AUGUST 12, 2005

10 Muslim radicals detained in UK

LONDON: The British authorities on Thursday detained and announced plans to deport 10 foreigners suspected of posing a threat to national security, including Omar Mahmood Abu Omar, also known as Abu Qatada and described as Osama bin Laden’s "spiritual ambassador in Europe."

In Beirut, meanwhile, another outspoken foreign Islamist living in Britain, Omar Bakri Mohammad, was detained by police in Beirut, five days after he flew there from London for what he called a vacation.

Yasser al-Serri, head of the Islamic Observatory in London, said Qatada was detained at around 6 am, when 35 to 40 officers came to his home in London in four vehicles. He told AFP that the others detained included seven Algerians and a Jordanian. The origin of the 10th detainee was not known.

The detentions in Britain, made in early-morning raids across England, come days after Prime Minister Tony Blair announced tough new proposals to deport Islamic extremists, and are another indication of the dramatic impact of last month’s bombings in a country until recently regarded as something of a safe haven for radicals.

"The circumstances of our national security have changed, it is vital that we act against those who threaten it," Home Secretary Charles Clarke said in a statement. A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, confirmed that Abu Qatada was among the 10 foreigners in custody. The government declined to name the 10 detainees.

The Palestinian cleric, who carries a Jordanian passport, was granted political asylum in Britain in 1993. He has been in jail or under close supervision here since 2002, but now faces deportation to Jordan where authorities convicted him in absentia in 1998 and again in 2000 for involvement in a series of explosions and terror plots.

British authorities believe Abu Qatada inspired the lead Sept 11 hijacker Mohammad Atta and he is suspected of having links with radical groups across Europe. The cleric’s lawyer, Gareth Peirce, condemned the detentions. Her firm said in a statement that the detainees had not been allowed to see their lawyers.

Like Abu Qatada, some of the foreigners detained on Thursday had spent up to three years in jail without trial under sweeping anti-terror legislation until their release in March after Britain’s highest court ruled it unlawful. Since then, they have been supervised under so-called control orders, such as curfew or house arrest, and banned from using the telephone or Internet.

The Home Office said the detainees had five working days to appeal against deportation — a process that could drag on for months. A spokeswoman stressed they would not be deported until the British government gained assurances from the countries to which they will be sent that they will not be treated inhumanely. As a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights, Britain is not allowed to deport people to countries where they may face torture or mistreatment.

The government has been trying to sign agreements guaranteeing humane treatment of deportees with 10 countries, including Algeria, Lebanon, Egypt and Tunisia. The first such memorandum of understanding was signed with Jordan on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, a suspected Islamic militant accused of trying to set up a terrorist training camp in the United States was ordered to remain in custody on Thursday, as US authorities prepare an extradition case against him. Senior District Judge Timothy Workman ruled that Haroon Rashid Aswat should remain in prison until Sept 8, when his case again goes before London’s Bow Street Magistrates’ Court.



Anti-terror measures aimed only against terrorists: UK

LONDON: Home Office Minister Hazel Blears yesterday said that the government’s anti-terror measures are aimed only against those "who seek to do harm through terror".

In a press briefing at the Home Office, describing the community relations as "extremely good", the minister for Policing, Security and Community Safety, said that the government was working with all the communities to tackle the challenge of terrorism.

She said the government was reaching out to people from a range of minority communities other than Muslims. She said she had held "interesting discussions" with imams in Oldham where the participants agreed that imams should be "properly trained" and should be able to deliver their sermons in English.

To a question that coloured minorities in general and Muslim communities in particular are having to live in an atmosphere of suspicion and mistrust and what’s her government doing about it, the minister assured that the government is fully aware of the situation. She said the bombings on July 7 were indiscriminate and its victims were from all the communities.

She said that the government is "determined" to get all the "decent people" on the same side. She assured that the hate crimes of racial and religious nature were being monitored. Ms Blears was of the view that "visible policing" would help allay coloured communities fears about their safety.

She said that the "vast majority of Muslims" not only condemned the terrorist attacks on London, they were cooperating and involved in the fight against terror. Saying that multi-culturalism is something to celebrate and not to be afraid of, the minister reiterated the government’s commitment to celebrating multi-culturalism. "We are seeking to emphasise the things that unite us."

The government, she said, does not see "differences" of cultures as a threat. She said that all the people who live in this country have "a great deal to offer" in a society where they can continue living together while pursuing their ambitions.

