Foreign Correspondence

[Ace Hanlon]

War Of The Phantoms: Who Is ‘The Secret Organization Of al-Qaeda In Europe’?

The mystery of the four British-Pakistanis and the alleged Egyptian mastermind of the London bombings adds to the growing puzzle of Iraq’s phantom menace: Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, not to mention their alleged godfather, Osama bin Laden. Is this the most fascinating chapter in the global game of espionage?

By Editor, Central Asian Desk

07/28/05 "TheIslamabadPost.com" -- -- KABUL—The Islamic world is being led to a confrontation with much of the Western world by a group of shadowy people who are not only speaking on behalf of Muslims without permission but who also are suspiciously secretive to the point of raising concerns of dirty play.

From the shadowy, all-powerful Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi to the secretive and omnipresent Osama bin Laden, we now have this new ‘secret enemy’ institutionalizing its secrecy through the ‘Secret Organization of Al Qaeda in Europe’, which has claimed responsibility for the terrorist London bombings.

While the existence of radical Muslim extremists is not questionable, what is noteworthy is that a feeling is spreading – within both Muslim public opinion and the international public opinion worldwide – that someone is apparently riding the back of these extremists to achieve bigger goals. One of these goals is precipitating a confrontation between the world’s two biggest religions: Christianity and Islam.

Journalists, military men, and politicians have been used as pawns in the grand intelligence game that has been going on for much of the modern history. Muslim extremists are, apparently, the latest entrants in this game.

This is a dangerous phenomenon, especially for those who are running the war against terrorism: For the Americans, the British and the rest of their coalition partners. If the enemy continues to be as elusive as it is now, most Muslims worldwide who reject terrorism will increasingly come to believe that the secrecy of the enemy means that someone is deliberately exploiting misguided Muslim youth to smear their religion.

There are many people out there who crave an inter-civilizational war. Osama bin Laden and his supporters top the list. But there are also those in governments who need an enemy to justify the continued existence of large and superb fighting machines. And there is the Israeli ruling elite that unfortunately believes that its existence is dependent on sustained rivalry between the Christian and the Muslim worlds. A suspicious meeting-of-minds is taking place right now between these two camps.

Islamists As Agents

It is a fact that intelligence agencies have been working hard for years to send agents to penetrate Muslim religious groups. The secret services of all countries that aspire for a political role have been planting agents within foreign countries, governments, and companies. The Muslim radical groups also became a target for secret service operations during and after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, when Islamic groups became the biggest allies of the Free World in the fighting the Red Bull.

Three countries in particular – the U.S., Israel, and India – became especially interested in the phenomenon of rising Islamic radical groups. Washington was interested in them because it used them to fight Soviet Union. Israel and India were interested because they have long term enmities with Muslim countries and peoples. And Britain go involved because of its close relationship with the U.S. and because the Brits had previous experience dealing with Muslims lands and peoples during colonial times.

Read the following two examples of modern secret services penetrating Islamic groups:

Egyptian Imam Was a CIA Informant

By Associated Press

07/02/05 - -CHICAGO (AP) - A radical Egyptian cleric allegedly kidnapped from Italy by the CIA once provided the American spy agency with valuable information about Islamic militants in Albania, according to a published report.

The Chicago Tribune, citing the former second-ranking official of the Albanian intelligence service, reported in its Sunday editions that Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, was a valuable source of information in the mid-1990s to the CIA about the close-knit community of Islamic fundamentalists living in exile in Albania, a formerly communist country in the Balkans.

Astrit Nasufi, the former Albanian intelligence officer, told the newspaper that the imam had been considered a credible source of information.

Last month, an Italian judge ordered the arrests of 13 CIA officers on allegations they secretly transported the imam to Egypt from Italy as part of U.S. anti-terrorism efforts - a rare public admonition by a close American ally. The warrant said the cleric was sent to Egypt and tortured.

Italian officials have said they had no prior knowledge of the Feb. 17, 2003, kidnapping of the 39-year-old cleric from a Milan street.

According to the Italian prosecutor's application for the 13 warrants for the CIA agents, when Abu Omar reached Cairo on a CIA-chartered aircraft, he was taken to Egypt's interior minister, the newspaper reported.

