parliament to resist them."

David Winnick, who led the Labour rebellion in 2005, said: "Consensus was found on 28 days, so we should be hesitant about taking the controversial steps that divided the house nearly two years ago."

Privately, leading Labour rebels believe the backbench mood is wavering and 56 days will get through the Commons, but struggle in the Lords.

Mr Brown's surprise announcement of a unified border force follows a seven-year party political argument over border control. The effect will be seen next month, with travellers being greeted by uniformed officers staffing a "single primary checkpoint" for passport control and Customs.

Mr Brown made clear to MPs that this development was only the most visible aspect of the changes involved in accelerating Britain's "e-borders" programme with more checks of advance passenger lists on flights to Britain to enforce a "no-fly" policy for potential terrorists. The single force will lead to greater coordination, a common set of objectives, a common set of powers and a single command structure, the government said. A cabinet office review, to be led by Sir Gus O'Donnell, the cabinet secretary, will look at including the police in the force at a later date.

The package also includes new powers for MI5 to obtain information from other government agencies, tighter bail conditions of those suspected of lesser terror offences, a terrorist offender register and new powers to enter the properties of those under control orders.

    Brown sets out sweeping but risky terror and security reforms, G, 26.7.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2134790,00.html

2pm update

Security services inadvertently

aided US rendition case,

say MPs

Wednesday July 25, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Staff and agencies

A parliamentary committee has found no evidence that the UK was directly involved in controversial American renditions of terror suspects.

But the intelligence and security committee said the security services "inadvertently" helped in one case after the US ignored caveats placed on supplied information.

And it said Washington's "lack of regard" for UK concerns had "serious implications for the intelligence relationship" between the two countries.

Ministerial approval should be required in future in such cases and a complete ban placed on approvals for renditions which could lead to suspects being held in secret prisons, it recommended.

The committee also levelled criticism at the government over inadequate records and demanded an improvement in what was "a matter of fundamental liberty".

In parliament today, Andrew Tyrie, the Tory MP for Chichester, complained that Gordon Brown was not making a statement on rendition, and asked him to condemn any such US policy.

The prime minister replied: "I'm not going to condemn the US authorities in the way that he suggests," and urged Mr Tyrie to read the report put out today on the issue.

    Security services inadvertently aided US rendition case, say MPs, G, 25.7.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0,,2134431,00.html

1.30pm update

Brown plans new border police

and longer detention limits

Wednesday July 25, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Haroon Siddique


Gordon Brown today put forward plans to double the current limit for detaining terror suspect without charge, from 28 days to 56 days.

The prime minister also set out to wrong-foot the Tories by proposing a unified border police force to combat terrorism and a review of the use of intercept evidence in court.

Mr Brown said an extended detention limit was necessary to sift through the volume of cases needed in terrorism cases.

He cited the example of the alleged airport bomb plot last August which involved investigation of 200 mobile phones, 400 computers, 70 homes and inquiries across three continents.

The prime minister said a proposal by Liberty to use the Civil Contingencies Act to detain suspects for a further 30 days would require a state of emergency to be declared and suggested that use of the act would send out the "opposite message" to that the government wished to convey.

Mr Brown said that extensions beyond 28 days would be subject to scrutiny by a high court judge and by parliament in specific cases.

Government plans to extend the detention limit to 90 days were defeated in November 2005.

Mr Brown called for support from the opposition on the new limit saying it would only be needed in cases that were "unusual, rare and only in the pursuit of terrorism".

But both David Cameron, the Tory leader, and Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat chief, asked for evidence of what had changed to justify a change in the law.

The Tories are likely to look more favourably on the creation of a unified border force, a policy they have been lobbying for.

"We will now merge the work of the border and immigration agencies with customs and establish a unified border force," Mr Brown said.

"The first change people will see is, starting from next month, when arriving at borders, airports or seaports, they will be made subject to a unified presence on primary checkpoint for security and customs."

He also announced another key plank of the Tories' security policy - the use of intercept evidence - would be looked at through a review by Sir John Chilcott with a view to "achieving a cross-party consensus".

Mr Brown also said that 4,000 foreign prisoners will have been deported by the end of the year, and that all foreign nationals staying in the UK for more than six months would be required to have biometric identification by the end of 2008.

    Brown plans new border police and longer detention limits, G, 25.7.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2134416,00.html

9am

Judges

'should decide on detention limits'

Monday July 16, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Press Association

Politicians should give up their power to set the maximum detention period for terror suspects, handing it over to senior judges, the independent reviewer of counter-terrorism legislation said today.

Lord Carlile's proposal comes amid growing debate over whether the limit on detention without charge should be increased from 28 days to as much as 90 days.

Ken Jones, the head of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), said yesterday that police want the power to hold suspects for longer because of the global scale of terror investigations and the need for early arrests to prevent potential atrocities.

The prime minister, Gordon Brown, has indicated that he wants to reopen the issue in the autumn, though he is yet to commit himself to any specific period before charge.

His predecessor, Tony Blair, suffered his first House of Commons defeat as prime minister in 2005 when MPs rejected his plea for 90-day detention in favour of a compromise of 28 days.

Lord Carlile dismissed the political debate over time limits as "completely sterile" today and said it would be better to give judges the power to monitor detention periods in individual cases.

Suspects' rights should be "paramount" in their considerations and detainees should have the right to appeal against continued custody, he said. But he made clear that he expected only a handful of individuals to be held for more than two or three weeks under his proposals.

"I am saying that what parliament should do is put this in the hands of senior judges, who have a great deal of experience in analysing evidence, and that it should be subject to appeal," Lord Carlile told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"In that context, I think it would be extraordinary to suggest that anybody but a very, very small number of people would be detained for more than 28 days, but the judgment would be in the interests of justice.

"The fact is that the judgment on days is completely sterile. I would have thought that every civil liberties organisation in this country and every person detained would be happy for their case to be considered by a senior judge on an evidence basis.

"That would be an intelligent basis for debate, not an entirely arbitrary one of days, which provides no intelligent foundation for the discussion."

Lord Carlile denied that his scheme would amount to internment, with people detained indefinitely without trial.

"What I am seeking to do is strengthen the rights of those being detained by introducing a higher level of judge with clearly set-out parameters and subject to appeal," he said.

"We have to protect the rights of those who may be innocent. Their rights would be paramount in these considerations."

Mr Jones said yesterday that Acpo wants the mechanisms for the oversight of terror detentions to be stepped up in advance of any renewed debate on time limits, in order to reassure the public.

But he said police chiefs did not want to start proposing timescales themselves.

"Let's get increased oversight mechanisms of some sort, then it's up to parliament to talk about what an upper limit might look like," he said.

"We are up against the buffers on the 28-day limit.

"We understand people will be concerned and nervous, but we need to create a system with sufficient judicial checks and balances which holds people, but no longer than a day necessary."

    Judges 'should decide on detention limits', G, 16.7.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2127410,00.html

The overlong arm

July 16, 2007 8:00 AM
The Guardian
Shami Chakrabarti


So you screw up an interview in a prominent Sunday newspaper and then spend the rest of your weekend on the phone to journalists and doing the rounds of TV studios in an attempt to "clarify" your confused pronouncements. This is an inevitable occupational hazard for modern politicians and even the odd campaigner ("there but for the grace" and all that). However, when the author of his own weekend misfortune is a senior police officer and the subject is anti-terror laws, the broader potential consequences are rather more serious.

Yesterday's Observer front-page ("Lock terror suspects up indefinitely say police") deals with an unfortunate outing by Mr Ken Jones (the President of the Association of Chief Police Officers, "ACPO"), into the world of high political debate and legislative policy. Mr Jones apparently told the newspaper that in some cases there was a need to hold terrorist suspects without charge "for as long as it takes". There follows some rather garbled talk of "judicial supervision", and it would seem from later broadcast interviews that Mr Jones was surprised at becoming a news story from which even his colleagues at the Met sought to distance themselves.

This is not the first time that ACPO has appeared to spin out of control recently. Just over a month ago, the association picked the moment of publication of a Council of Europe report into extraordinary rendition, to brief the media that it had conducted its own investigation and "found no evidence". It turned out that the basis of this briefing was nothing more than a letter to me explaining all the reasons why it was too difficult and resource-intensive to conduct a police investigation into the subject.

My views on a further extension to pre-charge detention periods are well-known. Twenty-eight days is already the longest period in the free world. Anything beyond this would certainly amount to internment and the fig-leaf of "judicial supervision" (which we had with both the Belmarsh and control order regimes) cannot assist when there isn't even a charge to contest or examine. Detention and punishment without trial have been disastrous in the competition for "values" and "hearts and minds" that the new prime minister recognises as being so important. That is why my colleagues continue to work tirelessly with politicians of all colours in an attempt to find more proportionate alternatives. Liberty's original proposals such as the admissibility of intercept evidence and greater use of post-charge questioning are now widely accepted (not least by the police).

However, the primary problem with today's unhelpful intervention is that comes at a time when cross-community support for the police and intelligence services is more important than ever. Whatever the debates on the detail of anti-terror laws (even the sore point of pre-charge detention), sensible democrats all know that national unity and a greater supply of intelligence about terror plots are the most important ingredients in counter-terror strategy.

I am afraid that even I have heard extremists use various injustices at home and abroad as a means of undermining cooperation with law enforcement. The police need to seem less political not more so. To be fair, many senior officers realise this and remember just how counter-productive public police campaigning for "90 days" proved last time round.

It is not that anyone expects them not to have views about the tools they would like to do such difficult and vital work. It is just better that they put their views to government and its shadows in private rather than be seen to be campaigning for ever more powers. Ultimately it is legislators who must carry the significant burden of settling the laws of a democracy. As a result it is right and inevitable that politicians win and lose our support and even come and go from time to time. At a time of heightened terror threat, however, it is more important than ever that the police stay out of politics and lock down the whole country's support indefinitely.

    The overlong arm, G, 16.7.2007, http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/shami_chakrabarti/2007/07/the_overlong_arm.html

A just war against the murderers in our midst

Our way of life is tolerant, spirited and full of humour. We should make no apologies for fighting the moral descendants of Stalin and Hitler who would destroy it

Sunday July 15, 2007
The Observer
Henry Porter

On a rare dry evening last week I walked to a meeting in London. The streets were full and the pubs overflowing with drinkers, many of whom are on the pavements because of the smoking ban: people having a good time at the end of an average working day, smiling and joshing each other. Too often we forget that we have built a successful and good-natured society over the last 10 years at the same time as absorbing a million or more people from scores of countries around the world. If you ever wanted to see the accumulated virtue of British culture you might start with the humour, consideration, tolerance, generosity and all-round nous to be found in any mixed gathering anywhere in these islands.

It is on this society that al-Qaeda has declared a particular war. The people having a good time are the ones that al-Qaeda wishes to blow apart and maim and intimidate with its bloody plots and fantasies. The recent failed attacks in Glasgow and London, the guilty verdicts of the 21 July bombers and the statement by bin Laden's deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri promising a precise response to the knighthood for Salman Rushdie make it plain that Britain is the prime target for al-Qaeda in the West. There are 80 extremist groups in the Midlands, 60 in Leeds and Bradford and 35 in London. Some estimates put the number of people who need watching at 3,000. According to the security services, the time in which groups move from radicalism to action is shortening.

A couple of weeks after a man had attempted to blow up hundreds of young women at a London nightclub, it makes you quite proud to see the clubs and pubs in London full of people enjoying themselves. As I watched, a voice at the back of my mind asked: 'What the hell is al-Qaeda on about?' Which is not such a dumb question because most of the standard answers concerning Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan do not explain the terrible level of violence that the four men jailed last week - all of whom had benefited in some way from the Britain's hospitality - planned for their fellow citizens. The Middle East may seem to provide convincing pretexts but we shouldn't for a moment believe that withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq and a settlement in Palestine would stop al-Qaeda. For one thing, there is a devotion to cruelty, a blood lust if you like, among the extremist sects of Islam which seems to go way beyond the desire to gain certain political goals or religious goals. Look at the way Arabs are being killed by al-Qaeda in the Anbar province of Iraq or at the murders of barbers in Basra, or the decision by an Iranian court to order a 43-year-old woman named Mokarrameh Ebrahimi to be stoned to death for adultery, which Amnesty International says 'beggars belief'.

Brutality has come to signify purity of faith among the followers of radicalised sects just as it did for the mass murderers of the Khmer Rouge. Indeed, al-Qaeda and its associates have about as much to do with religious truth as the Khmer did to Marxism.

In his new book Black Mass, John Gray places al-Qaeda in the European tradition of murdering utopians, movements that believe that the world can be permanently improved by the elimination of one class or race of people. 'Talk of "Islamo-fascism",' he writes, 'obscures the larger debts of Islamism to Western thought. It is not only fascists who have believed that violence can give birth to a new society. So did Lenin and Bakunin, and radical Islam could with equal accuracy be called Islamo-Leninism or Islamo-anarchism.' He goes on to suggest that al-Qaeda's closest affinity lies with Robespierre's great terror in the French revolution - so Islamo-Jacobinism (it won't catch on).

The important part of his argument is that it demystifies al-Qaeda's project and makes it entirely recognisable to Europeans steeped in the history of the murderous tyrannies of Stalin and Hitler. It also defuses for us the potency of its religious motor. Islamists regard themselves as good and faithful servants of Allah, but there's no reason for us to accept this opinion or to be impressed by their declarations of faith, abstinence and self sacrifice. We may live in a rather boozy, consumerist, secular society but let us be clear that its civic values are infinitely superior to what the Taliban made in Afghanistan or the Wahhabite preachers propose for all Muslim states and eventually here.

No grudging respect is necessary on our part, no guilt is required. Al-Qaeda is as anti-matter to freedom and to all Western societies And because Islamism has no ability - no intellectual mechanism - to make concessions we should never expect some kind of negotiated settlement, as happened with the IRA. Indeed, there is every reason to believe that our withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq will be seen as justifying further attacks on the West. (This point about withdrawal naturally does not validate the invasion of Iraq.)

There are two theories on al-Qaeda's future. The first suggests it is like the Ebola virus, which cannot spread far because it kills its victims too quickly. The second sees Islamism as an organism which will gradually take a hold throughout the Middle East where demographic studies predict a boom in the population of young males and there is little energy devoted to job creation.