The minister refused to comment on the hot news of the arrest of Omar Bakri in Lebanon. She also declined to comment on the deportation policy and did not give the names of ten foreign suspects arrested by the police yesterday.

However, in a press statement given before the briefing, Home Secretary Charles Clarke, asserted his "powers to deport individuals" whose presence in the UK threatens national security.

The home secretary said that the "ten foreign nationals" were detained for posing "threat to national security". They were being held in "secure prison service accommodation", said Clarke without disclosing their names.

"Following months of diplomatic work we now have good reason to believe that we can get the necessary assurance from the countries to which we will return the deportees so that they will not be subject to torture or ill-treatment," said Clarke, adding that "The circumstances of our national security have changed. It is vital that we act against those who threaten it."

                                              AUGUST 11,2005




10 to appear in court over failed London blasts

LONDON: Ten people will appear in court on Thursday accused under anti-terrorism laws over the botched July 21 attempts to bomb London.

On Wednesday, police charged a 10th suspect Abdul Sharif, 28, of south London, with failing to give police information which could have led to the prosecution of a person "for an offence involving the commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism".

London police said in a statement that Sharif was accused of withholding information about Hamdi Issac, also known as Osman Hussein, arrested in Rome on July 29.

Police say Issac left a bomb on a train in west London on July 21 which failed to explode.

Nine others, including two women, have already been charged with the same offence of withholding information and will also appear at London's Bow Street Magistrates court on Thursday.


Police warn of terror strike in London financial district

LONDON: A terrorist strike against London’s financial district is inevitable and would-be attackers have already surveyed the area for possible targets, the chief of police for the quarter said on Wednesday.

But James Hart, Commissioner of the City of London police, said there was no specific intelligence about a forthcoming attack and added officers had succeeded in disrupting some hostile surveillance activities in the district, widely known as the City.

"We are vulnerable, there are people out there who wish us harm and we should be aware of that," Hart told The Associated Press. "If you hit the financial centre of the United Kingdom, it’s a high-profile thing to do." Asked if it was a question of when the City would be struck, rather than if, Hart replied: "Yes, I don’t doubt that at all. It is only a matter of time … targets are already being sized up."

"Every successful terrorist group pre-surveys its target," Hart told the Financial Times newspaper in a front-page interview. Potential targets staked out have included iconic sites, business and prominent buildings "anywhere where the maximum damage can be inflicted on the financial systems of the City of London".

The City of London, in the very heart of the capital, maintains its own police force that works closely with the Metropolitan Police, which covers greater London and doubles as Britain’s lead anti-terrorist force.

As a financial district, the City is without peer in Europe, and ranks alongside New York and Tokyo in global significance. Its iconic sites include St Paul’s Cathedral, one of London’s top tourist attractions.

In a related development, Saudi Arabia’s outgoing ambassador to Britain, Prince Turki al-Faisal, complained how he was left "going round in circles" as he tried to warn British officials about Saudi dissidents in Britain. "When you call somebody (in the government), he says it is the other guy (who deals with the issue)," he told the Times newspaper. "We have been in this runaround for the last two and a half years."

Turki’s grievances centred on two dissidents-Saad Faqih, accused by the United Sates in the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi, and Mohammad al-Masari, who runs a Jihadi website from his north London home.

Another former Saudi dissident is Omar Bakri Mohammed, a Syrian-born Imam well known for his hardline views. He left for Lebanon at the weekend, and there is growing speculation that the government might ban his return.

                                          AUGUST 10,2005

Bombers ‘radicalised’ in UK: Musharraf

LONDON: President Pervez Musharraf has insisted the July 7 London bombers were "radicalised" in Britain and not in his country.

President Musharraf rejected suggestions that Pakistan played a "pivotal role" in the bombings. He said suicide bombers who killed 52 people might have picked up "some tips" in Pakistan, but stressed that their "mindset changed in the UK". He also suggested the 7 July bombers were "not experts" and that the attack must have been masterminded by someone.

"Certainly those four boys who killed themselves...were not experts in handling bombs and handling a complex operation like timing explosives and all that. "So I’m sure there must be a brain behind it," Musharraf told BBC2 documentary The New al-Qaeda, broadcast on Monday night.

The two of 7 July bombers had visited Pakistan led to investigation abroad focussing on the country. After the attacks, British Prime Minister Tony Blair called on Pakistan to crack down on extremists in seminaries.