The document said that if the imam agreed to provide information to Egypt's intelligence service, Abu Omar ``would have been set free and accompanied back to Italy,'' the Tribune reported.

The CIA has refused to comment on the case.

The newspaper said evidence gathered by Italian prosecutors ``indicates that the abduction was a bold attempt to turn him (Omar) back into the informer he once was.''

Here is another interesting example that surfaced only recently:

Former Taliban Spy for U.S. Pleads Guilty to Fraud


The regime's onetime U.N. mouthpiece faces as much as eight months in a federal prison.


By Stephen Braun
Times Staff Writer



June 18, 2005



WASHINGTON — An Afghan immigrant who acted as an FBI informant while he was the Taliban's second-highest ranking diplomat in the U.S. pleaded guilty on Friday to federal fraud charges.



Noorullah Zadran, 53, a naturalized U.S. citizen, admitted in a New York courtroom to not fully reporting his income tax and to lying on a home mortgage application. The plea agreement allows Zadran to avoid three other tax charges. He will face a recommended prison sentence of two to eight months when he is sentenced in September.



The details of the deal were not disclosed by either side. But defense lawyer Jared J. Scharf said after the court hearing "the agreement does not require Mr. Zadran to cooperate with the government." Scharf said Zadran had "been in negotiations for several weeks" with federal authorities. "We have not discussed cooperation," he added.



Before being charged in October with tax and bank fraud, Zadran was the focus of a two-year federal grand jury investigation into his work as first secretary of the Taliban's now-shuttered diplomatic mission to the United Nations.



While he acted as the Taliban's media voice and participated in meetings with U.S. diplomats and other U.N. envoys from 1998 to 2001, Zadran was informing against the militant Afghan leadership — working for the FBI under a previous plea bargain disclosed by the Los Angeles Times last month.



Under terms of the 1995 agreement in a federal smuggling case, Zadran met regularly with FBI agents and was obligated to provide information on "terrorist activity" and on the Taliban's now-exiled leadership until November 2001.



But four months after the Sept. 11 attacks, Zadran's name appeared on federal terrorism watch lists. Federal agents investigating possible U.S. connections to the plot seized Taliban materials from Zadran's Long Island home and examined his computer.



During a 25-minute hearing Friday morning in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Zadran never mentioned the Taliban by name, referring to his former superiors as the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan."



In brief, comments to federal Magistrate Judge Michael H. Dollinger, Zadran admitted that he had failed to report $1,541 on his 2000 federal income tax return. He also acknowledged that he had falsely claimed on a 2001 home mortgage application that his wife worked at the Taliban mission.



Assistant U.S. Atty. Stephen Miller declined to elaborate on the charges against Zadran or on the former diplomat's past. But he did raise the possibility that prosecutors might require Zadran to pay restitution to the bank for the underpayments of interest.



Outside the courtroom, according to Associated Press, Scharf described the prosecution as a "nothing case." He later explained that the "agreed tax loss in this case is between $5,000 and $8,000." Zadran, he said, already had repaid the mortgage loan.



Zadran's double life as a Taliban envoy and federal informant did not come up during the hearing. Scharf said afterward, "As to the political atmosphere contributing to the charges against him, we know nothing about that."



Zadran, now a real estate agent on Long Island, did not discuss the case when he left the courtroom and did not return a telephone call seeking comment.

Foul Play At London?

There are two things that we need to keep in mind when analyzing the war on terror and the London bombings.

One is that there is a genuine phenomenon of terrorism, committed by individuals from the Muslim faith. And that these acts are not simply acts of irrational hatred but borne out of the genuine feelings of humiliation and injustice taking place in places like Palestine.

And the second thing is that there are governments and secret agencies that can penetrate Muslim radical groups and direct the genuine rage of young, angry Muslims toward achieving the objectives of these governments.

Below, we are reproducing a portion of a special report issued for limited dissemination by Brasstacks, a Pakistani security consulting firm. This analysis provides an interesting perspective

Brasstacks Analysis

This week also we will continue with our analysis of the London bombings. The plot continues to thicken as Police confirm that three Pakistani origin men and one Jamaican origin British man (with a Christian name!) were involved in the carnage. There is no doubt that there is lots of nonsense being thrown all around by the media and event managers and as usual once again, we will challenge the commonly believed perceptions to find alternate answers to some very complex questions.

