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Mohammad Sidique Khan Mohammad Sidique Khan al-Qaeda Afghanistan/South Asia 20050721  
  Mohammad Sidique Khan al-Qaeda in Europe Afghanistan/South Asia British-Pakistani Deceased 20050812  
    Leader of the 7/7 boomers
Mohammed Sidique Khan Mohammed Sidique Khan al-Qaeda affiliate Britain 20050713  
  Mohammed Sidique Khan Osama Group Afghanistan/South Asia 20050904  
  Mohammed Sidique Khan al-Qaeda Afghanistan/South Asia 20050801  

Terror Networks
A Lesson the West Ignored From 7/7
2022-07-10


Long. The set-up:
Seventeen years ago today, four al-Qaeda jacket wallahs attacked the London transport system and in just under an hour that morning murdered fifty-two people from eighteen countries and maimed seven-hundred, one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in British history. An important thread in the story was the role of Pakistain in fostering the ideological and material environment that created the killers, which did not get the attention it deserved at the time, nor in the years since.

THE PAKISTAN DIMENSION OF 7/7
At 8:50 on 7 July 2005, Shehzad Tanweer (aged 22) detonated his boom jacket on a tube train, a minute later another suicide bomber, Mohammad Sidique Khan (30), detonated on a second train, and a minute after that another train was blown up by Germaine Lindsay (19). Thirty-nine people were massacred. At 9:47, a fourth suicide-killer, Hasib Hussain (18), went kaboom! on a bus at Tavistock Square in Bloomsbury, slaughtering thirteen people.

The Security Service (MI5) confirmed that the killers had not been on their radar before the attacks, but once they were identified it became clear that Khan had been on the periphery of a prior investigation, Operation CREVICE, which in March 2004 had rolled up an al-Qaeda network in and around London that was planning to carry out a terrorist atrocity using a fertiliser bomb. Khan was found to have been in telephone contact with one of the conspirators, Omar Khyam, and both Khan and Tanweer had been briefly surveilled by the security services because of their contacts. After running various checks on Khan and Tanweer, it was determined that neither merited further resources: they seemed to be involved in minor fraud as part of financing the network, rather than having any involvement—and potentially not having any knowledge—of the terrorist planning that CREVICE was interested in.

Jonathan Evans, the head of MI5’s G-Branch dealing with international terrorism during this period and later the MI5 chief, noted later that the plot thwarted by CREVICE, led by Mohammed Qayum Khan, had been directed by al-Qaeda based in Pakistain’s tribal areas and involved "British citizens or British residents of Pak heritage, something which became something of a theme for this period". The 7/7 attack was in-keeping with this: all of its operatives (except Lindsay) were of Pak extraction, it originated in "plans from Pakistain", and indeed the logistics of the plot itself "did not fundamentally differ from all the other plans that failed to come to fruition" during the mid-2000s.

What only became clear after 7/7 was that in February 2004, Khyam had spoken in person to Sidique Khan in a car bugged by MI5, and from snippets of that conversation—and the testimony of a jihadist prisoner—British intelligence was able to work out, in retrospect, once they knew what they were looking for, that Khan and Tanweer had been to al-Qaeda training camps in Pakistain. It was a month after 7/7 when Pakistain handed over the photographs of Khan as he arrived there on 25 July 2003.

Pakistain’s reluctance to proactively assist—and its efforts to appear helpful in the aftermath—are hardly surprising. After tiring of the Mujahideen groups in the early 1990s, Pakistain’s Inter-Services Intelligence
...the Pak military intelligence agency that controls the military -- heads of ISI typically get promoted into the Chief of Army Staff position. It serves as a general command center for favored turban groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, tries to influence the politix of neighboring countries, and carries out a (usually) low-level war against India in Kashmir...
 (ISI) agency had turned to the Taliban
...mindless ferocity in a turban...
 as its instrument to conquer Afghanistan, which was largely completed by 1996, and it was under the ISI’s close watch that the Taliban became entirely intermingled with al-Qaeda and its derivatives like "the Haqqani Network", as it did with the "Kashmiri" groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba
...the Army of the Pure, an Ahl-e-Hadith terror organization founded by Hafiz Saeed. LeT masquerades behind the Jamaat-ud-Dawa facade within Pakistain and periodically blows things up and kills people in India. Despite the fact that it is banned, always an interesting concept in Pakistain, the organization remains an blatant tool and perhaps an arm of the ISI...
 (LeT). It is analytically quite misleading to treat as autonomous "groups" what is in reality a fluid single network that shares personnel, geography, resources (everything from training camps to ammunition), and ultimately a unified command structure running through the ISI headquarters at Abpara.