My mind is not made up but I think it is important that we understand the political origins of radical Islam. The father of it all is the Egyptian thinker Sayyid Qutb, who in the 1950s advocated the overthrow of regimes in the Middle East and their replacement by Islamic governments. 'Qutb's conception of a revolutionary vanguard,' says Gray, 'dedicated to the overthrow and the establishment of a society without formal power structures owes nothing to Islamic theology and a great deal to Lenin.' Overlaid with the brutal pieties of al-Qaeda, his thinking has produced a truly impressive foe but one which we must always regard as ideological.

This is underlined by the writing of the former Muslim radical Ed Husain in his excellent book The Islamist, which with the work of Shiv Malik in the June issue of Prospect magazine and of Hassan Butt in these pages gives a very clear picture of what is going on among young British Muslims. Ed Husain's description of Hizb ut-Tahrir - the openly racist organisation banned across the Middle East, yet not in Britain - is well worth reading but for me the impressive part was the detail of the radicalisation of the young Muslims, of the bullying, intimidation and feverish propaganda that swept the estates and colleges in east London. I found myself thinking of Sebastian Haffner's classic account of the early years of Nazism, Defying Hitler

Hassan Butt, once a recruiter for the radical group al-Muhajiroun, has argued here that: 'Muslim scholars must go back to the books and come forward with a refashioned set of rules and a revised understanding of the rights and responsibilities of Muslims.'

A Reformation would certainly be welcome but I don't see it happening any time soon because the tide in the Muslim world is flowing in the opposite direction. Besides, it is not the whole answer because when you come down to it the impulses that drive al-Qaeda and the 175 extremist groups being watched by the police and security services in Britain are no different from the Nazis or Stalinists. The menace comes under the cloak of religion but that shouldn't prevent us from seeing these people for what they are, nor indeed acting to protect our liberal democracy with the same clear-headed rigour as we once confronted the Blackshirts.

    A just war against the murderers in our midst, O, 15.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2126691,00.html

Lock terror suspects up indefinitely say police

· Critics' anger over internment plans
· PM briefed on 'extraordinary measure'

Sunday July 15, 2007
The Observer
Mark Townsend and Jamie Doward


One of Britain's most senior police officers has demanded a return to a form of internment, with the power to lock up terror suspects indefinitely without charge.

The proposal, put forward by the head of the Association of Police Chief Officers (Acpo) and supported by Scotland Yard, is highly controversial. An earlier plan to extend the amount of time suspects can be held without charge to 90 days led to Tony Blair's first Commons defeat as Prime Minister. Eventually, the government was forced to compromise on 28 days, a period which Gordon Brown has already said he wants to extend.

The Observer understands that the Acpo proposal has been discussed in meetings between Brown and senior police officers. Whitehall sources said the PM was receptive to the association's demands, but believes an upper detention limit is essential to avoid a de facto Guantanamo Bay based in the UK.

Ken Jones, the president of Acpo, told The Observer that in some cases there was a need to hold terrorist suspects without charge for 'as long as it takes'. He said such hardline measures were the only way to counter the complex, global nature of terrorist cells planning further attacks in Britain and that civil liberty arguments were untenable in light of the evolving terror threat.

Jones, a former chair of Acpo's counter-terrorism committee, said: 'We are now arguing for judicially supervised detention for as long as it takes. We are up against the buffers on the 28-day limit. We understand people will be concerned and nervous, but we need to create a system with sufficient judicial checks and balances which holds people, but no longer than a day [more than] necessary.

'We need to go there [unlimited detention] and I think that politicians of all parties and the public have great faith in the judiciary to make sure that's used in the most proportionate way possible.'

The proposal has provoked anger among civil rights groups. 'It is coming to the point when we have to ask serious questions about the role of Acpo in a constitutional democracy,' said Shami Chakrabarti, director of the civil rights group Liberty. 'We elect politicians to determine legislation and we expect chief constables to uphold the rule of law, not campaign for internment.' Internment was last used in Britain during the Gulf war against Iraqis suspected of links to Saddam Hussein's army. It has also been used against terrorist suspects in Northern Ireland and Germans during the Second World War.

Jones said the increasingly international element of the terror threat made evidence-gathering a longer and more difficult process. He argues that a system is required where suspects can be arrested earlier than those suspected of involvement in more traditional crime.

'We can't let the threat develop to the point we ordinarily would, because the potential for a suicide bomber to take hundreds of lives is too awesome to merely contemplate, and so we are into the evidence-gathering phase much earlier,' he said.

'Then we are into judicially supervised detention. The fact is that these cases do take much longer to investigate. The reach of an investigation can be global. We are using a system designed to protect the rights of a suspect of a routine criminal case in the United Kingdom and we are pushing it to its limit.

'We should never have got involved in the 90-day debate. In hindsight, we should have said that we needed an extraordinary mechanism to give us the ability to investigate these complex cases under judicial supervision,' said Jones.

Moves to extend the police's power to hold suspects will be dealt with in a security bill in the autumn.

Jones also admitted Acpo had discussed problems of control orders, used as a form of house arrest for suspects, with the government. 'Clearly it's an idea that does need a refreshed view on it. But the solution of doing nothing is not an option really,' he said of the orders, which have been criticised after a number of those supposedly under their control absconded. Jones's comments chime with those made by the man in charge of reviewing the government's terrorism laws. Lord Carlile of Berriew said problems with the immigration service and Passport Agency left terrorists free to move in and out of Britain.

The Observer can also reveal that the criminal convictions of the leader of the 21/7 bomb plot, Muktar Said Ibrahim, were not disclosed to the immigration authorities when he applied to remain in the UK. In 1996 Ibrahim, originally from Eritrea, was given two prison sentences to run concurrently, one for three years, the other for two, for handling stolen goods, sexual assault and robbery. But the offences were not revealed to officials when they granted him leave to remain in April 2000 - despite the fact they were still running.

· Police yesterday charged another two men, one in Australia and one in Britain, in connection with the failed car bomb attacks on London and Glasgow last month. Dr Sabeel Ahmed, 26, will appear in court in London tomorrow. Dr Mohammed Haneef, 27, has appeared before Brisbane magistrates.

    Lock terror suspects up indefinitely say police, O, 15.7.2007, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2126704,00.html

Britain Charges Doctor in Bomb Plot

July 14, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:42 p.m. ET
The New York Times

LONDON (AP) -- An Indian doctor arrested the same day his brother allegedly drove a Jeep into Glasgow's main airport was charged with a terrorism offense in Britain on Saturday. A distant cousin in Australia was also charged in the failed attacks in London and Glasgow.

Sabeel Ahmed, of Liverpool, became the third person to face charges in the alleged plot. He was charged with withholding information that could prevent an act of terrorism, police said in a statement. Ahmed appears in court in London on Monday.

Ahmed, 26, was arrested June 30 in Liverpool, and is the brother of Kafeel Ahmed, who is believed to have set himself ablaze after crashing into the airport and is in a Scottish hospital with critical burns.

Muhammad Haneef, 27, a distant cousin who once shared a house with the brothers in Britain, was charged Saturday in Brisbane, Australia, with supporting a terrorist group. Bilal Abdullah, a 27-year-old doctor, was charged last week by British police with conspiring to set off explosions.

Australian police charged Haneef with providing support to the bomb plot by giving his SIM card to Sabeel and Kafeel Ahmed when he left Britain for Australia in July 2006. Haneef faces a maximum of 15 years in prison if convicted.

Haneef was arrested July 2 while trying to leave the eastern city of Brisbane for India on a one-way ticket. Prosecutor Clive Porritt said Haneef would have known about the Ahmed brothers' alleged links to terrorism.

''These are people who he lived with, may have worked with, and certainly associated with,'' Porritt told the Brisbane Magistrates Court during a daylong bail hearing.

But defense lawyer Stephen Keim said Haneef only left the SIM card with Sabeel Ahmed so his cousin could take advantage of a special deal on his mobile phone plan.

''For some reason, he should have been aware that something was going to happen when the rest of the world didn't,'' Keim said. ''It is not suggested that he is anything other than a foolish dupe who should have been more suspicious.''

Two cars packed with gas cylinders and nails were discovered on June 29 in central London. The next day, the flaming Jeep Cherokee, loaded with gas canisters and gasoline, smashed into security barriers at the main terminal at Glasgow airport.

Eight people were detained in the days after the incidents. One of the eight, the only woman, was freed by British police Thursday. Three remain in custody without charge.

Also on Saturday, a British judge gave police until at least July 21 to continue questioning a Jordanian doctor in connection with failed car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow.

Dr. Mohammed Asha, 26, was detained on a northern England highway on June 30. His wife, Marwa Asha, was arrested on the same date and released Thursday without charge. Under British terrorism laws, police can hold him for a maximum of 28 days without charging him -- subject to regular court reviews.

Associated Press Writer Dennis Passa, in Brisbane, Australia, contributed to this report.

    Britain Charges Doctor in Bomb Plot, NYT, 14.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Britain-Terrorism.html?hp

Fear of Islamist recruiting in jails

· Special branch unit keeps watch on extremism
· Tube plotter and shoe bomber 'talent-scouted'

Saturday July 14, 2007
Guardian
Alan Travis, home affairs editor


As the four July 21 bomb plotters started their 40-year minimum sentences this week, a group of police special branch officers - the foot soldiers of the security services - based at Prison Service headquarters were quietly working to ensure that the failed bombers do not inspire a new generation of violent jihadists.

The kingpin or "emir" of the July 21 attacks, Mukhtar Said Ibrahim, had emerged from Feltham young offender institution in September 1998 at the age of 20 having rejected crime in favour of radical Islam, as had Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, before him.

A year ago prison officers voiced concerns that there was no official strategy in place to tackle al-Qaida operatives radicalising and recruiting alienated ethnic minority prisoners as well as young Muslims inside Britain's jails.

But as the number of people awaiting trial for terrorist offences reaches the 100 mark and prison governors contemplate a growing number of convicted prisoners facing long sentences on terror-related charges, the question of preventing radicalisation behind bars is being taken far more seriously.

Many of the operatives are described as "dangerous and highly capable" individuals who have dedicated their lives to radicalising younger and more vulnerable people in a process known as "talent-scouting". The special branch unit is stepping up its efforts to ensure there is a constant flow of intelligence from inside Britain's high security prisons to MI5 and to the local police in the communities the prisoners remain in contact with. A serious effort is going on to improve their knowledge of the radicalisation of prisoners.

A Prison Service spokesman confirmed that they were working to improve their awareness and understanding of radicalisation: "As numbers of extremists held in prison increase, staff are becoming more alert to the risks of radicalisation. We are never complacent and prison staff are encouraged to identify and report such activities."

Measures include security service vetting checks on the growing number of imams who provide religious and pastoral care in jails. A radical imam played a key role in the experiences of Ibrahim and Reid while they were in Feltham. At the same time the prison authorities are spending thousands of pounds translating all texts, including copies of the Qur'an, from Arabic to English to ensure they do not contain hidden messages. All the 36 imams working in prisons have to speak English and the Prison Service says that they are officially supported to ensure they are confident in confronting concerns about radicalisation.

The bill for holding the 100 suspects on remand awaiting trial - mainly in Belmarsh high security prison in London - is known to have reached £3m. The National Offender Management Service, which is responsible for prisons and probation, has told ministers that figure is likely to double in this financial year.

As well as the 100 awaiting trial, the officially published figures show that there are a further 40 who have been convicted of terrorist offences between 9/11 and the start of 2007 and another 180 serving sentences for terrorist-related offences.

The new justice secretary, Jack Straw, who visited Belmarsh this week, said that whatever happened with the overcrowding crisis the high security prisons in England would be able to "cope fully and adequately" with all terrorist suspects. At Belmarsh, Mr Straw toured the "prison within a prison" special secure unit, which currently holds 33 inmates, most awaiting trial, and seven recently convicted of terrorist offences.

Most of those convicted are in top security "dispersal" jails at Woodhill in Milton Keynes, Frankland, near Durham, Full Sutton, near York, and Long Lartin in Worcestershire. The radical preacher Abu Hamza is believed to have recently been moved to Long Lartin.

Although some of those convicted are in special units, many are held on normal category A wings alongside other inmates within the high security jails. The Home Office has always preferred to disperse its top security prisoners, for whom escape should be impossible.

    Fear of Islamist recruiting in jails, G, 14.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2126207,00.html

21/7 bomb plotters sentenced to life
as judge says they were under control of al-Qaida

· Four would-be attackers will serve at least 40 years
· Claim to be motivated by Iraq dismissed as cynical

Thursday July 12, 2007
Guardian
Duncan Campbell


The four men who tried to carry out mass murder in a suicide bomb attack in London on July 21 two years ago were clearly controlled and directed by al-Qaida, the judge who sentenced them to life imprisonment said yesterday.

Telling the men that they would not be considered for parole for at least 40 years, Mr Justice Fulford dismissed as cynical their claims to have been motivated by the war in Iraq.

Muktar Said Ibrahim, the ringleader of the plot to attack the capital's transport system, and his fellow plotters Yassin Omar, Ramzi Mohammed and Hussein Osman were all convicted on Monday of conspiring to murder and cause explosions.

The four men sat impassively in the dock at Woolwich crown court in south-east London as they were jailed.

Speaking to a packed court, Mr Justice Fulford said: "It is clear that at least 50 people would have died, hundreds of people would have been wounded, thousands would have had their lives permanently damaged, disfigured or otherwise.

"The family and friends of the dead and the injured, the hundreds, indeed thousands, captured underground in terrifying circumstances - the smoke, the screams of the wounded and the dying - this each defendant knew.

"They planned this, they prepared for it. They had spent many hours making viable bombs. After 7/7, each defendant knew exactly what the result would be."

The judge called for a review of the law governing trials in the light of two defendants who attempted to "cynically manipulate" the court process and extended the length of the trial by months.

Also singled out for criticism by the judge was the law firm Arani and Co, which represented Ibrahim and Omar. Mudassar Arani, the lawyer who started the firm, was also criticised during the trial by one of the defence barristers. Mr Justice Fulford said that the firm had launched "a relentless and blistering attack" on the staff at Belmarsh prison, claiming that they had been to blame for the late service of defence statements.

"I consider these complaints to be wholly unjustified," said the judge.