We would strongly suggest our readers to go back and read our July 10th report once again for refresher on the background of our following analysis that we would like to repeat this time as well before we get on with our this week’s analysis:

We had written:

“Given the history of radical extremist groups like that of Osama and also the history of covert black-ops by secret services, we can safely conclude that we have three serious suspects in London blasts. Either they could have acted independently or anyone may have used the other to achieve the atrocity.



There is definitely no doubt that a cover-up and a deliberate disinformation is being carried out at the moment. Without pinning our fingers on any one now, as it is too early for that, but available evidence clearly suggests that these suspects are:



· Osama bin Laden

· Mossad

· CIA



The operation, its execution, the use of explosives, timings and precision as well as its broadcasting and reporting, and diplomatic point scoring carries all the hallmarks of a sting-op worthy of a true secret service. There are too many giveaways here to make us seriously skeptic of the official story that a sleeper cell of radicals acted on its own, directed by a caveman in Afghanistan.



The end result, irrespective of the perpetrators and their handlers, remains the same-death and destruction of innocents in London and a clash of dominant western countries with an already scared and angry Muslim world.



The fallout of this atrocity is already being redirected to hitherto uncharted lands in the Muslim world. This suits Osama, the CIA, and the Mossad, but not the Muslims. In the coming days, some Muslims who have acted as perpetrators might be caught with much hullabaloo about al-Qaeda and the war against Islamic extremism, although the perpetrators’ real handlers will not be visible. This is the beauty of covert operations, either carried out by phantom menaces like Osama and Zarqawi, or professional specialists of black-ops in modern secret services. Carlos and Abu Nidal got to know about this a little too late…” [End of our earlier analysis]

The official story so far about the London bombings that the whole world was made to believe has the following ‘facts’:

1.

Three Pakistani origin young men and one Jamaican origin man (with a Christian name) participated in the crime and acted as foot soldiers.

2.

No bodies of the attackers have been found but their ID cards were found at all of the locations. The only proof so far that the four might be the bombers is a CCTV camera still showing the four young men with rucksacks.

3.

None of the men had any history of extremism or was suspected to be a member of any radical group either by the police or by their immediate family and friends.

4.

Explosives were homemade from material available in the market.

5.

Explosives have also been found from the houses of the alleged perpetrators and from their car parked outside one of the underground satiations.

6.

One Egyptian PhD in chemistry has been arrested in Cairo but Egyptian authorities say he has no links with al-Qaeda. British police has interviewed him as well. (Ruthless al-Qaeda hunters like the Egyptians have excluded this man from their list of suspects. This has not amused the British).

7.

Police is also checking the links of these Pakistani origin men to Pakistan to find their possible connections here, but nothing has emerged on this lead so far.

8.

There is absolutely no mention in the investigations of the Israeli link, prior information of the attacks or the website that broke the news first about the identity of the perpetrators. There is a total media blackout of this aspect of the story despite being reported by very credible media sources in the early days of the bombings.

9.

There is a possibility of more attacks as the police hunts for the masterminds.

10.

The Muslim community in the U.K. is terrified and is being subject to massive State and public scrutiny as well as hate crimes and racial attacks.

All the information released so far about the bombings leads us nowhere and is subject to serious doubts and skepticism, to say the least.

As we have said earlier, we have two major suspects: Either loyalists of Osama bin Laden or any other covert secret service, like the Mossad or the CIA. Both have the motives and capacity. We will analyze this below based on the ‘information’ released so far, with the aid of some interesting analyses published by the international media.

Osama And His Link

Here we would like to quote a tape attributed to Osama bin Laden and released by Al-Jazeera. It reflects the emotional mindset of angry Muslims and is a guideline for extremists worldwide who take it as the word and command of their commander in chief. It makes for a chilly reading.

Below is the extract of the English transcript of Osama bin Laden’s speech

In a video tape sent to Al-Jazeera 1-11-2004

“Praise be to Allah who created the creation for his worship and commanded them to be just and permitted the wronged one to retaliate against the oppressor in kind. To proceed:

Peace be upon he who follows the guidance: People of America, this talk of mine is for you and concerns the ideal way to prevent another Manhattan, and deals with the war and its causes and results.