Khan’s story testifies to this. Khan had, as it turned out, previously travelled to Pakistain and trained in a jihadist camp in Kashmir
...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it Azad (Free) Kashmir. The remainder they refer to as "Indian Occupied Kashmir". They have fought four wars with India over it, the score currently 4-0 in New Delhi's favor. After 72 years of this nonsense, India cut the Gordian knot in 2019, removing the area's special status, breaking off Ladakh as a separate state, and allowing people from other areas to settle (or in the case of the Pandits, to resettle) there....
 in July 2001, before being taken over the border to a Taliban camp near the frontlines with the final pocket of Afghan resistance, the Northern Alliance. al-Qaeda was woven into the fabric of this ISI-run jihadist infrastructure, designed significantly for an unending ideological war with India, that ran through—and now runs through again—Kashmir and Afghanistan, which simply shifts personnel from front to front as Pakistain desires. As well as the second trip to Pakistain by Khan in 2003, it transpired there had been a third trip, between November 2004 and February 2005, on which Tanweer had accompanied him. Whether Khan and Tanweer went into Afghanistan during this trip is unclear; they certainly made contact with al-Qaeda.

The ISI’s fingerprints had also been visible in the earlier plot that Operation CREVICE has dismantled. In court, Khyam said the ISI was threatening his family in Pakistain because "they are worried I might reveal more about them" and therefore he was "not going to discuss anything related to the ISI any more". It was pointed out to Khyam by the judge that "inferences" would be drawn from this; he understood that, but inferences had less repercussions for him than giving evidence about the role the ISI had played in facilitating a terrorist plot on British soil.

Britannia has a special place in this long-standing, transnational ISI jihadist network:

Masood Azhar
...One of the major players in Pak terrorism. In early 1994, India incarcerated him for his activities. In 1995, foreign tourists were kidnapped in Jammu and Kashmir. The kidnappers included his release among their demands. One of the hostages managed to escape but the rest were eventually killed. In 1999, he was freed by the Indian government in exchange for passengers on hijacked Indian Airlines Flight 814 that had been diverted to Kandahar. The hijackers were led by Masood Azhar's brother, Ibrahim Athar. Once he was handed over to the hijackers, they fled to Pak territory despite the fact that Islamabad had earlier stated that any of the hijackers would be jugged at the border. The Pak government had also previously indicated that Azhar would be allowed to return home since he did not face any charges there. Shortly after his release, he made a public address to an estimated 10,000 people in Karachi, firing up the rubes against America and India...
, an ISI operative and United Nations
...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships...
-listed terrorist, toured Britannia in 1993, fundraising and recruiting for the Kashmir jihad, while laying down local networks to continue the job. Some of these networks later defected to the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
. Azhar had created a template for "Londonistan" in the 1990s, where jihadists set up shop in London to provide resources to insurgencies in the Moslem world. There was a de facto agreement with the British state that so long as this activity was directed abroad, the jihadists would not be interfered with.

What happened on 7/7 was a demonstration that this jihadist network ran two ways: what had been exported could come home. The realisation was slow in coming. In September 2005, al-Qaeda released a video to al-Jazeera of Khan’s last testament declaring his "war" on the West and praising "today’s heroes": the late Osama bin Laden
...... who used to be alive but now he's not......
, al-Qaeda’s then-deputy (now emir) Ayman al-Zawahiri
...Formerly second in command of al-Qaeda, now the head cheese, occasionally described as the real brains of the outfit. Formerly the Mister Big of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Bumped off Abdullah Azzam with a car boom in the course of one of their little disputes. Is thought to have composed bin Laden's fatwa entitled World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders. Currently residing in the North Wazoo area assuming he's not dead like Mullah Omar. He lost major face when he ordered the nascent Islamic State to cease and desist and merge with the orthodox al-Qaeda spring, al-Nusra...
, and the founder of the Islamic State movement, which was at that time part of al-Qaeda, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian whose real name was Ahmad al-Khalayleh.
And the dismount:
There was certainly some ignorance among Western officials about Pakistan’s game, but a lack of knowledge was never the real problem. The issue was fear, more precisely blackmail, that any challenge to Pakistan’s lawless conduct—its fundamental strategic commitment to the use of terrorism as a state policy under the protective canopy of pirated nuclear weapons—would make things even worse. As one scholar put it: “Pakistan has essentially developed its bargaining power by threatening its own demise.” If the West cut off the vast aid subsidies, let alone adopted a coercive approach to try to change Pakistan’s policies, Islamabad held out the prospect of instability that would lead to terrorists acquiring its nuclear weapons, so the West kept paying Pakistan to help solve a problem it created and sustained—and had every incentive to sustain, since without the problem there would be no more cheques.