Ms Arani, who has represented a number of other defendants in terror cases, including the cleric Abu Hamza, was in court to hear the judge's words. She declined to comment on any of the criticisms as she left court.

The judge dismissed the men's claims that they had not meant their bombs to explode but had intended them to be a protest as "a tissue of lies". Their actions had been in complete contradiction of the teachings of "one of the world's leading religions" despite what the men claimed.

Ibrahim's counsel, George Carter-Stephenson QC, told the court that his client's motivation was "due to the war in Iraq and the presence of British troops there". The judge dismissed the Iraq link, saying that Ibrahim had been engaged in weapons training in 2003 before the war had started, and references to the war had been nothing more than a "cynical" attempt to gain purchase with the jury.

Dismissing pleas for clemency for Osman and Mohammed as having played smaller parts in the plot, Mr Justice Fulford said that they all entered into the conspiracy with their "eyes wide open - this was a long-term plot in which they all participated."

The judge also ordered a retrial in the cases of two co-defendants, Manfo Kwaku Asiedu and Aden Yahya, about whom the jury had been unable to reach a decision. It is likely to take place before the end of the year in front of Mr Justice Calvert-Smith.

"The failed bomb attack did not lead to mass panic, quite the contrary," said the judge in a lengthy overview of the case after the men had been taken back to their cells in Belmarsh prison, which adjoins the court.

"No one was killed or injured in any stampede to get away from any of the four targeted areas and instead Londoners dealt with those frightening events in a dignified and responsible way."

Mr Justice Fulford also issued an appeal that the case should not be allowed to create problems for the Muslim community. "Some members of the Muslim community will inevitably fear that trials of this kind may reflect badly on their community as a whole," he said. "Those fears should be shown ... to be groundless."

He said that the trial should, in fact, help to achieve the opposite effect as many Muslims had "come forward courageously to give evidence when they would have preferred not to do so".

Praising those who intervened at the time of the attacks, he singled out Angus Campbell, who confronted Mohammed, not knowing whether his bomb was capable of being detonated, and Arthur Burton-Garbett, 72, who pursued him through Oval underground station "with determination and fearlessness, to say nothing of impressive speed".

Outside the court, Mr Burton-Garbett, said: "I don't call myself a hero. Heroics had nothing to do with it."

Of the would-be bombers he said: "They got what they deserved. I think the judge was chillingly accurate with what he said and I don't think he gave them a day too long."

    21/7 bomb plotters sentenced to life as judge says they were under control of al-Qaida, G, 12.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2124215,00.html

1.15pm update

Four July 21 plotters jailed for life

Wednesday July 11, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Peter Walker and agencies

The four convicted July 21 bombers were today jailed for life for an al-Qaida-led plot to murder dozens of people on London's public transport network.

Muktar Said Ibrahim, Yassin Omar, Ramzi Mohammed and Hussain Osman could not be considered for release for 40 years, judge Mr Justice Fulford QC said.

Their plan had been "a viable, indeed a very nearly successful, attempt at mass murder", he told Woolwich crown court in south-east London.

"It is clear that at least 50 people would have died, hundreds of people would have been wounded.

"Thousands would have had their lives permanently damaged, disfigured or otherwise, whether they were Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, agnostic or atheist."

The plot not only mirrored the attack on July 7, two weeks earlier - when four suicide bombers killed themselves and 52 other people on a bus and three tubes trains - but was clearly connected to it, the judge added.

"I have no doubt that they were both part of an al-Qaida-inspired and controlled sequence of attacks," Mr Justice Fulford said.

The trial had heard how Ibrahim, the ringleader of the plot, had been in Pakistan at the same time as two of the July 7 bombers. This was "no coincidence, in my view", the judge said.

"It seems to me that not only did the defendant do this with the full knowledge of what had happened on July 7, but that their preparations were organised as part of a parallel but separate team," he added.

Having seen the results of the July 7 attacks, the four plotters "knew exactly what the result" of their own attack would be, the judge noted.

"The family and friends of the dead and the injured, the hundreds, indeed thousands, captured underground in terrifying circumstances - the smoke, the screams of the wounded and the dying - this each defendant knew."

On Monday, Ibrahim, 29, of Stoke Newington, north London; 26-year-old Omar, of New Southgate, north London; Mohammed, 25, of North Kensington, west London; and 28-year-old Osman, of no fixed address, were found guilty of conspiracy to murder after a six-month trial.

As the sentences were read out, Ibrahim shook his head slightly, Omar stared at the judge and Osman clutched a Qur'an. Only Mohammed appeared to be trying to contain his emotions.

The jury was discharged yesterday after failing to reach a decision on two other defendants, Manfo Kwaku Asiedu and Adel Yahya, both of whom deny conspiracy to murder.

Mr Asiedu, 34, of no fixed address, and 24-year-old Mr Yahya, of Tottenham, north London, will face a retrial, prosecutors said today.

None of the four convicted men's homemade hydrogen peroxide and chapatti flour bombs, which were carried in rucksacks, detonated properly. The judge said that, after hearing scientific evidence about why the bombs failed, his view was that the plot had come "very close to succeeding".

Ibrahim insisted the bombs were never intended to hurt anyone and were meant to be a protest against the Iraq war. However, the Crown Prosecution Service today said it was clear that the four men had planned to "kill and main on a massive scale".

"They could have been in no doubt as to the consequences of their actions," Susan Hemming, head of the CPS counterterrorism division, told reporters outside the court.

Ibrahim, who admitted making the bombs, grew up in Eritrea and came to the UK in 1990. He attempted to blow up a bus in Shoreditch, east London.

Police and intelligence agencies have faced criticism over the fact that he was able to lead the plot despite having come to their attention several times beforehand.

At various points in 2004, he was photographed by surveillance officers while on a camping trip in the Lake District, was arrested for distributing extremist Islamist literature and was stopped by Special Branch officers on his way to Pakistan.

Somali-born Omar tried to detonate his bomb on a tube train near Warren Street station, in central London. It was his north London flat that was used by the plotters as a base in which to make the bombs.

Mohammed, also originally from Somalia, claimed he had only been forced into the plot at the last minute.

He attempted to blow up a carriage on a tube train near Stockwell station, in south London, and was pictured on CCTV footage turning so that his bomb faced a woman and her nine-month-old son before trying to set it off.

Osman, who was born in Ethiopia and came to the UK via Italy, tried to detonate his bomb close to Shepherd's Bush station, in west London.

The four were arrested in the days and weeks following the attempted attacks, Ibrahim and Mohammed at the latter's west London flat, Omar in Birmingham and Osman in Italy.

    Four July 21 plotters jailed for life, G, 11.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2123749,00.html

11am update

Pair face retrial over July 21 bomb plot

Wednesday July 11, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Peter Walker and agencies

Two men accused of involvement in the July 21 London bombing plot will be retried after jurors failed to reach a verdict on their cases, prosecutors said today.

The jury, at Woolwich crown court, in south-east London, was dismissed yesterday after being unable to agree on the cases of Manfo Kwaku Asiedu and Adel Yahya, both of whom deny conspiracy to murder.

The two men will be tried again, the crown prosecutor, Nigel Sweeney QC, told the court today.

On Monday, four other men were convicted of plotting to blow up three tube trains and a bus in London on July 21 2005. The failed attacks came two weeks after suicide bombers killed themselves and 52 other people on the capital's transport system.

Muktar Said Ibrahim, Yassin Omar, Ramzi Mohammed and Hussain Osman were today sentenced to life and will each serve a minimum of 40 years in prison.

During the six month trial, the prosecution alleged that 34-year-old Mr Asiedu, of no fixed address, was a fifth would-be bomber but had dumped his device in parkland at Wormwood Scrubs, west London. He arrived in the UK from Ghana in 2003.

According to the prosecution, the sixth defendant, 24-year-old Mr Yahya, of Tottenham, north London, was "involved, at the least of it, taking part in some of the essential preparation done in furtherance of the conspiracy".

Mr Yahya was born in Ethiopia in 1982 and lived in Yemen before coming to live with an aunt and uncle in north London. He left the UK six weeks before the attacks, returning to Ethiopia.

The trial heard how Ibrahim, Omar, Mohammed and Osman attempted to set off home made bombs on a bus and tube trains in the centre, south and west of London.

However, their hydrogen peroxide and chapatti flour devices, carried in rucksacks, failed to detonate properly and nobody was injured. The court was told how the plot appeared to be linked to the July 7 attacks.

Police and intelligence agencies have faced criticism over the fact that Ibrahim led the plot despite having come to their attention several times beforehand.

At various points in 2004, he was photographed by surveillance officers while on a camping trip in the Lake District, was arrested for distributing extremist Islamist literature and was stopped by Special Branch officers on his way to Pakistan.

Ibrahim, 29, of Stoke Newington, north London, 26-year-old Omar, of New Southgate, north London, Mohammed, 25, of North Kensington, west London, and 28-year-old Osman, of no fixed address, were all found guilty of conspiracy to murder.

    Pair face retrial over July 21 bomb plot, G, 11.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2123625,00.html

Al-Qaida's deputy leader threatens retaliation for Rushdie's knighthood

· Audio message addresses Gordon Brown directly
· Award not meant to insult Muslims, says UK official

Wednesday July 11, 2007
Guardian
Ian Black in Cairo


Osama bin Laden's deputy warned Gordon Brown yesterday that Britain would be hit with "a very precise response" in retaliation for the knighthood given to the novelist Salman Rushdie.

Ayman al-Zawahiri, the number two in al-Qaida, made the threat in an audio tape produced by the organisation's media wing, as-Sahhab, and distributed to jihadi websites yesterday.

The Egyptian's 20-minute speech was entitled Malicious Britain and its Indian Slaves and was monitored by Site, a US-based group.

Zawahiri, deliverer of most recent al-Qaida messages, accused Britain of defying the Muslim world by honouring the author of The Satanic Verses, who was deemed to have insulted Islam.

Addressing the prime minister, he said: "The policy of your predecessor has brought tragedy and defeat upon you, not only in Afghanistan and Iraq but also in the centre of London.

"And if you did not understand, listen, we are ready to repeat it for you, with the permission of Allah. We are sure that you have quite understood it."

Diaa Rashwan, an expert on jihadi groups at Cairo's al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, said: "This is part of an attempt to encourage the al-Qaida franchise, not an operational order. I don't think it exists any more as a centralised organisation. Zawahiri and Bin Laden often threaten individual countries."

A Downing Street spokesman, while not responding directly to Zawahiri's remarks, said last night: "As the prime minister has said we will not allow terrorists to undermine the British way of life. The British people will remain united, resolute and strong."

The Foreign Office said that it would maintain efforts to thwart terrorists. A spokesman said: "We will continue to tackle the threat from international terrorism as a priority in order to prevent the risk of attacks on British interests at home and overseas, including from al-Qaida.

"These terrorists care nothing for the peoples of the Middle East, Iraq and Afghanistan. Al-Qaida has been killing civilians of all faiths, including many fellow Muslims, for years."

Intelligence experts believe Zawahiri is in Afghanistan or in a rugged border area of Pakistan. The image of him used to accompany this latest message was identical to one used in a Sahhab release last month, marking 40 years since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

The message was his ninth this year. His most recent videotape, which lasted 95 minutes, appeared only last week, suggesting an attempt to step up propaganda efforts. That singled out the al-Yamamah defence contract between Britain and Saudi Arabia.

Zawahiri suggested Rushdie's knighthood was motivated by anger, claiming the Queen and Tony Blair meant to tell Muslims that though British forces may be defeated in Iraq and Afghanistan, they can take revenge by cursing their prophet.

The Foreign Office reiterated that the award was purely in recognition of his literary achievements. "The government have already made clear that Rushdie's honour was not intended as an insult to Islam or the prophet Muhammad," the spokesman said. "It was a reflection of his contribution to literature throughout a long and distinguished career."

Zawahiri also attacked Hamas for accepting Saudi mediation to broker a deal with the rival Fatah movement and railed against Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, declaring that opposition to him should not be through "farcical" elections, but by supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan. Ominously he praised a car bomb attack which killed six Spanish UN peacekeepers in south Lebanon last month. He warned that "those who conspire against jihad and the mujahideen in Lebanon ... must start to dig their graves with their own hands."

"The Jews and the Americans are not from the planet Mars, but they are on our borders and in our land with their gear, equipment, and numbers," he said. The answer was to confront these enemies with "jihad and unity", he said.

Backstory

Ayman al-Zawahiri is Osama bin Laden's deputy and regarded as the strategic brains behind al-Qaida. A qualified surgeon, he was born in Egypt in 1951. He joined the Muslim Brotherhood at the age of 14 but then moved on to the more radical Islamic Jihad where he became a prominent organiser. He was one of hundreds arrested following the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. In the 1980s he went to Afghanistan to join the mujahideen resistance against the Soviet Union's occupation. There he met Bin Laden. In 1998 he formally merged Egyptian Islamic Jihad into al-Qaida and, with Bin Laden, issued a joint fatwa with the title World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders. Since the US invasion of Afghanistan, al-Zawahiri's whereabouts are unknown, but he is generally thought to be in tribal Pakistan.

    Al-Qaida's deputy leader threatens retaliation for Rushdie's knighthood, G, 11.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/story/0,,2123444,00.html

2.30pm

Police condemn 'ridiculous' lies of July 21 plotters

Tuesday July 10, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Peter Walker and agencies


The four men convicted of plotting to blow up London commuters on July 21 2005 planned the attack at great length and told "blatant, ridiculous" lies in their attempts to evade justice, the UK's leading counter-terrorism police officer said today.

Muktar Said Ibrahim, Yassin Omar, Ramzi Mohammed and Hussein Osman had "obviously set out to replicate the horrors that had been inflicted on Londoners on July 7 2005", said Deputy Assistant Constable Peter Clarke, head of the Metropolitan police's counter-terrorism command.

The four were yesterday found guilty of conspiracy to murder after a six-month trial detailed their plot to detonate home-made bombs on three tube trains and a bus in attacks mirroring the events of July 7, when four suicide bombers and 52 of their victims died.

No one was injured on July 21 after the four devices, carried in rucksacks, failed to detonate.

The jury was unable to reach verdicts in the cases of two other defendants, Manfo Kwaku Asiedu and Adel Yahya. The pair face a possible retrial.