Before I begin, I say to you that security is an indispensable pillar of human life and that free men do not forfeit their security, contrary to Bush's claim that we hate freedom. If so, then let him explain to us why we don't strike Sweden, for example? And we know that freedom-haters don’t possess defiant spirits like those of the 19 – may Allah have mercy on them.

No, we fight because we are free men who don’t sleep under oppression. We want to restore freedom to our nation, just as you lay waste to our nation. So shall we lay waste to yours.

No-one except a dumb thief plays with the security of others and then makes himself believe he will be secure. Whereas thinking people, when disaster strikes, make it their priority to look for its causes, in order to prevent it happening again.

The events that affected my soul in a direct way started in 1982 when America permitted the Israelis to invade Lebanon and the American Sixth Fleet helped them in that. This bombardment began and many were killed and injured and others were terrorized and displaced. I couldn't forget those moving scenes, blood and severed limbs, women and children sprawled everywhere. Houses destroyed along with their occupants and high rises demolished over their residents, rockets raining down on our home without mercy.

And that day, it was confirmed to me that oppression and the intentional killing of innocent women and children is a deliberate American policy. Destruction is freedom and democracy, while resistance is terrorism and intolerance.

This means the oppressing and embargoing to death of millions as Bush Sr. did in Iraq in the greatest mass slaughter of children humankind has ever known, and it means the throwing of millions of pounds of bombs and explosives at millions of children – in Iraq – as Bush Jr. Did, in order to remove an old agent and replace him with a new puppet to assist in the pilfering of Iraq's oil and other outrages.

So with these images and their like as their background, the events of September 11 came as a reply to those great wrongs, should a man be blamed for defending his sanctuary?

This is in addition to our having experience in using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, as we, alongside the Mujahideen, bled Russia for ten years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat.

All Praise is due to Allah.

So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah.

And it was to these sorts of notions and their like that the British diplomat and others were referring in their lectures at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. (When they pointed out that) for example, al-Qaeda spent $500 000 on the event, while America, in the incident and its aftermath, lost – according to the lowest estimate – more than 500billion dollars. Meaning that every dollar of al-Qaeda defeated a million dollars by the permission of Allah, besides the loss of a huge number of jobs. As for the size of the economic deficit, it has reached record astronomical numbers estimated to total more than a trillion dollars.

And even more dangerous and bitter for America is that the Mujahideen recently forced Bush to resort to emergency funds to continue the fight in Afghanistan and Iraq, which is evidence of the success of the bleed -until-bankruptcy plan – with Allah's permission.

In conclusion, I tell you in truth, that your security is not in the hands of Kerry, nor Bush, nor al-Qaeda.

No.

Your security is in your own hands. And every state that doesn't play with our security has automatically guaranteed its own security.

And Allah is our Guardian and Helper, while you have no Guardian or Helper. All Peace be Upon he who follows the Guidance.

Copyright: Aljazeera

Now, is this Al-Qaeda tape taken seriously by the top western analysts? Yes it is. Here is an extract from an article by Seumas Milne appearing on 14.7.2005 in British newspaper "The Guardian":

“The first piece of disinformation long peddled by champions of the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan is that al-Qaeda and its supporters have no demands that could possibly be met or negotiated over; that they are really motivated by a hatred of western freedoms and way of life; and that their Islamist ideology aims at global domination.



“The reality was neatly summed up this week in a radio exchange between the BBC's political editor, Andrew Marr, and its security correspondent, Frank Gardner, who was left disabled by an al-Qaeda attack in Saudi Arabia last year. Was it the "very diversity, that melting pot aspect of London" that Islamist extremists found so offensive that they wanted to kill innocent civilians in Britain's capital, Marr wondered. “No, it's not that," replied Gardner briskly, who is better acquainted with al-Qaeda thinking than most. "What they find offensive are the policies of western governments and specifically the presence of western troops in Muslim lands, notably Iraq and Afghanistan."