Which returns us to the issue of Pakistani blackmail. Now that NATO is out of Afghanistan, with Western intelligence effectively blind, if and when a British citizen goes rogue, in or from Pakistan, the ISI will be there to offer a helping hand in finding them—for a price. And if Britain accepted the apparent necessity of cooperation with the ISI at a time when the ISI was killing British troops, it is unlikely this will change now. The mind-bending logic of relying on the organisation that nurtures the terrorist groups that threaten Britain will win out by bureaucratic exigency and inertia; what that ensnares Britain into giving away—whether in money or political concessions—will only become clear over time.
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Britain
Two UK Teens May Have Joined IS in Syria
2015-04-08
[AnNahar] British police said Tuesday they were investigating a report that two teenagers, who come from the same town as one of the 2005 London jacket wallahs, may have joined Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
 jihadists in Syria.

The two 17-year-olds from Dewsbury in northern England are believed to have boarded a flight from Manchester to Dalaman in southwest The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
 on March 31, the regional police force said in a statement.

"We are extremely concerned for the safety of these two boys," the statement said. "Our priority is for their safe return; their families are gravely worried about them and want them home."
How about if the priority becomes protection of Britain from the likes of them?
Assistant Chief Constable Mark Milsom said: "Syria is an extremely dangerous place and the public will be aware of the dangers these boys may face.
The "boys" are the same age I was when I joined the Army.
"The choice of returning home from Syria is often taken away from those that come under the control of Islamic State, leaving their families in the UK devastated and with very few options to secure their safe return," Milsom said.
On the other hand, once they're experienced head choppers you really don't want them back in dear olde Yorkshire or wherever it is.
British media reported that one of the teenagers is a relative of Hammaad Munshi, who is the grandson of a leading Islamic scholar in Dewsbury. In 2008, Munshi became the youngest Briton ever to be found guilty of terror offenses.
Runs in the family, does it?
He was 16 when he was nabbed
Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un!
 in a police crackdown on an turban cell and was found guilty of distributing detailed instructions online on how to make napalm, explosives, detonators and grenades.
Normal Islamic 16-year-old hi jinx.
Dewsbury was also the hometown of Mohammad Sidique Khan, the ringleader of four homegrown suicide bombers who carried out the July 7, 2005 bombings which killed 52 people on three Underground trains and a bus in London.
Nice place, Dewsbury.
The news comes just days after six people were arrested leaving the seaport of Dover on suspicion of Syria-related terror offenses. Nine Britons were also arrested trying to cross over from Turkey to Syria last week. Hundreds of Britons are believed to have joined the Islamic State group in Syria in recent months despite a new law that reinforces security checks at airports.
Maybe it's because your priority's getting them back instead of keeping them the hell out.
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Britain
7/7 inquests: MI5 officer to give evidence
2011-02-21
A senior member of MI5 will give evidence later at the inquests into the deaths of 52 people killed in the 7/7 terrorist bombings in London in 2005. The officer, who will be referred to as Witness G, will be asked whether the attacks could have been prevented.

The bereaved families in court will be able to see him but reporters in a nearby annexe will only hear his voice.

Four suicide bombers detonated their devices on three Tube trains and a double decker bus on 7 July 2005.

Witness G will be asked about a key moment months before the bombings when the security service came across two of the terrorists during an investigation into another plot.

Many of the relatives of those who died want to know why those under surveillance were not subjected to detailed scrutiny. MI5 has always maintained it did not uncover any intelligence that would have identified the pair as potential suicide bombers.

BBC correspondent Peter Hunt says it will be a significant day as the senior MI5 officer will sit in the witness box and be questioned in public.
Lest we forget who the real terrorist criminals are:
The attacks were carried out by suicide bombers Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, Shehzad Tanweer, 22, Hasib Hussain, 18, and Jermaine Lindsay, 19. They targeted Tube trains at Aldgate, Edgware Road and Russell Square and a bus in Tavistock Square.
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Britain
Jihadi who helped train 7/7 bomber freed by US after just five years
2011-02-14
An American jihadist who set up the terrorist training camp where the leader of the 2005 London jacket wallahs learned how to manufacture explosives, has been quietly released after serving only four and a half years of a possible 70-year sentence, a Guardian investigation has learned.

The unreported sentencing of Mohammed Junaid Babar to "time served" because of what a New York judge described as "exceptional co-operation" that began even before his arrest has raised questions over whether Babar was a US informer at the time he was helping to train the ringleader of the 7 July tube and bus bombings.

Lawyers representing the families of victims and survivors of the attacks have compared the lenient treatment of Babar to the controversial release of the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.

Babar was imprisoned in 2004 -- although final sentencing was deferred -- after pleading guilty in a New York court to five counts of terrorism. He set up the training camp in Pakistain where Mohammad Sidique Khan and several other British beturbanned goons learned about bomb-making and how to use combat weapons.