Ibrahim, the leader of the plot, admitted making the bombs using hydrogen peroxide and chapatti flour. But he said the devices were fakes intended as a protest against the Iraq war.

Mr Clarke, however, stressed today that the plot was elaborate and deadly in its intent.

"This was no spur-of-the-moment plan. It had been hatched over several months," he said.

"They failed to set off their bombs - not through want of trying - but no one will forget the impact or the consequences of what they did, coming just two weeks after 52 innocent people had been murdered by other terrorists.

"Despite the carnage of July 7, on July 21 the public responded courageously and without thought for their own safety."

Mr Clarke praised in particular the "incredible courage" of Angus Campbell, an off-duty fireman who challenged Mohammed at Oval tube station in south London.

"And we can reflect on the selfless actions of other members of the public as they tried to restrain or chase the terrorists," he added. "The convictions show that the jury rejected the blatant, indeed ridiculous lies told by these defendants in a futile attempt to escape justice.

"These men are dedicated terrorists who no longer pose a danger to the public. But recent events have shown that the threat from terrorism is, at the moment, ever present."

    Police condemn 'ridiculous' lies of July 21 plotters, G, 10.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2123011,00.html

Burned UK Suspect Unlikely to Survive

July 10, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:26 a.m. ET
The New York Times

EDINBURGH, Scotland (AP) -- A man who was set ablaze and later wrestled to the ground by police in a failed terrorist attack on Scotland's busiest airport is unlikely to survive his severe burns, a doctor who treated him said Tuesday.

Kafeel Ahmed, 27, allegedly crashed a Jeep Cherokee into the Glasgow airport on June 30, a day after police found two unexploded car bombs in central London.

''The prognosis is not good and he is not likely to survive,'' a member of the medical team that treated him at the Royal Alexandra Hospital near Glasgow said on condition of anonymity because details about patients are not to be made public.

''He has third-degree burns over most of his torso and limbs. It is beyond repair and because he has lost so much skin, he is now vulnerable to infection and won't be able to fight it,'' the doctor said.

Prosecutors suspect Bilal Abdullah, a 27-year-old doctor born in Britain and raised in Iraq, and Ahmed, an aeronautical engineer from India, carried out the attempted bombings in London before returning to Scotland -- where Abdullah worked at a Glasgow-area hospital -- and attacking the airport. Abdullah is so far the only suspect to have been charged.

Ahmed was initially treated at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, where Abdullah worked as a diabetes specialist. He was transferred under sedation to the Glasgow Royal Infirmary in the early hours of Monday in an intensive care ambulance.

Ahmed is under constant armed police guard. The medical team member who discussed his condition could not confirm if police had been able to question him.

A spokeswoman for the Greater Glasgow Health Board, speaking on the condition of anonymity according to Scottish government practice, would only say: ''The patient remains in police custody and his condition remains critical.''

A police spokeswoman would not confirm if Ahmed had been questioned. ''We are not releasing anything about this person at the moment,'' she said.

In Bangalore, India, officials confirmed that Ahmed had worked there as an aeronautical engineer at a company contracted by the biggest names in aviation.

Ahmed worked for Infotech Enterprises, a large outsourcing firm, from December 2005 to August 2006, said the company spokesman K.S. Susindar.

Infotech works with Boeing and Airbus, among others -- possibly giving Ahmed access to sensitive design information from the companies.

Susindar declined to comment on whether Ahmed had access to design secrets or what projects he worked on.

''He was a sincere employee and from what I can gather, he gave no problems whatsoever,'' Susindar said.

The services Infotech offered its clients was not immediately clear, but most of the aviation work outsourced to Indian companies includes software support for cabin lighting, display of information in the cockpit, in-flight entertainment and communication.

In some cases, it could involve designing software for flight control systems, navigation and surveillance.

A spokeswoman for Boeing declined to comment. Calls to aircraft engine makers Pratt & Whitney were not immediately returned, nor were calls to Airbus.

Sabeel Ahmed, 26, Kafeel's brother, is being held in Liverpool as a suspect in the alleged plot. Sabeel, who worked as a doctor, and Kafeel are among eight people held in the case.

A third Indian, Mohammad Haneef, is being held in Australia for questioning.

Australian police said they would likely ask for more time to detain Haneef without charge.

Haneef started his second week in custody Tuesday, as criticism grew that Australia's new counterterrorism laws had left him in indefinite legal limbo. Haneef's lawyer said he would likely challenge any further extension to his detention.

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty said police would seek another extension is necessary.

''We asked for a period of time that we thought that was reasonable in terms of the amount of work that we envisaged needs to be done before we can be in a position to decide one way or the other about Dr. Haneef's fate,'' Keelty told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio Tuesday.

An Australian federal police agent has gone to India to continue the investigation, said a spokeswoman for the AFP, speaking on a condition of anonymity in line with agency policy.

She would not say where the officer went, but she said the officer would be working with Indian officials.

The case emerged June 29, when two cars packed with gas cylinders and nails were discovered in London's entertainment district. The next day, the flaming Jeep smashed into security barriers at the main terminal at Glasgow airport.

The Hindustan Times reported that investigators in Bangalore were looking for anything that might link the Ahmed brothers to terrorist acts in India. It said there was evidence suggesting Abdullah had visited Bangalore to meet with the two.

Associated Press writers Meraiah Foley in Sydney, Australia, and Muneeza Naqvi in Bangalore, India, contributed to this report.

    Burned UK Suspect Unlikely to Survive, NYT, 10.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Britain-Terrorism.html

21/7 bombers: ringleader slipped through police net

Security services face criticism as four convicted of failed attacks

Tuesday July 10, 2007
Guardian
Sandra Laville

Anti-terrorist police and MI5 were under pressure last night to explain how the ringleader of the July 21 suicide bomb plot slipped through their net despite being captured on surveillance photographs more than 12 months before the attempted attacks on London.

Renewed scrutiny of Britain's intelligence services followed the conviction of Muktar Said Ibrahim, 29, who was found guilty of conspiracy to murder at Woolwich crown court. Three others, Hussain Osman, 26, Ramzi Mohammed, 25, and Yassin Omar, 26, were found guilty on the same charge by unanimous verdicts.

Ibrahim, who was known to the others as the "emir", was the brains behind the scheme to carry out a suicide mission on the capital's transport network, the court heard. The jury was told that he may have attended the same training camp in Pakistan as Mohammed Siddique Khan, the ringleader of the July 7 attacks; the two were in the country at the same time in 2005.

The devices used by the 21/7 plotters were made of hydrogen peroxide, as were those used in the July 7 attacks. Such bombs had never been seen before in Britain.

During the six-month trial, the jurors learned that the security services and the police had the ringleader on their radar at least a year before the failed bombings.

· The court heard that in May 2004, Ibrahim encouraged his three friends to join him at a jihadi training camp in the Lake District which was subject to surveillance by anti-terrorist police. The men were captured in the surveillance photographs but there was no follow-up investigation.

· In August 2004, Ibrahim was captured on surveillance photographs taken outside Finsbury Park mosque in London.

· In October 2004 Ibrahim was arrested in Oxford Street after scuffling with a policeman who intervened as he was handing out extremist literature. He was charged with a public order offence and was due in court in December 2004. When he failed to turn up, an arrest warrant was issued which was outstanding in February 2005, five months before the July attacks.

· In December 2004 Special Branch officers stopped him at Heathrow and questioned him for three hours before allowing him to board a plane to Islamabad. He and two associates were carrying thousands of pounds in cash, a military first aid kit and a manual on ballistics. The other two men are missing believed dead fighting jihad.

According to prosecutors, at the time he should have been in court Ibrahim was at a training camp in Pakistan learning the skills to carry out a suicide bomb attack in Britain.

· In February 2005, police were seeking Ibrahim on an arrest warrant outstanding for the October public order offence and sent a letter to his London address saying: "Call us, before we call you."

Although the four attempted to blow themselves up a fortnight after the July 7 suicide bombs in which 52 people died, their plot had been nearly a year in the making and was not simply a copycat attack, the court was told.

In their late teens and early 20s they came into contact with the radical cleric Abu Hamza, who is serving seven years in jail. Under Hamza's guidance they honed their extremist views, reading radical literature, watching videos of beheadings, the September 11 attacks and the murder of Daniel Pearl to stoke their beliefs.

Ibrahim had also trained for jihad in Sudan in 2003 and boasted to a friend on his return that he had been taught how to use rocket-propelled grenades.

David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said yesterday: "This trial has revealed that the ringleader in the 21/7 plot was allowed to leave the country to train at a camp in Pakistan and return to plan and attempt the attack on 21/7. This was despite the fact that he was facing criminal charges for extremism. When will the government answer our call to establish a dedicated UK border police force to secure our porous borders?"

A Metropolitan police spokesman defended Ibrahim's treatment, saying he was on bail and not a wanted man when he left for Pakistan.

He was facing a minor charge under the Public Order Act, which would not feature on the database for immigration checks, he said.

A security source told the Guardian that many lessons had been learned since the July 2005 attacks. He said figures who were peripheral to other investigations were constantly reassessed today.

"This just wouldn't happen now," he said, pointing to the system of control orders, the 2006 Terrorism Act, which covers activities alleged to be in preparation for attacks, and an increase in resources. "The understanding of the problem is better," added a senior Whitehall official.

The jury is still deliberating on the two other defendants, Adel Yahya and Manfo Kwaku Asiedu.

    21/7 bombers: ringleader slipped through police net, G, 10.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2122629,00.html

How CCTV helped snare failed terrorists

Tuesday July 10, 2007
Guardian
Karen McVeigh

Soon after the failed July 21 bombings, grainy CCTV images of those suspected of carrying out the attacks were released by police. In each case, they caught a moment of escape and, along with eyewitness reports by commuters, provided crucial identification evidence that would lead to the would-be bombers' capture.

Ramzi Mohammed, 25, the failed Oval attacker, was seen fleeing the scene wearing a distinctive "New York" sweatshirt. Police also seized film of him being confronted and chased by commuters after he tried to blow himself up on a tube train.

In one of the most chilling pieces of footage seen by the jury, Mohammed attempts to detonate his charge with his backpack facing a mother and young child. Moments, later passengers are seen running to the other side of a carriage, while an off-duty firefighter challenges him.

The film showed him running up the down escalator past Underground staff and then into the street pursued by the station florist. He was seen fleeing to a nearby estate, where he threw away his distinctive top. Police were to catch up with him a week later, in a flat in West London.

Yassin Omar, 26, who boarded a Victoria line train before trying to blow it up near Warren Street station, was heard shouting in pain and one woman saw him being thrown into the air. Dumping his rucksack, he fled with wires trailing from a hole in his T-shirt. He sprinted from the station then stopped to ask for help from two Muslim women. When one refused to take him home, Omar fired back: "What type of Muslim are you?"

He later fled London for Birmingham disguised as a woman in a burka he had taken from his mother-in-law, but, once again cameras caught him. CCTV footage from the day after the attack showed a 6ft 2in figure in a long black robe passing through Golders Green coach station and stepping off at Digbeth in Birmingham several hours later, his tall frame standing out in woman's clothing.

Omar was recognised from the images by school friend Steven Bentley and he was arrested just six days after July 21.

A specialist firearms officer who gave evidence at the trial, described the moment police caught up with Omar and almost shot him dead. When they stormed the house, they found him standing in a bath, fully clothed and wearing a backpack. "In all honesty, I still don't know to this day how I did not shoot him," said the officer, describing how his submachine gun was trained on Omar's head.

Hussain Osman, 28, who failed to detonate his bomb on a tube train approaching Shepherds Bush, fled the scene by running along the track. He then went through a house and boarded a bus where he was captured on CCTV - again a crucial breakthrough in identifying him.

Osman arrived in Brighton then headed for Rome via the Paris Eurostar. He evaded detection by using his brother's passport. But security services in the UK and Italy were able to trace him by analysis of the movements of his mobile phone - leading to his eventual arrest on July 29.

Muktar Said Ibrahim, 29, was also captured on CCTV. Footage showed him arriving at Stockwell station at 12.30pm before boarding a Northern line tube heading towards the City. Ditching his plan to blow up the tube, he got out at Bank station and went to a bus stop, letting two buses pass before boarding the No 26, where he detonated his bomb. Ibrahim fled amid the chaos, but having gone to ground with Mohammed in Delgarno Gardens, west Kensington, he was found on July 29.

Earlier in the week, a bomb factory had been discovered in New Southgate, north London and police feared there could be explosives inside the Kensington flat.

One firearms officer described how, as armed officers surrounded the flat, he feared the worst. "If escape was not an option for him our biggest fear was that he would detonate an explosion to take us and himself out."

He ordered the door to be blown and CS gas to be thrown in the front door. After more CS gas was fired into the flat, came the scene that would be broadcast around the world.

Stumbling, their eyes weeping from the gas, Ibrahim and Mohammed, came out onto the balcony, their hands in the air, dressed only in their underpants.

    How CCTV helped snare failed terrorists, G, 10.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2122634,00.html

A potent mix of routine ingredients aimed to kill

Tuesday July 10, 2007
Guardian
Vikram Dodd


The jury in the July 21 terror trial heard that the bombs would have caused carnage had they exploded as intended on London's transport system.

It was only a combination of bad science, luck and miscalculations by the bombers that stopped them going off.

According to a government forensic scientist, Claire McGavigan, they could have sent lethal shrapnel travelling at "hundreds of metres a second". The bombs were made of high-strength hydrogen peroxide mixed with chapati flour in the kitchen of Yassin Omar's flat in north London, the court heard.

Ms McGavigan, a leading explosives expert in the UK, told the court the devices were new to her but they were as powerful as high explosives, such as gelignite and TNT. She said: "Before July 2005 we had never had this type of material submitted to our laboratory."

She said the main charge was a secondary high explosive of equivalent strength to gelignite and that the devastating effects of the devices would have been made only worse by screws and tacks taped to the outside - "embedding" themselves into the skin of anyone nearby.

"There would be serious damage to the train itself, there would also be serious injuries, quite possibly death to people in the area at the time," she told the court.

"If they did not suffer death, serious injuries such as injuries to internal organs, loss of limbs, effects on your hearing - very serious injuries indeed."

Ms McGavigan was asked why the main charge had not gone off when the bombs were detonated. "The most likely reason for this was that the initiator [detonator] ... wasn't actually powerful enough to set off the main charge."