“The central goal of the al-Qaeda-inspired campaign, as its statements have regularly spelled out, is the withdrawal of U.S. and other western forces from the Arab and Muslim world, an end to support for Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and a halt to support for oil-lubricated despots throughout the region. Those are also goals that unite an overwhelming majority of Muslims in the Middle East and elsewhere and give al-Qaeda and its allies the chance to recruit and operate-in a way that their extreme religious conservatism or dreams of restoring the medieval caliphate never would. As even Osama bin Laden asked in his U.S. election-timed video: if it was western freedom al-Qaeda hated, "Why do we not strike Sweden?"



“The second disinformation line peddled by government supporters since last week's bombings is that the London attacks had nothing to do with Iraq. The Labour MP Tony Wright insisted that such an idea was "not only nonsense, but dangerous nonsense".



“Afghanistan made a terror attack on Britain likelihood; Iraq made it a certainty.

We can't of course be sure of the exact balance of motivations that drove four young suicide bombers to strike last Thursday, but we can be certain that the bloodbath unleashed by Bush and Blair in Iraq - where a 7/7 takes place every day - was at the very least one of them. What they did was not "home grown", but driven by a worldwide anger at US-led domination and occupation of Muslim countries.



“The London bombers were to blame for attacks on civilians that are neither morally nor politically defensible. But the prime minister - who was warned by British intelligence of the risks in the run-up to the war - is also responsible for knowingly putting his own people at risk in the service of a foreign power. The security crackdowns and campaign to uproot an "evil ideology" the government announced yesterday will not extinguish the threat. Only a British commitment to end its role in the bloody occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan is likely to do that”.



Seumas Milne - [e-mail]

Similarly, MikeWhitney writes in another article on 14.7.2005 appearing on InformationClearingHouse web site":

"Does anyone doubt that 10,000 bin Ladens have been created by the events of the past two and a half years? If they do, they have their head in the sand." MP George Galloway, British Parliament, 7-7-05

"The destructiveness of the occupation affects the vast majority of Iraqis in a negative way and thus they are fed up with the presence of occupiers on our land. The resistance is not short on recruits to join them. Quite simply there are hundred of thousands of people in Iraq who are ready to sacrifice their lives for their country." Dr. Mohammad al-Obaidi, speaking for the Iraqi National Resistance; Counterpunch, 12-7-05


”America has never been involved in a war more clearly immoral than Iraq. From the phony pretext of weapons of mass destruction to the sadistic treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the conflict has been a nauseating chronicle of butchery and deception. Now, the victims of that massive crime are striking back in London and Madrid while the Bush press-corps regurgitates the same stale theories about radicals and Islam.

”What baloney. Baghdad has morphed into an assembly line for extremists churning out enough fanatics for 1,000 London-type bombings. This is Bush's work, and Blair's. The people who were killed in the London subway died for the crimes of their government, not because some young Muslim studied under a fiery cleric in South Leeds. The carnage is as much Bush and Blair’s responsibility as if they had carried the bombs on the subway and detonated them themselves.

”Those who have watched the developments in Iraq carefully know that the situation has steadily deteriorated. Rumsfeld's storm troopers (The Wolf Brigade) now roam the country freely, killing and maiming as they see fit; spreading terror to every corner of the Sunni heartland. (Just today, another10 young Sunnis were dumped at the Baghdad morgue with gunshot wounds to the back of their heads) At the same time, the US military is moving from city to city; applying the "Falluja-solution" of wanton destruction to every town they invade. Falluja, Sammarra, Ramadi, Karbala, Heet, Qaim; everywhere the story is the same; the cities are pounded mercilessly while the people are denied water, food, electricity and vital medical supplies. The crusade to crush the resistance is reducing more and more Sunni cities to rubble.

”This is Rumsfeld's remedy for resistance. This is Bush’s “Liberation". Take a good look.

”The victims of the London bombings deserve our sympathy, just as surely as the cutthroats in Washington and 10 Downing Street deserve our contempt. MP George Galloway summarized the feelings of many of us when he said, "Members of Parliament find it easy to feel empathy with people killed in explosions by razor-sharp red-hot steel and splintering flying glass when they are in London, but they can blank out of their mind entirely the fact that a person killed in exactly the same way in Falluja died exactly the same death.



“There's a straight line between Falluja and the London subway; just as there is a straight line between the gulags at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and the terror attacks that Americans can expect to face in the near future.