Babar admitted to being a dangerous terrorist who consorted with some of the highest-ranking members of al-Qaeda, providing senior members with money and equipment, running weapons, and planning two attempts to assassinate the former president of Pakistain, General Pervez Perv Musharraf.
... former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date ...
But in a deal with prosecutors for the US attorney's office, Babar agreed to plead guilty and become a government supergrass in return for a drastically reduced sentence.
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Britain
London bombers instructed by phone from Pakistan: inquest
2011-02-03
[Dawn] The ringleader of the July 7, 2005 suicide kabooms on London's transport system received advice from a mystery figure in Pakistain just days before the attacks, an inquest heard Wednesday.
I repeat myself: Pakistain currently holds the same position as al-Qaeda HQ that Afghanistan held in 2001.
Mobile phone records showed a series of calls made from phone boxes of Rawalpindi to bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan, a police officer told hearings in London into the deaths of 52 people.

Metropolitan Police detective Mark Stuart said many of the calls were made through different Pak phone boxes within minutes of each other, suggesting that the caller there wanted to conceal their identity.

Hugo Keith, counsel to the inquests, asked Stuart: "Did you assess that those calls therefore were probably connected to some guidance or some means of communicating information concerned with the manufacture of the bombs and then ultimately their detonation?" "Yes, I think they had to be," replied Stuart.

The inquest heard that Khan never made any calls to Pakistain himself, but that he had instead given contacts in that country the numbers of four phones used purely for the purpose of the attacks.

Most of Khan's conversations with the unknown person in Pakistain took place between May and June 2005 but one lasting six minutes happened five days before the bombings, the inquest heard.

The final, unanswered call to the phone was made on the afternoon of July 7 after Khan, 30, Shehzad Tanweer, 22, Hasib Hussain, 18, and Jermaine Lindsay, 19, had blown themselves up on three subway trains and a bus.

Khan and Tanweer are both known to have travelled to Pakistain in the months before the attack where they are believed to have had contact with members of Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network.

A video statement by Khan is believed to have been filmed there.

Britain's domestic security service MI5 has admitted it monitored Khan on several occasions before the attacks, including meeting members of a separate bomb plot, but that it failed to follow up the lead.

Britain opened the long-awaited inquests into the deaths of the victims in October and the hearings are expected to last until March. They will examine whether the intelligence services could have prevented the attacks.
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Britain
I'm a victim too says the widow of 7/7 bomber, in legal aid claim that could delay inquest
2010-08-26
The widow of a July 7 suicide bomber yesterday launched a High Court bid to be represented at the victimsÂ’ inquest - saying she had also suffered the loss of a loved one in the atrocity.

Hasina Patel, whose husband was terrorist mastermind Mohammad Sidique Khan, is seeking legal aid to challenge the coronerÂ’s decision to exclude KhanÂ’s death from the hearing for the 52 victims of the 2005 London bombings.

If the mother of oneÂ’s application is granted, OctoberÂ’s long-awaited inquest could be delayed by months of legal wrangling, to the distress of those who have waited more than five years for it to take place.

Lawyers for Miss Patel claim there should be ‘no material distinction’ between her and the families of those killed, because she ‘equally suffered the loss of a relative’.

But the move will anger bereaved families, who do not want the deaths of the terrorists included in the same inquest as the 52 innocents whose lives they took.

Miss Patel hopes to overturn the decision made by Lady Justice Hallett in May to hold a separate hearing into the deaths of the four bombers - Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, Shehzad Tanweer, 22, Hasib Hussain, 18, and Jermaine Lindsay, 19.

The Government has already agreed to give legal aid to the families of the 52 victims. But Miss PatelÂ’s request for equal funding was refused in May this year.

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Britain
UK court clears three of plotting London bombs
2009-04-29
[Al Arabiya Latest] Three Britons were cleared on Tuesday of helping to plot the deadly London suicide bombings in July 2005 in the first prosecution over the attacks which killed 52 people and left more than 700 injured.

Waheed Ali, 25, Mohammed Shakil, 32, and 28-year-old Sadeer Salem were accused of having carried out a two-day reconnaissance mission by visiting various tourist sites in London in the months leading up the attacks on three underground trains and a bus.

A jury last year failed to reach a verdict against the men, who were found not guilty of conspiracy to cause explosions at Tuesday's retrial at London's Kingston Crown Court, the Press Association reported.

Prosecutors had said the three men were friends of the bombers, Mohammed Sidique Khan, Shehzad Tanweer, Jermaine Lindsay and Hasib Hussain. The men attended the same mosque and gym in the tightly-knit town of Beeston, in northern England, prosecutors said.

Although they were not directly involved in making the bombs or carrying out the attacks, detectives believed the men had helped plan the attacks.