Mukhtar Ibrahim's counsel, George Carter-Stephenson QC, told Woolwich crown court: "The positive case is that all the devices were constructed in the same way, Mr Ibrahim being principally responsible for their construction."

The court also heard that Ibrahim's aim was to cause an attack bigger than the July 7 attacks that killed 52 people.

In April 2005, the men bought ingredients for six bombs and started to turn Omar's flat at 58 Curtis House, New Southgate, into a bomb factory.

They bought 443 litres of hydrogen peroxide from three hairdresser suppliers in London - Sally's in Finchley, Pak in Finsbury Park and Hair Way in Tottenham - for £550. To create the detonators they are said to have bought lightbulbs and batteries from Maplin's in Finchley.

In the kitchen of the flat, the men concentrated the hydrogen peroxide by boiling it, the court heard. They created the detonators out of high-strength hydrogen peroxide mixed with acetone - nail varnish remover - and acid.

The detonators were placed in tubes of cardboard, the court heard. Opening the case, Nigel Sweeney QC said the bulb was put in one end, and wires ran from the bulb to a battery connector set up to create a charge and cause the detonator to explode; each device was packed inside a plastic tub. As he showed a replica of the bomb to the jury, Mr Sweeney said there was no doubt that it was functional.

He showed videos of three tests of similar bombs at the forensic explosives laboratory in Kent. The slow motion footage seen by jurors showed a huge blast, a mushroom cloud and shock waves from the centre of the explosion.

    A potent mix of routine ingredients aimed to kill, G, 10.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2122632,00.html

Four who turned on home that gave them refuge

Would-be bombers enjoyed western lifestyle before becoming radicalised

Tuesday July 10, 2007
Guardian
Sandra Laville, crime correspondent

Imam Sayed Bukhari was leaving his mosque when the angry young man approached him. "I want to talk to you," he said. When the imam refused, Yassin Omar turned on his heel, shouting a warning: "Stop misleading the people, imam."

What had incensed him so much was a sermon in which Imam Bukhari told his congregation in Finchley, north London, that suicide bombings were against the teachings of Islam.

A few months later Yassin Omar showed Imam Bukhari just what he thought of his words. Strapping a rucksack filled with 5kg of high explosive on to his back, he boarded a tube and attempted to detonate a hydrogen peroxide bomb at Warren Street station.

His three friends did the same; sending a succinct message of hate to the society that had given them refuge as children from the wars gripping Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea.

The July 21 bombers were a motley crew; a drug taker and thief, a travelling salesman, a disillusioned student and a keen football fan, all united in their commitment to extremism, the court was told.

Omar had escaped the civil war in Somalia, where he was born on New Year's Day in 1981, and arrived in the UK via Kenya with his two sisters, Salma and Miriam, in 1992.

As a 12-year-old refugee he received the support of the social services and was placed with an experienced foster couple, Bernice Campbell and Stephen Lamb, both committed Christians, at their home in Winchmore Hill, north London.

Mr Lamb said he was a bright young boy but perhaps not surprisingly was unwilling to talk about his past in Somalia, where his parents are thought to have been killed. As he grew up, Omar began pushing the boundaries and showing a growing disrespect for women.

"His sisters weren't able to discipline him because he was a male and of higher social standing," said Mr Lamb. "Bernice had reservations about him. He wasn't comfortable with rules, boundaries, if they were set by her."

Omar's foster parents sent him to the local comprehensive, Aylward School, where he showed an early talent for football. As he entered his teens, Omar hooked up with another pupil, Matthew Dixon, and the pair became friendly with Steven Bentley, a boy from a nearby school.

The teenagers spent most of their spare time playing football, going to the cinema and clubbing. But Dixon and Bentley said in court that Omar became noticeably more religious when he left school at 16. With his two GCSEs Omar went to study for a GNVQ in intermediate science at Enfield College. At the same time Omar's respite with his foster parents who had a steadying effect on his life, came to an end.

At 18, as a "vulnerable young adult" he was provided with benefits and given a council flat on the ninth floor of Curtis House, New Southgate, by Enfield borough council. Living on state handouts, Omar, who was given indefinite leave to remain in the UK in 2000, used his flat as a hangout for his friends.

On the shelves in the flat, tucked alongside Hollywood films such as The Shawshank Redemption and CDs of Pure Garage 2 and Michael Bolton, Omar's new interest in extremist Islam was becoming more evident, the court heard.

He built a library of DVDs and videotapes which contained violent images of fighting in Chechnya, beheadings and killings and the extremist rantings of two London-based clerics, Abu Hamza and Sheikh Abdullah al-Faisal. Omar read the literature, watched the films and steeped himself in the hate-fuelled beliefs of Hamza and Faisal. He told his brother-in-law the 9/11 attacks were a "good thing" and began attending Finsbury Park mosque to see Hamza preach, staying behind to talk to the imam after Friday prayers.

Five years before the July 21 attacks, Omar met fellow Hamza devotee, Mukhtar Said Ibrahim, while playing football in a Muslim league in north London.

With his parents and family, Ibrahim had fled war-torn Eritrea in 1990 at the age of 12. The family lived in Harrow where the young boy fell into the company of a street gang and started drinking and smoking cannabis.

A pupil at Kingsway School, King's Cross, Ibrahim was a dull, almost backward young boy. At 15 he and another gang member attacked a 15-year-old schoolgirl, forcing her up an alleyway at Queensberry Circus in Wembley where Ibrahim pushed her against the wall, fondled her breasts and rubbed his groin against her, the court heard. A few months later Ibrahim left school with two GCSEs and started a course in leisure and tourism at Harrow Weald College.

Within three months, Ibrahim was in trouble with the police again after attacking and robbing a 77-year-old woman at Southgate tube station at midnight in April 1995. Less than a month later, he joined in a gang robbery of two men in Hertfordshire, in which one victim was threatened with a knife and a bottle, the court heard. For both attacks he was sentenced to five years in a young offenders' institution.

Inside the crammed confines of Feltham and other institutions at Bedford, Henley-on-Thames and Milton Keynes, Ibrahim came into contact with radical imams.

Like Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, Ibrahim emerged from Feltham in September 1998 at the age of 20, having rejected crime in favour of extremist Islam.

He lived in a council flat in Stoke Newington, paid for with housing benefit, and spent his time hanging out with Omar and his friends and visiting Finsbury Park, the court heard. While claiming unemployment benefits, he earned money working in fast-food restaurants and selling African handbags on Dalston market. He also forged immigration documents for himself and others.

It was at Finsbury Park mosque that Ibrahim and his friends met the other two would-be bombers, Ramzi Mohammed and Hussein Osman.

Osman was born Isaac Adus Hamdi in Ethiopia in 1978. He and his family fled to Italy in the 80s, before Osman and another brother came to the UK in 1996, falsely claiming that he was from Somalia in order to gain asylum.

As a teenager, he became best friends with Ramzi Mohammed and for a while both men enjoyed a normal western lifestyle of parties, clubs and girlfriends.

He survived on benefits and was a regular at Stockwell Green mosque. But increasingly Osman was drawn to a more radical message, collecting videos of hostages being killed, including footage of the American journalist Daniel Pearl being beheaded and the speeches of Osama bin Laden, the court heard.

Osman became an increasingly devout follower of Hamza, and a year before the July 21 attacks revealed his extremist streak when he and others from Finsbury Park attempted to take over Stockwell mosque. Police were called by the mosque trustees but there was no attempt to investigate Osman.

Ramzi Mohammed, who was born in Somalia in August 1981, fled his homeland with his younger brother for the UK in 1998, at the age of 17. The brothers were taken in by social services in Slough, Berkshire, and supported by a Notting Hill-based charity, the Rugby Portobello Trust. Living in Hayes, near Slough, he was a typical teenager who enjoyed football, going out to clubs and dating girls.

He met his now wife, Azeb, when he was 19 and moved in with her. Mohammed had two children with Azeb, a Swedish Christian, and worked as a barman in Waterloo station. But by the time Azeb was giving birth to their second child in 2003, he had fallen under the spell of his friend Osman, and the preacher Hamza, the court heard.

Mohammed was spotted by police surveillance officers at the cleric's street sermons outside Finsbury Park mosque on January 9, January 23 and August 6 2004, where he was seen as part of the official entourage, packing away prayer blankets and talking to other leading figures.

As he became increasingly radicalised, Mohammed threw out his hip-hop CDs, explaining later that they contained "effing this and effing that" and encouraged adultery. He ordered Azeb to convert to Islam and wear a veil and took away his son's computer games. "He went from a sweet man to a man who was totally ruled by his religion," Azeb said later.

Mohammed gave up his job at the Reef Bar in Waterloo because as a strict Muslim he did not want to be near alcohol. He moved out of the flat he shared with Azeb and told her "I can only love Allah."

While earning £300 a week as a travelling salesman, he took a housing association flat on the Peabody estate at Dalgarno Gardens, north Kensington. Three months before the July 21 attacks, Mohammed was given indefinite leave to remain in Britain.

On Friday evenings the group, Omar, Osman, Mohammed and Ibrahim, would often meet for religious discussion at the home of the owner of an Islamic bookshop in east London who was linked to a network of training camps across the UK. Under Ibrahim's instruction they were all encouraged to attend a training camp themselves.

Ibrahim, who had spent two months in 2003 training for jihad at camps in Sudan, organised a trip to the Lake District for all five on May Bank Holiday 2004 at Baysbrown Brown Farm near Langdale Pike. The baffled farmer, who watched the group of 23 men set up camp before running around the fields carrying hefty packs, and holding organised prayer meetings, told police he nicknamed the group his "little Taliban".

Despite his convictions as a youth, Ibrahim was given a British passport in September 2004. A month later he was arrested outside Debenhams in Oxford Street after a scuffle with a policeman while spreading his extremist message. Charged with a public order offence, he was bailed to appear in court in December.

But when he should have been before the magistrates, Ibrahim was on his way to Pakistan, to learn more about jihad and bomb-making at a training camp on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Returning to London on March 8 2005, he effectively moved in with Omar in Curtis House, the one-bedroom flat which was to become the July 21 bomb factory.

On April 27 they purchased the first of 443 litres of hydrogen peroxide, and began cooking it up on the stove to reduce the concentration. Over the next six weeks they bought more than 200 bottles of hydrogen peroxide, and the ingredients to make the bombs, chapati flour, nail varnish remover, sulphuric acid, lightbulbs and snap connector batteries.

As the date for their suicide mission approached, the men tidied up their lives. Mohammed wrote a suicide note to his two small children, which urged them "to be good Muslims, obey your mother", Ibrahim composed a "mission statement" in Arabic, which concluded with the aim of "martyrdom in the path of God."

For Omar there was one thing he wanted to do before ending his life. After choosing a 17-year-old virgin as his bride, he approached Imam Bukhari again on Sunday July 17. This time he begged him for help, asking the imam to carry out a marriage ceremony that day.

Imam Bukhari agreed and Omar was married to his bride in her absence. He spent a night and a morning with her as a married man before joining his friends for a suicide bomb attack which would have left her a widow after four days as a bride.

    Four who turned on home that gave them refuge, G, 10.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2122523,00.html

5pm update

Four found guilty over July 21 bomb plot

Monday July 9, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Peter Walker and agencies

Four men were today found guilty of an extreme Islamist plot to detonate bombs on tube trains and a bus in London on July 21 2005.

Muktar Said Ibrahim, Yassin Omar, Ramzi Mohammed and Hussein Osman were convicted of conspiracy to murder over the failed attack, which aimed to mirror the carnage of two weeks before when on July 7 four suicide bombers killed themselves and 52 other people on public transport around London.

Ibrahim, 29, of Stoke Newington, north London, Omar, 26, of New Southgate, north London and Mohammed, 25, of North Kensington, west London, were found guilty this morning in unanimous verdicts from the jury of nine women and three men at Woolwich crown court.

Osman, 28, of no fixed address, was convicted this afternoon after the trial judge, Mr Justice Fulford QC, told the jurors, who were on their seventh day of deliberations, that he would accept majority verdicts of 10-2 for the remaining defendants.

The jury will deliberate further tomorrow on the cases of the two other defendants facing the same charges - Manfo Kwaku Asiedu, 34, of no fixed address, and 24-year-old Adel Yahya, of High Road, Tottenham, north London.

All six have denied conspiracy to murder. Today's verdicts followed six months of often dramatic testimony. The convicted men hoped to detonate hydrogen peroxide and chapatti flour bombs on public transport.

None of the devices used on July 21 detonated properly and no one was injured, the court heard. According to prosecutors, the plan only failed at the last moment because of problems with the homemade explosives, hot weather, and to some extent, sheer "good fortune".

The trial heard that Ibrahim - described as the ringleader of the July 21 plot - had spent two months in Pakistan at the same time as Mohammed Siddique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, two of the July 7 bombers.

The six accused of the July 21 plot claimed variously that their hydrogen peroxide and chapatti flour rucksack devices had been intended as a hoax, that they had been duped into taking part, or that they had nothing to do with it.

The first of the three to strike on July 21 was Mohammed, who, wearing a top with New York written on it, boarded a Northern line train just after 12.30pm.

One piece of CCTV footage showed Mohammed, who was born in Somalia and moved to the UK with his family in 1998, turning his back on a mother and her nine-month-old son so the rucksack bomb was facing them before attempting to set it off.

After the device misfired, he was challenged by an off-duty firefighter and claimed the gelatinous substance leaking from his rucksack was bread.

Less than 10 minutes later, Omar - who was also born in Somalia, came to the UK in the early 1990s and was fostered for a time by a British family - triggered his device on a northbound Victoria line train as it pulled into Warren Street station in central London. It also misfired.

Afterwards he stopped two Muslim women in the street and asked for their help. The court heard that when one refused to take him home he asked: "What type of Muslim are you?"

Just after 1pm, Ibrahim - who grew up in what is now Eritrea before arriving in the UK in 1990 - tried to blow himself up on a No 26 bus in Shoreditch, east London, setting off his device at the back of the top deck.

Ibrahim told the trial that the devices were dummies and had been intended as a protest against the Iraq war. He had booby-trapped Omar's flat in New Southgate, north London, which was used as the bombmaking factory, the court also heard.