"Even if they visited Pakistan, and they contacted some extremists here, the reality is that they have been in the UK for 20 years," Musharraf said. The president said: "The indoctrination, the mindset did not change here. The mindset changed in the UK. They may have got some tips or some.. anything, that is the only possibility in Pakistan...this radicalisation did not take place in the last visits of theirs in a few months. "Radicalisation took place back at home, wherever they live, in whatever condition and whoever they’ve been meeting and interacting with." President Musharraf also said he was surprised that moves had not been made earlier to clamp down on radical clerics.

Speaking before Blair set out new anti-terror plans, Musharraf pointed out that both Hizb ut-Tahrir and Al Muhajiroun organisations, both set to be banned, had passed edicts that he (President Musharraf) should be killed. He (Blair) suggested ministers had feared a violent backlash if they acted to ban these groups.

"One tends to not take those bold decisions till something very bad happens. That’s the unfortunate reality...we don’t want to disturb the environment, we don’t want to... but I think prudence demands that we take tough decisions - foresee what it could lead to," the president said.

Asked if he believed the government had been "too soft" in its approach to extremist preachers and organisations, Musharraf said: "Yes, I think so, absolutely." He said that in a short term it was vital to stop mosques being used to "pollute the minds of people towards extremism, towards hate".


London terror was response to Iraq

British MPs set off on their holidays amid a mood of national consensus. Tony Blair’s reputation has never stood so high, and its lustre stretches across all parties. Conservative MPs look at him nowadays with adoration. They laugh when he laughs, and grimace when he grimaces.

One of the main candidates for the Tory leadership, the moderniser David Cameron, has come to base his candidacy on the sublime proposition that he is the natural successor to Tony Blair. Cameron’s supporters openly claim that just as Blair, not John Major, was the inheritor of Thatcher, so Cameron rather than Gordon Brown will take on the gleaming Blair legacy.

Meanwhile, leading figures from all parties have come together to confront the national emergency. Charles Kennedy, Michael Howard and Tony Blair sat around the Cabinet table in Downing Street to express their common opposition to terror.

This kind of unanimity is rare, though far from unknown, in politics. Readiness to set aside party difference displays unity and common purpose. As Tony Blair remarked at the Downing Street press conference two weeks back, "When the main political parties present a united front, then it sends an important signal to the terrorists of our strength and our determination and our unity to defeat them."

Doubtless this is the case. But there are dangers in political consensus, as Britain has learnt many times to her cost. Consensus entrenches intellectual fallacy, and stifles original and honest thought. Politicians of all parties huddle together less for strength than for comfort. They often reassure themselves in error rather than confront the truth in a clear-headed way.

It is an uncomfortable fact that the very occasions when the political establishment has concurred most on an issue have coincided with the times they have been disastrously wrong: the outbreak of the Frist World War, the economic depression of the Thirties, the appeasement of Hitler. In each of these cases the accepted analysis of the mainstream political class proved to be based on premises that turned out to be false. In each of these cases the analysis of a small and ridiculed minority - Morley, Henderson and MacDonald in 1914, Keynes and Henderson in 1931, Churchill and Eden over appeasement - turned out to be right.

As the British political class congratulates itself on its patriotic sentiments and common purpose, there are uneasy echoes of the same syndrome. I was away (and in Iraq) when the London bombs struck, but have since been baffled by what I read from afar. There was unanimous praise for Tony Blair for his denunciation of the suicide bombers, a sentiment with which it would be hard to disagree. But almost everything else that has been uttered by the Prime Minister, his Cabinet, and the Opposition parties has been pure gibberish, amounting to a wilful failure of analysis.

There have been two central, though related, fallacies. The first is the assertion, handsomely articulated by the Prime Minister and shared by the mainstream establishment, that the invasion of Iraq played no special role in bringing about the London bombings. The Prime Minister insists that the perpetrators were animated not by Iraq or by anger at the Western presence in the Middle East but by something altogether more inchoate. As he told the House of Commons on July 11, "It is a form of terrorism aimed at our way of life, not at any particular government or policy." The Tory leader Michael Howard has endorsed this proposition, and so has almost everyone else. Indeed it has been regarded as a breach of good taste to challenge it, almost as though one were endorsing terrorism.

In fact, there is very little evidence to support the Prime Minister’s account of the terrorists’ motives, and a great deal that directly contradicts it. As David Morrison of the Labour & Trade Union Review argues in an important new paper, "Britain’s Blood Price" (I have drawn from Morrison for this article; he can be read on www.david-morrison.org.uk), the proposition that Islamic terrorism is purely nihilistic is false.