Ali and Shakil were convicted of a second charge of conspiracy to attend a place used for terrorist training. Prosecutors said they were planning to go to a camp in Pakistan when police arrested them in March 2007.

The court heard that the investigation into the bombings -- the largest ever carried out by London police -- discovered links between the men in mobile phone records, fingerprints connecting them to the bomb-factory in Beeston, family videos and surveillance.

Detectives found that about seven months before the bombings, Shakil, Saleem and Ali spent two days in London with Hussain and Lindsay, visiting tourist attractions such as the London Eye, the Natural History Museum and the London Aquarium.

They also visited locations similar to ones attacked on July 7 and detectives said the trip, the key element of the prosecution case, was part of preparations for attacks on the capital.

But the defendants argued the trip was to allow Ali to visit his sister and take in some tourist attractions.

The court also heard how in Nov. 2004, Khan, the ringleader of the July plot, recorded a farewell video for his baby daughter in 2004 before heading off on a mission to Afghanistan where he expected to die, prosecutors said.

Police have always maintained that the bombers had assistance from other people with links to al-Qaeda as they would not have had the technical expertise to construct the hydrogen peroxide-based bombs themselves.
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Britain
In Britain, three acquitted of some transit bombing charges
2009-04-28
Reporting from London -- Three men accused of helping suicide bombers who killed 52 people in a 2005 attack on London's transportation system were acquitted today of the most serious charges they faced, a second defeat for prosecutors in the case.

The jury found Waheed Ali, Mohammed Shakil and Sadeer Saleem not guilty of carrying out a reconnaissance mission to help the four bombers who boarded three subway trains and a bus with homemade explosives July 7, 2005.

Ali and Shakil were convicted of conspiring to attend a terrorist training camp in Pakistan, a lesser charge, and were scheduled to be sentenced tWednesday.

The verdicts ended a three-month retrial of the men, whose previous proceedings last year resulted in a hung jury. The three defendants have been the only people charged so far in the attacks.

Under British double jeopardy laws, any further trial of the same defendants would have to be based on new evidence, said a spokesperson for the Crown Prosecution Service, adding that it was "technically possible but very rare."

Commenting in the Times of London, Andy Hayman, assistant commissioner for London's Metropolitan Police from 2005 to 2007, wrote that the trial "probably represents the last throw of the dice for the police investigation in 7/7. It is frustrating . . . knowing that people who aided and abetted the murders of 52 innocent people remain at large."

The accused, Britons of Pakistani origin who come from the Beeston area of Leeds in northern England, all admitted to being friends of the four men who carried out the bombings, but they denied charges of conspiracy to cause an explosion. They were accused of scouting the capital for possible targets with two of the four bombers on a trip to London in December 2004.

The jury was shown homemade videos and heard evidence from secretly recorded conversations that showed the accused were close friends of the four bombers: Mohamed Sidique Khan, Shahzad Tanweer, Hasib Hussain, and Germaine Lindsay.

Ali, 25, and Shakil, 32, were arrested at Manchester airport in 2007. They were about to board a plane for Pakistan where, according to prosecutors, they planned to attend a terrorist training camp.

However, the prosecution failed to provide convincing enough evidence for the jury to convict Ali, Shakil, and the 28-year-old Saleem of conspiracy to cause explosions.
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Britain
Three men who 'helped July 7 bombers' on trial
2009-01-20
Three men went on trial on Monday accused of helping bombers prepare the deadly July 7, 2005 suicide bombings with a reconnaissance mission in London. Prosecutors say Waheed Ali (25), Sadeer Saleem (28) and Muhammad Shakil 32, spent two days in the city where they visited tourist attractions including the Natural History Museum, the London Eye and the London Aquarium. Kingston Crown Court was told the trip was 'an important first step' in the plot to detonate bombs in Britain, the Press Association reported.

The trio, from Beeston, Leeds, deny one charge of conspiring with Sidique Khan, Shezhad Tanweer, Jermaine Lindsay and Hasib Hussain to cause explosions. The four young terrorists killed 52 people and injured hundreds more when they set off bombs on three underground trains and a bus.

Ali and Shakil also deny a second charge of conspiracy to attend a place used for terrorist training. It is alleged they were planning a trip to Pakistan to attend a training camp when they were arrested in March 2007.Prosecutor Neil Flewitt told a jury hearing at a retrial of the men, that they were not accused of making or transporting the bombs used in the July-7 attacks. "However, it is the prosecution case that the defendants associated with and shared the beliefs and objectives of the London bombers and so were willing to assist them in one particular and important aspect of their preparation for the London bombings," he said. He said on December 16, 2004, the defendants travelled from Leeds with one of the bombers, Hussain, to London where over a period of two days they conducted a reconnaissance of potential targets. Once there, they also met Lindsay.