Osman tried to blow up his rucksack bomb on a Hammersmith and City line train near Shepherd's Bush station in west London.

After it misfired, he calmly walked through the train, which was on an above-ground section of track, and escaped through a nearby house. He was eventually arrested in Italy and extradited.

Osman was born Isaac Adus Hamdi in Ethiopia in 1978. He and his family fled to Italy in the 1980s before Osman and another brother came to the UK in 1996, where gained asylum by lying to the authorities that he was from Somalia.

Omar fled the capital disguised as a Muslim woman in a burka, the jury was told. The 1.83-metre (6ft) defendant was caught on CCTV footage carrying a light-coloured handbag after arriving at a coach station in Birmingham.

He was arrested at a house in the city on July 27, and the jury heard he was almost shot by armed police who found him standing in a bath wearing what they feared was a rucksack filled with explosives.

Two days after this, Ibrahim and Mohammed emerged from Mohammed's North Kensington flat wearing only their underpants after officers threw CS gas canisters inside.

The pair had armed themselves with a knife and mop handle spears to attack police but did not use them.

    Four found guilty over July 21 bomb plot, G, 9.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2122182,00.html

Timeline

Key events in the July 21 bomb plot

Following is the sequence of events related to the failed July 2005 bombings in central London

Monday July 9, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Sandra Laville, crime correspondent

Thursday July 21 2005

12.25: Shepherd's Bush underground station on the Hammersmith and City line is evacuated.

12.30: Ambulance services are called to the Oval underground station on the Northern line. The station is evacuated.

12.45: Ambulance services are called to Warren Street station on the Northern and Victoria lines. The station is evacuated.

13.20: The pound falls against other currencies.

13.21: Smoke is seen coming from Warren Street tube station.

13.30: There are reports of an explosion on the No 26 bus in Hackney.

13.45: Passengers are evacuated from trains at all stations and moved above ground.

14.30: The government's emergency response team, Cobra, meets.

15.22: No trace of chemical agents is found at Warren Street following tests.

15.45: Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner, says the situation is "fully under control".

16.10: No traces of chemical agents are found at any of the sites.

Friday July 22


Early hours: Police are led to Stockwell, south London.

9.50: Jean Charles de Menezes leaves his flat in Stockwell to walk to Stockwell tube station. He is under surveillance by officers who believe he is a suspect.

10.03: He boards a northbound Northern line train, where he is shot seven times at close range by armed officers.

10.54: Police confirm armed police shot a man on the tube.

11.50: Scotland Yard confirms the shot man died at the scene.

14.30: Yassin Omar travels to Golders Green coach station en route to Birmingham, dressed in a burka.

15.31: Sir Ian Blair confirms the shooting was "directly linked to the ongoing and expanded anti-terrorist operation". He says the man was challenged and refused to obey police instructions.

15.35: Police issue CCTV images of the four suspects.

18.54: Police say the man shot dead was followed from a house linked to the investigation.

Saturday July 23


Police confirm the man shot dead by police was not connected to the terror inquiry. They express regret at the incident.

21.38: Police confirm the man shot dead was Jean Charles de Menezes, a Brazilian

Sunday July 24


10.10: Sir Ian apologises to the family of Mr de Menezes.

Yassin Omar's brother-in-law goes to the police.

Tuesday July 26


16.07: Members of the family of Muktar Said Ibrahim give statements to police.

Wednesday July 27


05.15: Armed police using taser guns arrest Omar in Birmingham.

Friday July 29


11.05: Police raid Mohammed's flat in Dalgarno Gardens.

12.10: The flat door is blown off its hinges and CS gas used.

13.37: Muktar Said Ibrahim and Ramzi Mohammed surrender to police, emerging on to the balcony of the flat in their underpants.

    Key events in the July 21 bomb plot, G, 9.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2122211,00.html

3 Guilty in Failed 2005 London Plot

July 9, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 8:23 a.m. ET
The New York Times

LONDON (AP) -- Three men were found guilty Monday of plotting to bomb London's public transport system on July 21, 2005, two weeks after a coordinated suicide bombing attack on the network killed 52 commuters.

The jury was still deliberating on three co-defendants.

The men were accused of attempting to detonate explosives-laden backpacks filled with explosives on three subway trains and a bus in a mirror image of the July 7, 2005 attacks. The devices -- made from hydrogen peroxide and flour -- failed to explode, and no one was injured.

All six suspects denied the charges, saying the devices were duds and their actions a protest against the Iraq war.

The verdicts, which follow a six-month trial, come days after police uncovered a plot to detonate car bombs in London's entertainment district and two men rammed a flaming Jeep Cherokee into Glasgow International Airport.

Convicted of conspiracy to murder were Muktar Said Ibrahim, 29; Yassin Omar, 26; and Ramzi Mohammed, 25.

Judge Adrian Fulford told the jury of nine women and three men he would accept 10-2 majority verdicts on the other three defendants, Hussain Osman, 28; Manfo Kwaku Asiedu, 34; and Adel Yahya, 24.

The explosives were packed in plastic tubs, with screws, bolts and other pieces of metal taped to the outside as shrapnel. The detonators contained triacetone triperoxide (TATP), an explosive used by the July 7 bombers.

Omar and Mohammed set off their devices aboard two subway trains; a couple of hours later Ibrahim's device failed aboard a double-decker bus.

Police said scientific tests on the devices proved they were all viable. They do not know why they failed.

During the trial, Asiedu turned on the others and claimed Ibrahim, the gang's self-proclaimed leader, had wanted the attacks ''to be bigger and better'' than the July 7 bombs.

The botched plot rattled a city already shaken by the July 7 attacks, as Scotland Yard detectives launched the biggest manhunt in British history.

Much of the prosecution's case was based on eyewitness testimony and closed circuit television footage from the targeted subway cars and bus.

In one of the most chilling pieces of footage, Mohammed attempts to detonate his charge with his backpack facing a mother and young child. Moments, later passengers are seen running to the other side of a carriage, while an off duty firefighter, Angus Campbell, remonstrates with Mohammed.

A day after the failed attacks, police shot dead a Brazilian electrician aboard a Tube train after mistaking him for one of the bombers.

Police said they were under enormous pressure to capture the men, uncertain over whether they would try again and anxious to avoid a repeat of the aftermath of the hunt for terrorists responsible for the 2004 Madrid train bombings. Then, suspects killed a police officer and themselves when they exploded booby traps as police stormed their hideout.

Giving evidence in the trial, a specialist firearms officer, identified only as PC 7512, described how he almost shot Omar dead when he found him standing in a bathtub, fully clothed and wearing a backpack.

''In all honesty, I still don't know to this day how I did not shoot him,'' said the officer, describing how his Heckler and Koch carbine submachine gun was trained on Omar's head.

Police believe the planning for the attack started after Ibrahim returned to Britain from a trip to Pakistan in March 2005. He was in the country at the same time as two of the July 7 bombers -- Shezhad Tanweer and Mohammed Sidique Khan -- but officials do not know if they ever met.

They believe the transit system was not the original target, but was chosen following the successful attacks two weeks earlier. Their original target is unknown.

    3 Guilty in Failed 2005 London Plot, NYT, 9.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Britain-Terror-Trial.html?hp

Police Seize Terror Suspect's Computer

July 9, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 4:09 a.m. ET
The New York Times

BANGALORE, India (AP) -- Indian investigators have seized a computer hard drive belonging to the man suspected of ramming a Jeep into the Glasgow airport in a failed terror attack, a senior police official said Monday.

Police recovered the hard drive and CDs that Kafeel Ahmed left in the Indian city of Bangalore when he went back to the United Kingdom in early May, said Bangalore's Commissioner of Police N. Achuta Rao.

''The hard disk is being examined to ascertain the contents and possible connection to the U.K. incident and also regarding terrorist activity, if any, in India and elsewhere,'' Rao said.

Two cars packed with gas cylinders and nails were discovered June 29 in the busy heart of London's West End -- one outside a crowded nightclub, the other near Trafalgar Square. The next day, the Jeep Cherokee smashed in flames into the security barriers at Glasgow airport.

Eight people are in custody in connection with the attacks -- seven in Britain and one in Australia. Most of the suspects worked for Britain's health service and come from countries in the Middle East and India.

Indian police have questioned the friends and family of three Indians suspected in the attacks: Kafeel Ahmed, Sabeel Ahmed, and Mohammad Haneef.

Kafeel Ahmed, 27, is being treated for serious burns suffered when he set himself on fire after allegedly crashing the Jeep Cherokee. Indian media has reported that Sabeel Ahmed, 26, is his brother but Rao didn't comment on the relationship.

Sabeel Ahmed, a doctor from Bangalore, was detained in Liverpool on June 30 in connection with the attempted attacks.

Separately, Australian authorities have detained Muhammad Haneef, 27, another doctor from Bangalore. Australian police have asked a judge to extend the detention without charge, his lawyer, Peter Russo, told Australian Broadcasting Corp. Monday.

Haneef, who was working at a hospital in eastern Queensland state after emigrating from Britain last year, was detained on July 2 as he tried to board a flight to India.

Australian Attorney General Phillip Ruddock said suspicion about Haneef was heightened because he was rushing to leave Australia when he was arrested.

''His wife says it's because she gave birth to a child two weeks ago,'' Ruddock told Southern Cross Broadcasting. ''That may be well the reason but certainly the appearance was that his intention (was) to leave with speed.''

Ruddock also said police may want to speak again to six other foreign doctors who have been questioned and released without charge in connection with the investigation.

So far, Bilal Abdullah, an Iraqi doctor, is the only person who has been arrested and charged over the failed car bombings in London and Glasgow.

    Police Seize Terror Suspect's Computer, NYT, 9.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Britain-Terrorism.html

Britain failing to check

migrants on terror database,

says Interpol chief

· 14,000 French requests for every one from the UK
· Minister calls on public to inform on suspects

Monday July 9, 2007
Guardian
Vikram Dodd and Richard Norton-Taylor


The head of Interpol made an unprecedented attack on the British government yesterday, saying it was putting its citizens at risk by failing to check immigrants against a database of suspected terrorists.

Ronald Noble, secretary general of the international police cooperation agency, said Britain needed to "catch up" and enact tougher checks. The comments came as the UK security minister warned of a battle of up to 15 years against al-Qaida-inspired terrorism, and as the investigation into attempted car bombings in London and Glasgow continued across three continents.

Mr Noble, who was a leading law enforcement official in the US treasury department under Bill Clinton, told the Sunday Telegraph of his concerns. "We have the passport numbers, fingerprints and photos of more than 11,000 suspected terrorists on our database. But the UK does not check it against immigrants coming into the country or foreign nationals it has arrested," he said. "The guys detained last week could be wanted, arrested or convicted anywhere in the world and the UK would not know."

Six out of the seven suspects held in Britain over the recent attempted car bombings and the attack on Glasgow airport are not British. It is not known whether they are on Interpol's database. Interpol said last night that the UK makes just 50 checks a month of the database; France by comparison makes 700,000 checks and Switzerland makes 300,000.

Mr Noble said that Gordon Brown's promise last week to share a list of potential terrorists with other countries had yet to materialize. "British citizens might be surprised to find that this watch list announced by your prime minister last week has not been sent to Interpol," he said. "Why is it that some countries make sure passengers do not carry a bottle of spring water on to a plane, yet aren't careful to ensure convicted felons aren't entering their borders with stolen passports?"

A Home Office spokesman said last night that the Serious Organised Crime Agency did consult Interpol databases and added that the government was "committed" to better sharing of data with European countries.

But the Interpol criticism was seized upon by the Conservatives, who said the government's intentions were being undermined by incompetence. "Yet again it is not the government's policy that is the problem - it is their lack of competence in delivering on that policy which is threatening our security," said shadow home secretary David Davis.

Mr Brown used an interview yesterday to call for an international register of terrorists. "We do now need more information flowing internationally about who are potential terrorists and who are potential suspects," he told Sky News. "I want the system that we are trying to expand between Europe, a system whereby we know who are potential terrorist suspects, we expand that to other countries in the world and then we may have a better idea of people coming in to different countries - whether as professional recruits or in other ways - about what the dangers and the risks we face are."

The security minister, Admiral Sir Alan West, said Britain's anti-terrorism message was failing to get across and the public might have to be "un-British" and inform on people they suspect. Admiral West told the Sunday Telegraph that Britain faced a long fight against terrorism: "I believe it will take 10 to 15 years."

He said the UK was "not getting our message across properly", and added that he did not like the concentration on the "Muslim community". "I have a lot of Muslim friends and they see themselves as British. We've got to be very careful. The threat is to our British way of life and all of our British people," he said.

At the weekend, Bilal Abdullah, a 27-year-old doctor, appeared at City of Westminster magistrates' court charged with conspiring to cause explosions and was remanded in custody. A total of seven people remain in custody, one of whom is being held in Australia, and another suspect is seriously ill in hospital.

The investigation into the London and Glasgow plots has seen the security and intelligence agencies stepping up their search for the international links of those responsible. As the Guardian reported last week, they believe that some of those behind the conspiracy had links with al-Qaida in Iraq. One of those arrested in connection with the plot is understood to have recently contacted members of the al-Qaida group in Iraq. A report by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, Jtac, warned in April that an al-Qaida commander in Iraq had talked about a big attack on Britain "ideally" before Tony Blair left office.

Officials are also investigating possible links between Kafeel Ahmed, who remains critically ill after the failed attack on Glasgow airport, and Abbas Boutrab from Algeria, convicted two years ago by a Diplock court in Belfast for downloading information from the internet on how to blow up airliners.

Mr Ahmed was studying at Belfast's Queen's University between 2001 and 2004. Security sources confirmed yesterday that the two men were in Northern Ireland at the same time. But one source described Boutrab as "a bit of a loner".

Mr Ahmed suffered 90% burns after the Jeep he is believed to have been driving slammed into Glasgow airport in what counter-terrorism officials believe was an attempted suicide car bombing. Indian police yesterday raided properties where Mr Ahmed and his doctor brother Sabeel, who is also a suspect, had stayed in Bangalore. They said they had recovered CDs about the conflicts in Chechnya and Iraq.