Al Qaeda and its associates may indeed be deeply disturbed by aspects of modern Western civilisation - who isn’t? - but they have no interest at all in changing Western society either for good or ill.

Their objective is far more specific: to change US policy towards the Islamic world, and in particular to remove US and allied forces from Arab soil. It is possible to disagree with these objectives, and there is no doubt that the methods are foul.

AUGUST 9, 2005

British diplomats see 'soft side' of hardline Pakistani madrassa

KARACHI: A hardline Pakistani madrassa opened its doors to two British diplomats Tuesday, denying that religious schools of its kind promoted terror attacks like the July 7 suicide bombings in London.

The British deputy high commissioners (ambassadors) in Islamabad and Karachi, Simon Butt and Hamish Daniel, received a tour from staff at the Jamia Islamia seminary in violence-prone Karachi, officials at the school said.

"We invited them to visit our madrassa to prove that madrassas or Islam have nothing to do with terrorism. I am glad they accepted our invitation," a spokesman for the madrassa, Abu Hurrairah, told reporters.

"They stayed for more than an hour, during which they visited different classes and enquired about the education here," Hurrairah added.

The British High Commission was not immediately available for comment. London pressed Islamabad to move against radical madrassas following news that three of the July 7 suicide bombers -- British nationals of Pakistani origin -- had visited Pakistan and may have studied at seminaries here. 

The Jamia Islamia madrassa is affiliated to the fundamentalist Sunni Deobandi Muslim sect and has some 750 students, all Pakistanis.

Since July 7 Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has ordered more than 800 militant suspects arrested in sweeping raids and told some 1,400 foreign madrassa students to leave Pakistan, sparking widespread anger here. 

"We used to have some foreign students but all of them had left much before the government announcement that they should leave Pakistan," another official at the madrassa said.

Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, has around 800 foreign students in some 3,000 madrassas. It has a history of political, ethnic and sectarian violence which has left some 4,000 people dead in the past five years.

Musharraf rules out Pakistan's role in London blasts 

LONDON: Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf denied that his country played a pivotal role in the London bombings last month and accused the British government of being too soft on Islamic extremism in Britain.

In a rare interview with the BBC, broadcast late on Monday, Musharraf also said he thought that there was a mastermind behind the July 7 suicide attacks on three subway trains and a bus, which left 56 people dead, who may also have planned a failed copycat attack two weeks later.

"Pakistan has not played a pivotal role. There is no such evidence to prove that," said the Pakistani leader, whose country became a focus of a huge international probe into Britain's worst terrorist atrocity.

Musharraf acknowledged, however, that at least two of the four suspected suicide bombers visited Pakistan prior to their attack, and said investigations into their movements were ongoing.

"We have some clues on certain contacts of telephone numbers that they contacted," he told the BBC. "There were two of the bombers who came here and when they came here who they contacted we are trying to find out and then we will be able to establish clearly linkages."

Three of the gang -- Shehzad Tanweer, 22, Mohammed Sidique Khan, 30, and Hasib Hussain, 18 -- were British Muslims of Pakistani origin. The fourth suspect was a 19-year-old Muslim convert born in Jamaica, Germaine Lindsay.

In the interview for "The New Al-Qaeda", a series about the terror threat, shown on Britain's BBC2 channel -- extracts of which were broadcast on the BBC's Newsnight -- Musharraf suggested that the carnage of July 7 and the abortive bombings by another gang of four men on July 21 were linked.

"Possibly," he said, when asked if he thought there was a connection. "Because the pattern is similar, therefore while the people were different and maybe the groups didn't know each other, but the planner must be the same.

Musharraf said he strongly suspected that a network was behind the bombings, while noting that this was his personal belief, rather that a suspicion backed up by intelligence reports.

"Certainly those four boys who killed themselves, committed suicide, were not experts in handling bombs and handling a complex operation like timing it so well so I am sure there must be a brain behind it," he said.

After July 7, Britain pressed Pakistan to move against radical madrassas following news that some of the British suicide-bombers had previously visited Pakistan and that one may have studied at a seminary there.

As a result, Musharraf has ordered more than 800 militant suspects arrested in sweeping raids and told some 1,400 foreign madrassa students to leave Pakistan, sparking widespread anger across the country.

The president, however, rounded on the British government of Prime Minister Tony Blair for failing to take a tougher line against extremist activity here, expressing concern about radical groups preaching hate.