"It is not the prosecution case that, at the time of the trip to London, the conspirators had made a final decision about the method of attack, the targets to be attacked or even the date of the attack," Flewitt said. "However, it is the prosecution case that the London visit was an important first step in what was, by then, a settled plan to cause explosions in the UK." He told the jury that the three defendants admitted making the trip, but for family and tourism reasons. "Moreover, although the defendants all accept that they knew the London bombers, it is their case that their friendship was innocent and that they knew nothing of, and took no part in, their plan to cause explosions in the UK," Flewitt said. Ali and Shakil also did not dispute that they were intending to travel to Pakistan in 2007 but denied it was related to terrorism, he said.
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India-Pakistan
Brown offers pact to stop Pakistan exporting terror
2008-12-15
Gordon Brown confronted Pakistan yesterday on its record of exporting terrorism, disclosing that three quarters of serious plots investigated in the UK were connected to the country.

The prime minister arrived in Islamabad to announce that British police want to interview the surviving suspect in the Mumbai terror attacks as part of broader inquiries into the extremist group blamed for the atrocity, Lashkar-e-Taiba.

In private talks, he also questioned Pakistan's president, Ali Asif Zardari, over what action could be taken to eradicate training camps in Pakistan through which potential British suicide bombers have passed. Brown offered British assistance in tracing and shutting them down.

"Three quarters of the most serious plots investigated by the British authorities have links to al-Qaida in Pakistan. Our aim must be to work together to do everything in our power to cut off terrorism," the prime minister told a press conference in Islamabad.

In return he offered a new pact between the two countries to combat terrorism "to make sure terrorists are denied any safe haven in Pakistan". It would involve British help to Pakistan with training in bomb disposal, airport security, anti-car bomb measures and a ÂŁ6m package to counteract radicalisation and bolster democratic institutions in return for co-operation in the investigation.

The 7/7 bomber Mohammed Sidique Khan is among the terrorism suspects known to have travelled to Pakistan. Brown has spoken repeatedly in recent days of wanting to break a "chain of terror" leading from the region back to Europe.

Brown also held talks with the Indian prime minister, Mahoman Singh, and Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, on Friday and Saturday. The Indian government is concerned that while Pakistan has clamped down on Lashkar-e-Taiba in response to international outrage, in the past its action has fizzled out once international attention has faded.

Brown also passed on concerns from Karzai over terrorists infiltrating Afghanistan via the Pakistani border. The deaths of four Royal Marines last week, three in an incident involving a child bomber, has ensured Afghanistan cast a longer shadow than expected over the trip.

Brown said British police could attempt to pursue suspects in Pakistan as a result of their developing inquiries, adding he had asked the president if he would be prepared to allow that. Zardari however gave no guarantees yesterday.

Zardari insisted at a press conference in Islamabad yesterday that his government was co-operating with the investigation into the Mumbai attacks adding: "Terrorism and extremism is a common problem which requires collaborative efforts. Problems are not specific to one country."
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Britain
Detectives raid Leeds flat over 7/7 attacks
2008-10-09
Counter-terrorism detectives raided a flat in Leeds on Wednesday as part of the continuing investigation into the July 7, 2005 suicide bomb attacks on London.

Police said the action was to determine whether there were any links between the one-bedroom property in the Harehills area and the four men who killed 52 commuters in the London bombings. Three of the bombers: Mohammed Sidique Khan; Shehzad Tanweer and Hasib Hussain came from the Beeston area of Leeds, which was also the location for the men's bomb factory. "While it is more than three years since the attacks, this remains a painstaking investigation and as we have previously said we are determined to identify anyone else who knew what was being planned," said John McDowall, head of London police's Counter Terrorism Command. "As a result of our inquiries, we are carrying out an extensive search of the flat to determine whether there are any links to the people responsible for the 7/7 attacks."

Detectives were also renewing appeals for any information from the local community that could prove useful in their investigation and were planning to carry out house to house inquiries. "I would urge anyone who has suspicions about activity in the flat, either in the months leading up to the 7/7 attacks or afterwards, to contact police," McDowall said. Police say the search at the property was likely to take several days and there had been no arrests.

Khan, Tanweer, Hussain and Jermaine Lindsay blew up three underground trains and a bus using homemade, hydrogen peroxide-based bombs. Senior officers have always maintained that the 7/7 bombers had assistance from other people with links to Al Qaeda, as they would not have had the technical expertise to make the devices themselves. Detectives have also said they believe there are people who might have information who have so far remained silent.
Link


Home Front: WoT
A Not Very Private Feud Over Terrorism
2008-06-09
Every once in a while the NYT brings home an interesting analysis piece. This is one of those.
WASHINGTON — A bitter personal struggle between two powerful figures in the world of terrorism has broken out, forcing their followers to choose sides. This battle is not being fought in the rugged no man’s land on the Pakistan-Afghan border. It is a contest reverberating inside the Beltway between two of America’s leading theorists on terrorism and how to fight it, two men who hold opposing views on the very nature of the threat.