”For America, the prospect of London-type bombings is a mathematical certainty. No one is fooled by Bush-Blair's facile rhetoric. Bin Laden doesn’t care a whit about "our freedoms"; his message has been consistent throughout; "Get out of our countries, stop training our brutal secret police, stop propping up our corrupt regimes, and stop stealing our resources." When the imperialism stops, so, too, will the terrorism.

”We know the root of terrorism now; the secret has been divulged. Robert Pape has done an exhaustive study that provides scientifically-researched answers to all the critical questions surrounding suicide bombers. His findings are more important to antiwar activists than the contents of the Downing Street memo.

”Why? Because his research proves beyond a doubt that suicide bombing is the predictable upshot of occupation. As social scientist Scott Atran said, "Most jihadists have no history of religious education prior to becoming 'born again' radical Islamists, and many are well-educated, middle class and married. Most would-be suicide bombers say they act to restore dignity to their communities -- real or virtual --marginalized by globalization and humiliated by military occupation."

”This not only obliterates Bush's specious yammering about "hating our freedoms", but also counters the propaganda from the mainstream media. Every editorial columnist from Tom Friedman (who calls the bombers a "jihadist death-cult") to Christopher Hitchens (who coined the phrase "Islamo-fascism") has added to the media-smokescreen by feeding the idea that terrorism emerges from an irrational hatred of the West or from religious zealotry. Neither is true. These theories have only confused the public and perpetuated a conflict that serves the exclusive interests of elites.

”Pape's 9-7-05 column in the New York Times ("Al Qaida's Smart Bombs" or "The Logic of Suicide Terrorism" informationclearinghouse.info) dispels the commonly held illusions about terrorism and exposes the underlying reason for the current violence; Occupation. The driving force behind terror attacks, Pape says, is "to compel the United States and its Western allies to withdraw combat forces from the Arabian Peninsula and other Muslim countries". Period.

”Pape's findings have armed us with the most priceless of weapons: the Truth. He has uncovered the vile fraud that fuels Bush's orgy of carnage and pointed the way out of the war on terror. With a clear-eyed approach to terrorism we can cut through the demagoguery and propaganda and block the Bush strategy for perennial war.”

Mike Whitney lives in Washington State. He can be reached at [e-mail]

Copyright: Mike Whitney. All rights reserved

So now, without any doubt, all serious analysts believe that there was a motive and possibility of such attacks on London and more should be expected from loyalists of Osama and his clan.

So London attacks are purely an Al-Qaeda operation. Or is it?

We have some serious problems here that are also now being confirmed from material available in the international media and the information released by the British Police. Is it possible that motive and even possibly “foot soldiers” of Al-Qaeda have been used by some covert secret service?

Unless all lose ends tie up, we will have all the options open into this investigations:

On 10 July, we had written:



“The operation, its execution, use of explosives, timings, and precision as well as its broadcasting, reporting and diplomatic point scoring carries all the hallmarks of a sting-Op worthy of a true secret service. There are too many giveaways here to make us seriously skeptic of the official story that that a sleeper cell of radicals acted on its own directed by a cave man in Afghanistan.”

There are reasons for us to say this which we had written extensively in July 10 report but now even more evidence have come up:

1. Why there is total official media blackout of Israeli link, warnings, and the dodgy website hosted by a Texas server that was pointed out by the Israelis? This is confusing to say the least.

2. What is the proof that these men were radical terrorists when all evidence suggests otherwise.

3. Why would these men decide to be suicide bombers when they could do the same operation using timers? (In fact, there are media reports that suggest that bombs were actually on timers!). Suicide bombers are the most prized assets of any terrorist organization and are only used on most prized targets where access is not possible otherwise. Underground railway system does not need suicide bombers.

4. What is the proof that these men died at the sites? The only proof given by the authorities is their arrival at a station and their ID cards that remained intact despite suicide explosions. No confirmed DNA analysis so far. Wife of one of the suspects has demanded DNA proof. Even reporters and analysts in western media are surprised as to why these men would carry their documents on them when they have not made any claims or left any note? Even a Sky News terror expert Steve Park said the documents might have been deliberately planted to "send police the wrong way

5. Why did Police use “controlled explosives” to gain entry into a house in which they suspected explosives? Why they didn’t use a lock picker or axe to break the wooden door’s lock? This is strange to use explosives to gain entry into a flimsy door when you suspect volatile explosives in the room.