    Britain failing to check migrants on terror database, says Interpol chief, G, 9.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2121808,00.html

More Britons

travelling to Bangladesh

to train in terror

Monday July 9, 2007
Guardian
Richard Norton-Taylor

Significant numbers of Britons are travelling to Bangladesh to train in terrorist techniques amid rising concern among security and intelligence officials about the increasing appeal of al-Qaida's message throughout the Middle East and south-east Asia.

Their concern is compounded by a realisation among al-Qaida leaders of the value of individuals who can enter western countries easily. All eight people arrested in Britain over the failed bomb attacks in London were doctors or medical students and all entered the country legally.

The arrest in Australia of an Indian-born doctor related to two brothers arrested in Britain show how far links between potentially dangerous individuals are spreading, Whitehall officials say.

British counter-terrorist officials recently visited Bangladesh to brief their counterparts there, the Guardian has been told. Officials say the number of Britons of Bangladeshi descent apparently prepared to consider carrying out terrorist acts marks a new and worrying development.

It coincides with the increasing number of young Britons travelling to Pakistan via South Africa in an effort to avoid being noticed by British security officials. Recent terrorist trials have shown how the Britain-Pakistan link has been crucial, with many convicted terrorists having trained in camps in Pakistan.

The advantage, say intelligence analysts, is that British citizens do not require visas to enter South Africa. Furthermore, the country is regarded as a good market for identity and travel documents. South Africa's intelligence chiefs have played down the country's role as a potential transit route for British-born al-Qaida sympathisers travelling to Pakistan.

However, Kurt Shillinger, of South Africa's Institute of International Affairs, warned that the country's passport is "one of the world's most abused, available on the streets for as little as £10". In an article titled South Africa: Transit Point for International Jihadists? for Britain's Royal United Services Institute Mr Shillinger warns that intelligence officials privately admit they cannot monitor accurately a swelling immigrant community and the smuggling of people to Pakistan.

In north Africa Ayman al-Zawahari, Osama bin Laden's deputy, has announced the setting up of al-Qaida of the Islamic Maghreb with the idea of embracing other extreme groups, including Algeria's Salafist movement. In an internet video this week al-Zawahari urged fighters to "hurry to Afghanistan, hurry to Iraq, hurry to Somalia, hurry to Palestine".

However, Pakistan remains the country posing the greatest threat to Britain's security, Whitehall officials say. One of the problems is the sheer number of Britons of Pakistani descent who visit the country every year - more than 30,000 between the ages of 18 to 35, the group most likely to be influenced by al-Qaida ideology, according to intelligence officials. Another problem is the pressure on the Inter Services Institute, whose priority is to keep the country together and President Musharraf alive rather than monitor British-born Pakistanis.

    More Britons travelling to Bangladesh to train in terror, G, 9.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2121810,00.html

Recruit Muslim spies in war on terror, urges new security chief


July 9, 2007
From The Times
Michael Evans, Defence Editor, and Richard Ford, Home Correspondent

Police must develop a network of Muslim spies to gather intelligence on terror suspects plotting attacks in Britain, the former head of MI5 has recommended.

Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller’s demand comes as the country’s new Security Minister urged the public to “grass” on individuals about whom they have suspicions.

An MI5 map indicating the extent of terror networks has been circulated to all police forces in the country.

The terror hot spot is the West Midlands, with about 80 suspected terror networks under surveillance by MI5 and the police, according to security sources yesterday.

The conurbation, centred on Birmingham, has more than double the number in London, where 35 networks are being monitored.

Other areas highlighted are Leeds and Bradford, the Manchester area and Merseyside. There is a total of 219 suspected terror networks in Britain.

Dame Eliza, who retired as head of MI5 this year, said there was a “pressing demand” for the police to create a network of spies from within the Muslim population to help to gather intelligence on suspects and plots.

She said that the networks “scattered across the country” are thought to be plotting up to 30 attacks at any one time.

Her comments, written before she retired but published recently in Policing: A Journal of Policing and Practice, indicate the difficulties the police face in getting information from within the Muslim community.

Yesterday the Government’s new Security Minister also called for people to inform on their neighbours if they had suspicions about terror attacks.

Sir Alan West, the former First Sea Lord who is now security minister in the Home Office, also warned that Britain faces a 15-year battle to tackle the radicalisation of young Muslims.

Britain faced a threat from a “disparate core” of “racist” people, often based abroad, who wanted power, he told The Sunday Telegraph.

He said that preventing people being recruited to extremism was central to beating terrorism and called for some unBritish “snitching” from the public to help the cause.

“This is not a quick thing. I believe it will take 10 to 15 years. But I believe it can be done as long as we as a nation apply ourselves to it and it’s done across the board.”

He added: “Britishness does not normally involve snitching or talking about someone. I’m afraid, in this situation, anyone who’s got any information should say something because the people we are talking about are trying to destroy our entire way of life.

“We’ll have to be a little bit unBritish, I think . . . and say something and tell something.”

Sir Alan, who will meet the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, today to report on his review of recruitment into the National Health Service, said that the overall threat had increased since he left the Navy 16 months ago.

The map, leaked to the News of the World, shows that about 80 terrorist networks are currently being monitored in the west Midlands compared with 35 in London.

Sixty networks are under surveillance in Leeds, Bradford and Manchester, 20 in Merseyside, 10 in Wales, 12 in Scotland and two in Northern Ire-land. The map highlights the spread of terror groups in Britain.

The greatest concentration of networks under surveillance is in areas with high concentrations of Muslims such as Birmingham – where more than 140,000 Muslims live – Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire and London.

The Prime Minister said there was a need for better cross-border sharing of information on potential terrorists.

He said an expanded system for sharing data on potential threats was required as “a matter of urgency”.

“We do now need more information flowing internationally about who are potential terrorists and who are potential suspects,” Mr Brown told Sky News.

“I want the system that we are trying to expand between Europe – a system whereby we know who are potential terrorist suspects – [to be expanded] to other countries in the world and then we may have a better idea of people coming in to different countries, whether as professional recruits or in other ways, about what the dangers and the risks we face are.”

    Recruit Muslim spies in war on terror, urges new security chief, Ts, 9.7.2007, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article2045625.ece

London Marks 2nd Anniversary of Bombings

July 7, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 4:55 a.m. ET
The New York Times

LONDON (AP) -- Britain marked the second anniversary Saturday of the London suicide bombings that killed 52 people, a grim reminder as the country confronted a new wave of terrorism and an Iraqi doctor was charged in the most recent foiled attacks.

Bilal Abdullah -- a 27-year-old doctor born in Britain and raised in Iraq -- was to appear in a London court after he and another man allegedly crashed a gas-laden Jeep Cherokee outside the main terminal of Scotland's largest airport.

He is one of eight suspects accused in foiled car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow a week ago.

Two cars packed with gas cylinders and nails were discovered in London -- one outside a crowded nightclub, the other near Trafalgar Square. The Jeep Cherokee smashed into the security barriers at Glasgow airport.

Police added patrols around the capital where the first leg of the Tour de France was taking place Saturday, along with the July 7 bombing anniversary, the Wimbledon tennis tournament and a Live Earth concert starring Madonna.

''It's amazing that it was two years ago,'' said John Salding, 63, whose girlfriend was killed in the 2005 suicide bombings. ''My memories are all so fresh.''

Prime Minister Gordon Brown and other government ministers left wreaths at the King's Cross subway station for a somber remembrance of the bombings.

Beverli Rhodes, 46, was on one of the trains when a bomb exploded. She was thrown against a metal pole and suffered brain damage. She says she's still haunted by the bombings.

''I (still) won't go on the underground,'' she said.

The four suicide bombers struck three underground trains and one double-decker bus in 2005, killing 52 people and themselves in an attack with a trail leading back to al-Qaida training camps in Pakistan. More than 700 people were injured in the rush-hour attack.

Counterterrorism agents have foiled several attacks since then in Britain -- the trans-Atlantic airliner plot last August where a group planned to blow up as many as 10 airplanes, and the most recent failed car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow.

Besides Abdullah, seven other suspects remain in custody in the latest foiled attacks, including a man hospitalized in critical condition in Scotland with severe burns.

Two of the suspects made inquiries about working in the United States, the FBI said Friday.

An FBI spokeswoman said Mohammed Asha and another suspect had contacted the Philadelphia-based Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates.

Asha, a Jordanian physician of Palestinian heritage, contacted the agency within the last year, but apparently did not take the test for foreign medical school graduates, said the spokeswoman, Nancy O'Dowd.

Most of the suspects worked for Britain's health service. They come from countries in the Middle East and India. Seven of the suspects are being held in Britain and one in Australia.

Britain's intelligence agencies are focusing on the suspects' international links, said one British intelligence official and another government official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media.

Police also are reportedly trying to determine if Abdullah and the alleged driver of the Jeep, Kafeel Ahmed, had taken part in the attempted bombings in London and whether they were the ringleaders of a cell containing all the suspects.

Ahmed was initially identified as Khalid Ahmed, a doctor from Lebanon, but later as Kafeel Ahmed from Bangalore, India, who holds a doctorate in aeronautical engineering and studied at Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and Anglia Polytechnic University in Cambridge, England.

In Australia, police seized computers from two hospitals Friday as they explored connections between the British plotters and Muhammad Haneef, an Indian doctor arrested there.

Associated Press Writer Sharon Hong contributed to this report.

    London Marks 2nd Anniversary of Bombings, NYT, 7.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Britain-Terrorism.html

On terror the rhetoric is different, not the reasoning

Brown is not about to throw the switch on the inherited essentials of Blair's approach to Washington or Iraq

Saturday July 7, 2007
The Guardian
Martin Kettle

Foul though they are, the failed car bombers have done the new government a huge favour. There was no terror emergency listed in Gordon Brown's long-prepared grid of July initiatives for seizing the political momentum for Labour. But the attempted bombings have provided the new prime minister with a perfect platform on which to pose as the national leader he strives to be.

The moderate language in which Brown and his ministers have responded to the week's emergency has been deliberately chosen - partly with an eye on the Southall byelection - and much commented upon. Yesterday's Islamispeace full page ads in this and other newspapers spoke for an undoubted wider welcome. The tone is calm. Inclusivity is in. Knee-jerk is out. It is the right response. Alongside Tuesday's constitutional package, it encourages even the proverbial fool in a hurry to sense that something has changed from the Tony Blair years.

But the difference should not be exaggerated and nor should it be misunderstood. It is easier to be statesmanlike after a failed attack than after a successful one. It may be true, as Eric Hobsbawm pointed out on the radio this week, that advanced modern states can absorb the kind of attacks meted out by terrorist groups fairly comfortably; but it remains true that the pressures on political leaders after an actual atrocity are more severe than when no one has been killed. It is also true that the potential carnage and collective impact of the alleged conspiracy against airline passengers that was apparently foiled last summer was arguably far greater than those that would have resulted if last weekend's car bombs had detonated. Not to recognise this is to equate apples with pears.

There is also a fair amount of rewriting of history going on. It is not actually true that the Blair government invariably responded to terror alerts by reaching for tough new powers. In fact it finally learned from its earlier mistakes, notably after 7/7, just as Brown has done. The much criticised John Reid never responded in this way as home secretary; on the only occasion he proposed new powers, only a few weeks ago, Reid's approach was impeccably consensual. Nor even did Blair, in spite of his precipitate reaction after 7/7, ever demonise the whole Muslim community to the extent that commentators, including the Muslim News editor Ahmed Versi on the World At One yesterday, claim. These are not, however, errors which Brown will hurry to correct. What matters politically is that the old perceptions that harmed him have been replaced by new ones that help.

If anyone over-reacted to the alert this week it was probably the Conservative opposition, with its demands for the immediate banning of Hizb ut-Tahrir. Labour ministers have never been slow to proscribe organisations that promote terror - more than 40 have been banned since 2000, and two more were added to the list only this week - and ministerial concern about this Islamist organisation is intense. But as Reid said in the Commons on Wednesday, though he twice asked for advice on whether he could ban Hizb last year, on both occasions the advice was that the organisation had curbed enough of its activities to make a ban legally doubtful. The compensation for the government is that legal organisations are easier to penetrate.

That is why I suspect David Cameron made another wrong call this week. He reasoned that Brown's more emollient language on the terror emergency betrayed a flakier approach to the subject as a whole. He therefore tried to create a partisan divide over toughness by calling for Hizb to be banned. But this misreads Brown's stance. For while he may have turned down the rhetoric, he has not altered the essentials of the policy. All the evidence is that Brown thinks we face a very long haul with Islamist terrorism and all the evidence, including the emerging background details of the car bomb plot, is that he is right.

Indeed, neither his words on the terrorist threat nor his comments this week on Iraq square in any way with the view that Brown is about to throw the switch unilaterally on the inherited essentials of the Blair policies in either sphere any time soon. Claims that Brown's Foreign Office appointments are a shot across Washington's bows betray wishful thinking; the fact is that when Brown himself went to the White House a few weeks ago, he went to tell Washington that he could be relied on.

That does not mean Brown likes the Iraq situation one bit. But his view, as he said to Menzies Campbell in the Commons only three days ago, is that Britain has obligations to the UN and Iraq that it is not going to break. The reality is that Britain is already in scaledown mode in Iraq and that the vital strategic decisions will be made by the US after the summer.

All the evidence is that Brown is currently where the mainstream of British voters are on these subjects. The voters don't want Britain to be in Iraq a moment longer than it has to be - and nor does Brown - but they see the moment of minimal deployment arriving in the months ahead and will therefore put up with the situation for a while longer. They continue to distinguish between Iraq and Afghanistan, and do not automatically recoil from a longer commitment to prevent the return of the Taliban. They recognise that Iraq has exacerbated the terror threat - of course it has - but they are not in denial about the reality that changes in British foreign policy, however desirable, will not make the terror threat disappear.

What we are witnessing, in other words, is not so much a change of policy. It is a change in the context in which the policy can be discussed and pursued more honestly. There is more realism in the air than there was. But we all need a dose of it. The government needs to find a way of accepting that Iraq has sharpened the terror threat. But the rest of us need to accept that the responsibility for attempting to murder civilians rests with those who carry out the atrocities. These were neither Blair's bombs nor Brown's bombs. They were the bombers' bombs and no one else's.