On one side is Bruce Hoffman, a cerebral 53-year-old Georgetown University historian and author of the highly respected 1998 book “Inside Terrorism.” He argues that Al Qaeda is alive, well, resurgent and more dangerous than it has been in several years. In his corner, he said, is a battalion of mainstream academics and a National Intelligence Estimate issued last summer warning that Al Qaeda had reconstituted in Pakistan.

On the other side is Marc Sageman, an iconoclastic 55-year-old Polish-born psychiatrist, sociologist, former C.I.A. case officer and scholar-in-residence with the New York Police Department. His new book, “Leaderless Jihad,” argues that the main threat no longer comes from the organization called Al Qaeda, but from the bottom up — from radicalized individuals and groups who meet and plot in their neighborhoods and on the Internet. In his camp, he said, are agents and analysts in highly classified positions at the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation.

If Dr. Hoffman gets inside organizations — focusing on command structures — Dr. Sageman gets inside heads, analyzing the terrorist mind-set. But this is more important than just a battle of ideas. It is the latest twist in the contest for influence and resources in Washington that has been a central feature of the struggle against terrorism since Sept. 11, 2001.

Officials from the White House to the C.I.A. acknowledge the importance of the debate of the two men as the government assesses the nature of the threat. Looking forward, it is certain to be used to win bureaucratic turf wars over what programs will be emphasized in the next administration.

If there is no looming main Qaeda threat — just “bunches of guys,” as Dr. Sageman calls them — then it would be easier for a new president to think he could save money or redirect efforts within the huge counterterrorism machine, which costs the United States billions of dollars and has created armies of independent security consultants and counterterrorism experts in the last seven years.

Preventing attacks planned by small bands of zealots in the garages and basements just off Main Street or the alleys behind Islamic madrasas is more a job for the local police and the F.B.I., working with undercover informants and with authorities abroad. “If it’s a ‘leaderless jihad,’ then I can find something else to do because the threat is over,” said Peter Bergen, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan New America Foundation, who puts himself in Dr. Hoffman’s camp. “Leaderless things don’t produce big outcomes.”
But it doesn't take very much to provide leadership, as Osama bin Laden demonstrated. A charismatic man, or small group of men, with some kind of funding can bring together a fair number of leaderless men seeking jihad and provide the direction required to create a 9/11, a 3/11, or a Bali. One of the major lessons of modern terrorism is that it can be surprisingly low tech and remain off the radar screens of local and national police. It's what you can do with a small cadre of committed people. Given the bureauocratic, officious nature of police and the inability of many analysts to find dots, let alone connect them, the complacency Mr. Bergen advocates seems fatally misplaced.
On the other hand, if the main task can be seen as thwarting plots or smiting Al QaedaÂ’s leaders abroad, then attention and resources should continue to flow to the C.I.A., the State Department, the military and terror-financing sleuths.
The NYT presents this as an 'either/or' scenario, when what is needed is, of course, both, but without the hidebound structures that spend more time in empire-building than they do in rooting out problems.
“One way to enhance your budget is to frame it in terms of terrorism,” said Steven Simon, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “But the problem is that ‘Al Qaedatry’ is more art than science — and people project onto the subject a lot of their own preconceptions.”

The divide over the nature of the threat turned nasty, even by the rough standards of academia, when Dr. Hoffman reviewed Dr. Sageman’s book this spring for Foreign Affairs in an essay, “The Myth of Grass-Roots Terrorism: Why Osama bin Laden Still Matters.” He accused Dr. Sageman of “a fundamental misreading of the Al Qaeda threat,” adding that his “historical ignorance is surpassed only by his cursory treatment of social-networking theory.”

In the forthcoming issue of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Sageman returns fire, accusing Dr. Hoffman of “gross misrepresentation.” In an interview, Dr. Sageman said he was at a loss to explain his rival’s critique: “Maybe he’s mad that I’m the go-to guy now.”

Some terrorism experts find the argument silly — and dangerous. “Sometimes it seems like this entire field is stepping into a boys-with-toys conversation,” said Karen J. Greenberg, executive director of New York University’s Center on Law and Security. “Here are two guys, both of them respected, saying that there is only one truth and only one occupant of the sandbox. That’s ridiculous. Both of them are valuable.”
And both would spend more time at each other's throats than they would dealing with the major problem at hand.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, a former director of central intelligence, sees merit in both sides, too; he said in Singapore last week that Al Qaeda is training European, and possibly American, recruits. But, he added, “You also have the development of violent, extremist networks.”