6. Similarly, why explosives were used to “secure” a car in which explosives were suspected? This is again extremely strange behavior to use explosives to open a car in which explosives are suspected. This is very fishy indeed, when one could easily break a glass to open the doors and collect the left over explosives, if any.

7. British Police sent out arrest warrants for a scientist arrested in Egypt on bombings charges but Egyptian Police declare him free of all Al-Qaeda links. It remains to be seen whether he will be brought back to London or not but it has created an embarrassing situation for the British Police. Their main suspect had no Al-Qaeda links nor can they prove any links to the supposed bombers.

Also, read this interesting report by a British newspaper:

TheMirror" -- THE London bombers may have been duped into killing themselves so their secrets stayed hidden.

Police and MI5 are probing if the four men were told by their al-Qaeda controller they had time to escape after setting off timers. Instead, the devices exploded immediately.

A security source said, "If the bombers lived and were caught they’d probably have cracked. Would their masters have allowed that to happen? We think not."

The evidence is compelling: The terrorists bought return rail tickets, and pay and display car park tickets, before boarding a train at Luton for London. None of the men was heard to cry "Allah Akbar!" - "God is great" - usually screamed by suicide bombers as they detonate their bomb.

Their devices were in large rucksacks that could be easily dumped instead of being strapped to their bodies. They carried wallets containing their driving licenses, bankcards and other personal items. Suicide bombers normally strip themselves of identifying material.

Similar terror attacks against public transport in Madrid last year were carried out by recruits who had time to escape and planned to strike again.

Bomber Hasib Hussain detonated his device at the rear of the top deck of a No30 bus, not in the middle of the bottom deck where most damage would be caused.

Additionally, two of the bombers had strong personal reasons for staying alive.

Jermaine Lindsay's partner Samantha Lewthwaite, 22, mother of his one-year-old son, is expecting her second baby within days. Mohammed Sidique Khan's wife Hasina, mum of a 14-month-old daughter, is also pregnant.

Our source disclosed, "The theory that they were not a suicide squad is gathering pace. They were the weakest link.

"We think it's possible they were told that when they pressed buttons to set off timers they'd have a short time to abandon the bombs and get away before the blast. Instead, the bombs exploded immediately."

Another intelligence source added, "Whoever is behind this didn't want to waste their best operatives on a suicide mission. Instead they used easily recruited low-grade men who may have believed they'd walk away."

Copyright: The Mirror

That rests our case for this week with the last comment that Al-Qaeda and radical religious extremists never dupe their operatives into killing themselves. All suicide bombers are willing partners, so if these men were duped, who duped them?

(We duly acknowledge with thanks brief inputs from various independent sources in public domain including ICH, Asia Times, Moscow times, Seymour Hersh, BBC, AFP, AP, CNN, Reuters, Stratfor, international media, and independent writers in collection, preparations, and compilation of this section. All material taken from international media and writers have been used in good faith with due credit to the authors)

Conclusion

The British people have shown far more maturity in dealing with the aftermath of the 7/7 bombings compared to the Americans. The reason behind that is that the British people are far more exposed to and are knowledgeable about the world and different cultures compared to ordinary Americans. This is why we do not see the British public opinion going along with their government in exercising undue pressures on the British Muslim community.

There is also an unusual British understanding of the reasons that lead well off, well educated, and often western-born or bred young Muslims to commit suicide attacks.

Obviously, there is an amazing kind of anger borne by events in Palestine, Iraq, Chechnya, and Kashmir. Events like the slaughter of 8,000 Muslim men in Srebrenica and the West’s tendency to support Muslim leaders who massacre their own people, like the rulers of Uzbekistan, only compounds the frustration of angry young Muslims.

Ken Livingston, the Mayor of London, aptly summed this up when he said that the British government’s policies in the Middle East bears some of the blame for 7/7.

At the same time, we should continue to use the world ‘alleged’ before mentioning the four young Muslims involved in 7/7. The circumstances and evidence surrounding their involvement is vague at best. This does not mean an angry Muslim could not commit such an act. It only means that, in the global game of espionage, everything is possible and often what you see is not what you get.

Copyright 2005 TheIslamabadPost.com,