    On terror the rhetoric is different, not the reasoning, G, 7.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2120926,00.html

£3bn emergency service radios 'seriously flawed'

· Weaknesses found in new system two years after 7/7
· Devices won't work in some police stations

Saturday July 7, 2007
Guardian
Hugh Muir

Equipment that allows the emergency services to cope in the event of a terrorist attack is seriously flawed, according to new research. A week after the terrorist bomb attempts on London and Glasgow airport and on the second anniversary of the 7/7 bombings, a study is expected to question the efficiency of the £3bn Airwave communication system commissioned by the Home Office, which should allow all the different emergency services to communicate with each other.

The system has been controversial because its implementation has been delayed. Communication was identified as a key failing during the reaction to the 7/7 attacks, when terrorists killed 52 people in London. The emergency services lost radio contact with each other underground and doctors were unsure which hospitals to send casualties to.

But research by the London assembly's 7/7 review committee suggests the system is erratic in certain buildings because of metal in the infrastructure. Researchers have been told that the radios won't even work in some police stations and in some retail outlets. The fault is said to raise questions about their effectiveness underground, where deficiencies in communication between the emergency services called to the 7/7 atrocities were most extreme.

The report will suggest that the size of the Airwave contract does not reflect the expansion of the Metropolitan police and the number of officers who would need access to it. Problems of communicating above ground will also be highlighted. The system divides London into four zones, but it is claimed that there is sporadic difficulty maintaining the signal for those who pass between them.

Richard Barnes, who chaired the committee and led the subsequent monitoring exercise, said: "These are inherent problems that should have been identified from the beginning. The contract was rushed in 2002 to meet the needs of the Commonwealth Games. Five years later the world has changed in terms of police officers numbers and security issues but there is no flexibility on the contract to accommodate that."

Mr Barnes, who sits on the Metropolitan police authority, said the criticisms were not directed at the Airwave company but at those who drew up and have managed the contract. "We as employers are asking officers to go into areas where they are beyond contact. That is not good enough. They do what we ask because of their inherent bravery but we must make sure they have the best equipment available. As things stand they do not."

He said the research suggested army-style "personal role" radios could be used by police and the other emergency services while underground problems with Airwave are ironed out. But he said the idea had limited support from the police and Transport for London.

The 7/7 committee's original report was released last June. Many of the emergency services, and Ken Livingstone, the mayor, said its concerns were overstated. But the assembly said it would monitor the situation. Researchers say overall progress is encouraging and that around 40 of the 54 recommendations have been addressed.

The government's own review, Lesson Learned, conceded that emergency services in London were unlikely to be fully equipped with Airwave until 2009 and that roll-out to the rest of the UK was likely to take even longer. London minister Tessa Jowell will today join 7/7 survivors and Mr Livingstone to mark the anniversary by laying a wreath outside Kings Cross station.

The National Policing Improvement Agency, which has responsibility for Airwave, said the system "delivers significant communication improvements". It proved "robust and effective" in south Yorkshire during the recent flooding and after the attack in Glasgow.

    £3bn emergency service radios 'seriously flawed', G, 7.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2120820,00.html

The 'hidden victims' of the 7/7 attacks

Saturday July 7, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Hugh Muir

Thousands of "hidden victims" of the 7/7 terrorist bombings are still struggling to cope with the trauma of the event, according to campaigners.

Experts believe that up to 3,000 people still suffer some level of psychological trauma following the 2005 attacks on the London Underground and a London bus, which killed 52 people.

At least 20 a week are continuing to seek treatment for post traumatic stress disorder, with the condition affecting even those who thought they had escaped relatively unscathed.

Survivor groups say that away from the public gaze, the lives of those affected by the bombs are blighted by relationship and employment difficulties. It is thought that at least one has attempted suicide.

Survivors say that while the passage of time has allowed some to heal, it also multiplies their difficulties because the level of public sympathy and understanding has inevitably dissipated.

Jacqui Puttnam, 56, who was travelling on the Circle Line train attacked at Edgware Road by bomber Mohammed Sidique Khan, said: "For people like me it will never be over. For a long time I suffered flashbacks and they were so intense that I thought I was still down there. It was months before the gaps between the flashbacks got longer and I began to trust that what I was seeing was real; that the floor was not going to give way. People try to be compassionate but they have no idea why you get upset. I had a close friend say to me just last week 'why do you choose not to move on?' "

George Roskilly, 64, was in the first carriage of the Piccadilly Line train when Jermaine Lindsay detonated his device, killing 26 people. He thought he had escpaed even psychological injury until last January when he suffered a minor breakdown and was forced to seek counselling. "My grandson was involved in a squabble and he started to cry. Hearing that reminded me of the crying on the train. It brought it all back."

Mr Roskilly, who works for a property company, could not see the carnage in the immediate aftermath of the explosion but he saw injured victims being carried out of Russell Square. "My wife said are you going to the doctor but I said I was alright. I had seen people being carried out with no arms and limbs and so I thought 'why should I go to the doctor'."

Part of his counselling aimed to assuage the guilt he felt. "The average age of the people in the carriage was 25. I was 62. I couldn't explain why I got out when all of these young people were either killed outright or seriously injured."

Rachel North, who survived the Piccadilly Line explosion, set up the King's Cross United website and has campaigned ever since for official recognition of difficulties faced by survivors. She said there is a pressing need for wider understanding.

"Employers and GP's and health workers need to understand a bit more; so they are aware of things like anniversary triggers. Some people abuse alcohol or use sedatives or smoke too much or stop looking after themselves. In that position you are not the ideal employer or partner or friend."

    The 'hidden victims' of the 7/7 attacks, G, 7.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/story/0,,2120987,00.html

Car bombs plot

Doctor to be charged over explosions

Saturday July 7, 2007
Guardian
Barbara McMahon in Sydney, Maseeh Rahman in Delhi, Ian Cobain

Bilal Abdullah, the doctor who was who was arrested after a flaming Jeep was driven into the doors of the arrivals hall of Glasgow Airport last Saturday, is expected to appear in court today charged with conspiring to cause explosions, Scotland Yard said last night.

Mr Abdullah, 27, will appear before magistrates in Westminster, central London, in connection with failed car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow.

He was working as a doctor at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, Scotland, before his arrest and was transferred to London's Paddington Green police station for questioning before being charged last night on advice from the Crown Prosecution Service.

Two trainee doctors, aged 25 and 28, arrested at the same hospital, are among a total of seven people to have been arrested in the UK over the plot.

Police in Australia have questioned five more migrant doctors in connection with inquiries into the failed bombings in the UK, and have seized more computer records and other materials.

Mick Keelty, Australia's federal police commissioner, said four doctors of Indian background with experience in the British health system had been interviewed and released. Another physician of Indian descent based in Sydney had also been questioned. Computers were seized from hospitals in Perth and the outback mining town of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia.

"It doesn't mean that they're all suspects but it is quite a complex investigation and the links to the UK are becoming more concrete," Mr Keelty said.

The questioning was "to gather evidence or gather information about the network, about who is linked to who, and who, if in fact if anybody, has committed any criminal offence".

The developments came as health service officials confirmed that two of the suspects arrested in Britain, brothers Sabeel Ahmed, 26, and Kafeel Ahmed, 28, had unsuccessfully applied for medical jobs in the Western Australia public hospital system in the past two years. They did not have enough medical experience and one failed an English language exam.

The West Australian Medical Association president, Geoff Dobbs, said one of the men applied several times using slightly different names. Kafeel Ahmed doused himself in petrol and set himself ablaze after the attack on Glasgow airport. Police sources in India said he told his family he was working on a "confidential global warming project" in the UK.

Just hours after two car bombs in London failed to explode, Kafeel Ahmed was alleged to have called them for the last time to say that his project was facing problems and he was going away for a while. In fact he was an engineering student who had been developing tactile maps for the blind.

Yesterday he remained in a critical condition with 92% burns after being transferred to a specialist unit at the Glasgow Royal infirmary, where he is understood to be under armed police guard. An Indian citizen, he is thought to have lived in the UK for at least six years, first studying aeronautical engineering at Queen's University, Belfast. In 2004 he began a PhD in fluid dynamics at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge.

Two other suspects have also lived in Cambridge in recent years. Mr Abdullah studied English there. Mohammed Asha, 26, a Jordanian neuro-surgeon arrested while driving on the M6 in Cheshire on Saturday evening, trained at the city's Addenbrooke's hospital.

Residents in the Bangalore suburb of Banashankari, where the Ahmed brothers grew up, identified them as members of Tablighi Jamaat, a proselytising group which some experts describe as peaceful and apolitical, but which others accuse of recruiting foot soldiers for international jihad.

In London, Gordon Brown said the police and the security service had made progress. "From what I know, we are getting to the bottom of this cell that has been responsible for what is happening," he said.

FAQ: The investigation

What stage has the police investigation reached?

Seven people are in custody in the UK and Australia and have been questioned about the plot. An eighth, who has burns over 92% of his body, is too seriously ill to be interviewed. Police believe most of the alleged plotters have been rounded up.

How were the suspects linked?

Four clear links have emerged: three suspects are from the same family; two were members of Tablighi Jamaat, an Islamic missionary group; three lived in Cambridge in recent years and almost certainly prayed at the same mosque; and seven had worked for the NHS.

Why did the bombs not explode?

The bombers are thought to have attempted to use propane gas cylinders because it is now difficult to purchase ammonium nitrate fertiliser without attracting attention and acetone peroxide bombs are unstable. Tests at the government's Forensic Explosives Laboratory at Fort Halstead, Kent, have shown exactly what went wrong. Police are not revealing what this was, but have dismissed claims that there was a fault in hypodermic needles that formed part of the detonator.

Are any other suspects likely to be charged with any offences?

Bilal Abdullah's alleged accomplice who suffered severe burns, will be charged if he survives. But others may be released without charge.

Were the bombers known to the security and intelligence agencies?

They were not on MI5's database of 1,600-plus individuals in Britain identified as preparing terrorist attacks here or abroad. But there are said to have been "traces" of them on a bigger database of individuals of potential interest shared by MI5, MI6 and GCHQ. These were discovered through mobile phones and emails linked to individuals overseas overheard discussing jihad.

Ian Cobain and Richard Norton-Taylor

    Car bombs plot, G, 7.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2120828,00.html

Foreign medics

NHS's overseas doctors

left stunned and fearful

Saturday July 7, 2007
Guardian
Sarah Boseley, health editor

Just last month, a senior Iraqi doctor wrote a report for the all-party commission on Iraq detailing the deaths and kidnapping of Iraqi intellectuals and calling for pressure on the Home Office to stop turning away Iraqi doctors wanting to work in the UK.

Senior doctors fear this week may have wrecked any hope of that. Arab and Indian doctors, who have given great service to the NHS over the years, are dismayed and apprehensive for their future in the UK.

The government had already made it harder for them to get jobs in Britain by imposing new visa requirements last April and giving priority to applicants from Europe. Now overseas doctors fear getting specialist medical training in the UK - once the gold standard in many countries - will become tougher still.

"It is very worrying, very depressing and very shocking because the vast majority want to mind their own business and not cause harm to anybody. There is a lot of depression and sadness," said Maadh Aldouri, a haematologist in Kent and president of the British Arab Medical Association. "We accept that there will be some review of the process of appointing people, but I hope this is all taken in context."

Dr Aldouri and his colleagues cannot understand how young doctors could become involved in terrorism. "It was entirely shocking. We all appreciate that some of the community from an Arab/Muslim background may feel angry about events, but to reach the degree where young promising professionals, some with families, can be involved in this is unbelievable," he said.

The consequences of their actions may be hard for their countrymen. Dr Aldouri is himself from Iraq, although he has been in the UK for 25 years. Most of the Iraqis here do not feel they can go back and many young doctors want to come not only for the valued training but also to escape the violence at home.

A report by Ismail Jalili, a consultant ophthalmologist who is chairman of the National Association of British Arabs, for the all-party commission on Iraq, last month said doctors and other intellectuals were being targeted. Between the invasion in 2003 and February 2006 more than 220 doctors were killed, according to the deputy minister of health, who was later himself assassinated. An estimated 250 have been kidnapped. In 2007 the Iraqi ministry of health estimated that 25% of Iraq's 18,000 physicians had left the country.

Overseas doctors have always played a vital part in the NHS. There are now almost 90,000 doctors from overseas on the General Medical Council register, of whom 1,985 are from Iraq and 184 from Jordan. The biggest contingent, however, is from India - 27,558 doctors, many of whom have been here for decades.

Prasad Rao, a GP in Stoke on Trent who is chairman of the British International Doctors Association, is concerned that patients may be alarmed by revelations about the doctors involved in the attempted attacks in London and Glasgow - together with the government announcement of further vetting.

"We have enjoyed the trust of the British public for the last 60 years," he said, "and hope to do so for the future, but if continually these kind of bad stories are coming up about overseas doctors it could sow seeds of doubt."

Jack Piachaud, a consultant psychiatrist who works with Medact, the global health charity, and has close contacts with the community of Iraqi doctors here through his work in conflict areas, said the public had a heroic image of doctors as preservers of life which was artificial. "There is the feeling of shock and horror, that health is about preserving life, but if one takes the wider perspective, doctors are human beings," he said. "Gordon Brown has to say we are going to look more closely at the recruitment process, but at the deeper level, once that is done, they must not exclude the question of how people are being radicalised."

Abdul Kareem Alobaidi, an Iraqi consultant child psychiatrist who is currently seeking asylum in the UK, is concerned that war and violence in his country are breeding a new young radicalised generation. Two years ago he petitioned the UN secretary general, calling for protection for the children from neglect and abuse. "This is very dangerous," he said. "The effect of the war and disturbance is to implant terrorism in the thinking of these young people. We need to help them - if we do not, they will find their help in bad places."

Aneez Esmail, professor of general practice at Manchester University, who has done a great deal of work on racism in the medical profession, also says the public has a sanitised idea of doctors.

"I spent five years on the Shipman inquiry," he said. "Why do we believe doctors should be immune to these things?" he asks. "To suggest that because you are a doctor you are not going to be influenced ... you are exposed to some of the worst facets of society. A lot of the time we have to interact with society and we see things that shouldn't happen and get angry."

Dr Prasad understands it is politically necessary to announce a review of the vetting process, but does not feel the existing checks and balances are too lax. Even if they had been tighter, he said, "they wouldn't have found the alleged terrorist doctors out because they have a very clean record".

NHS's overseas doctors left stunned and fearful, G, 7.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2120824,00.html