One argument for playing down Al Qaeda’s importance — Dr. Sageman’s point — has been the public declarations of some prominent Sunni clerics who have criticized Al Qaeda for its indiscriminate killing of Muslim civilians.

A leading Syrian-born militant theorist believed to be in American custody, known by the nom de guerre Abu Musab al-Suri, also has argued in favor of leaderless jihad. In his 1,600-page life work, he advises jihadists to create decentralized networks of individuals and local cells bound by belief, instead of hierarchical structures that could be targets of attack. He has referred to Mr. bin Laden as a “pharaoh.”

Dr. Hoffman’s principal argument relies on the re-emergence of Al Qaeda, starting in 2005 and 2006, along the Afghan-Pakistan border. There is empirical evidence, he says, that from that base, Al Qaeda has been “again actively directing and initiating international terrorist operations on a grand scale.”
The al-Qaeda model has been to find a faraway place that can be used for a base of operations, so that young men can be trained for terrorist or paramilitary operations. It's what Binny did in Afghanistan in the late 90s and what he was seeking to do in the Sudan and in Somalia before that. In turn that came from his experiences during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Binny wants a hierarchy with himself as director; that hierarchy needs a physical location. The other type of model, what al-Suri advocates, is a decentralized network that needs little if any physical plant. A look at al-Suri's life demonstrates why he favors this model; he's never had the opportunity to slip a leash and build a terrorist structure for himself.
But it has been easy for intelligence agencies to get the analysis wrong when faced with piecemeal and contradictory evidence.

One example is the 2004 train bombings in Madrid that killed 191 people. Declarations by several Spanish officials and experts of such a link were undermined by evidence that the group was self-motivated, self-trained and self-financed, and that the explosives were bought locally.

Other examples are provided by the 2004 plot to attack the London area with fertilizer bombs, and the July 7, 2005, transit bombings in London. At first, both were thought to support the home-grown terrorist thesis: British citizens, most of Pakistani descent, had carried out attacks with homemade bombs. Only later did evidence surface that in both cases, at least some had trained in Pakistan at military camps suspected of links to Qaeda operatives.

So a question remains: Was Mohammad Sidique Khan, one of the suicide bombers in the 2005 attacks, a local kid gone wrong, a full-fledged Qaeda operative, or both?

“You can argue that if you subtract his travel to Pakistan, there’s no 7/7,” said Samuel J. Rascoff, an assistant professor of law at New York University and a former intelligence official with the New York City police. “You can also argue that if you subtract his radicalization in Northern England, there’s no 7/7.”

Dr. Sageman’s critics argue that his more local focus plays to a weak point in gauging threats: People tend to feel the threat nearest to home is the most urgent. In April, for example, the Kansas City office of the F.B.I. met with state and local authorities from Kansas and Missouri to analyze “agroterrorism,” a big issue in America’s heartland. The discussion was about the possibility of terrorists causing an outbreak of diseases that could poison cattle or crops, crippling the economies of farm states.

Terrorism-weary prosecuting judges and police investigators in Europe listen to the debate on the other side of the Atlantic and tend to find it empty. They say it is hard to know where radicalization starts — among groups of friends, in an imam’s sermon in Europe or at home on the Internet — and when operational training by Al Qaeda is a factor. They prefer a blended approach.

France, Spain and Italy, for example, pour resources and manpower into investigations at home — from studying radicalization and wiretapping suspicious individuals to infiltrating mosques and community centers. These countries also track movements of suspicious individuals abroad and networks with both local and foreign connections. Terrorist-related cases fall under the authority of special investigative superjudges who have access to all classified intelligence, and can use much of the information in trials.

The Europeans say that for them, the argument is not theoretical. Somewhere in Europe, just about every week, a terrorist plot is uncovered and arrests are made.
We at the Burg sometimes forget that the Euro anti-terror organizations are very, very good at what they do, even if their courts and their politicans don't back them up.
“The danger of this ‘either-or’ argument could lead us to the mistakes of the past,” said Baltasar Garzón, Spain’s leading antiterror investigatory magistrate. “In the ’90s, we saw atomized cells as everything, and then Al Qaeda came along. And now we look at Al Qaeda and say it’s no longer the threat. We’re making the same mistake again.”
So for America, a suggested perscription is 1) vigorous prosecution of home-grown threats 2) continued surveillance at home without stomping on our civil liberties, as bureaucracies tend to do over time 3) cooperation with competent anti-terror units around the world 4) revising our national and international legal structures to be more effective against terrorism and, important, to prevent terrorists from using those legal structures against us 5) treating countries that harbor terrorists, or who can't police their own countries, as pariahs subject to removal (with or without UN blessing) and 6) treating regions of the world that lack sovereign governments as free-fire zones.
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