"I think they should (take action) in their own interest and in the interest of our fight against terrorism," Musharraf said. Asked whether he thought the government had been too soft so far on hardline organisations, he said, "Yes I think so, absolutely."

Fourth suspect in London bombings is quizzed in Rome

LONDON: The fourth key suspect in the attempted July 21 bombings in London underwent questioning in Italy on Tuesday, while a notorious Islamist cleric vowed to return to Britain -- if the government lets him -- after unexpectedly leaving the country for Lebanon.

Hamdi Issac, 27, an Ethiopian-born British national, was grilled by an Italian magistrate, then by visiting police officers from London, at Regina Coeli prison in the Italian capital.

He is wanted for attempting to set off a bomb at Shepherd's Bush subway station in west London, as part of a failed attempt to repeat the July 7 attacks on three Underground trains and a bus that left 56 people dead, including four apparent suicide bombers.

"The cooperation with the English officials is very good. The first part of the interrogation was mine, followed by Scotland Yard's questions," said the Italian judge, Domenico Miceli.

He said Issac replied calmly and without hesitation for two hours. Earlier three alleged accomplices appeared in a high-security court on Monday in southeast London, charged with attempted murder, conspiracy and possession of explosives. They were remanded in custody until November 14.

In London, a Metropolitan Police spokeswoman would only say that members of the Anti-Terrorist Branch had gone to Rome "in connection with their inquiries into the incidents of July 21".

Issac, also known as Hussain Osman, was arrested in Italy on July 29, several days after fleeing Britain, apparently by Eurostar train to Paris. He has been quoted as admitting to involvement in the July 21 incident, which provoked fears of a sustained bombing campaign in London, but insisted the objective was to sow panic, not to kill.

The Italian authorities have charged Isaac with "international terrorism" and holding false identity papers. A hearing into a British request for his extradition is set for August 17.

Meanwhile, firebrand Islamist cleric Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed, who has been quoted as supporting acts of terrorism, said Tuesday he intends to return to Britain, after it emerged that he had gone to Lebanon during the weekend.

Bakri unexpectedly took off for Beirut just before he was named in press reports Monday as one of three Islamists who might face little-used treason charges if prosecutors and police agree this week to go so far.

AUGUST 8, 2005

British police charge two more suspects

LONDON: British police charged two more prime suspects in connection with the failed attempts to bomb London's transport system on July 21. 

Ibrahim Muktar Said, 27, and Ramzi Mohammed, 23, accused of planting bombs on the transport network, were charged with attempted murder and conspiracy to murder. 

The charges carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.  

Supporters of London attacks to face treason charges

LONDON: British prosecutors said they would consider treason charges against any extremists who express support for terrorism.

Attorney General office said the Crown Prosecution Service's head of anti-terrorism would meet with senior Metropolitan Police officers to discuss possible charges against three prominent clerics as part of a crackdown on those the government believes are inciting terrorism.

Clerics Omar Bakri Mohammed, Abu Izzaden and Abu Uzair, have appeared on British television in recent days and a spokeswoman for attorney office said prosecutors and police would look at remarks made by the three and consider whether they could face charges of treason, incitement to treason, solicitation of murder, or incitement to withhold information known to be of use to police.

"No decision on charges has been made yet," the attorney general's office spokeswoman said.

On Sunday, British police charged two additional suspects in the failed July 21 attacks. Ibrahim Muktar Said, 27, who is accused of trying to detonate a bomb on a bus in east London, and Ramzi Mohammed, suspected of attempting the Oval underground train bombing, were arrested in raids in west London on July 29, police said.



UK to expel 500 radical Muslims

LONDON: Five hundred radical Muslim extremists are to be deported by the British government, reports the News of the World newspaper.

The paper claims that the immigration officials have already been given a list of names — compiled by MI5 — and told to begin proceedings. The first could be sent back to their homeland over the next two weeks.

Among the first to be deported will be a dozen radical clerics. But hundreds of other foreign extremists, including some Islamic bookshop owners, writers, teachers and website operators will also go.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke will begin the process when he returns from holiday this week. He will issue deportation orders and the people will be forcibly sent back. They will then be able to appeal — from abroad.

All 500 have been taken from a "watch list" of extremists compiled over the past five years by the Intelligence Service. Their identities are being kept secret so that they will not be able to go into hiding or mount a legal challenge.

Officials at both the Home Office and the Foreign Office revealed an "initial wave" of up to 100 people will be booted out in the next month. Another 100 foreign nationals will then be sent home by the end of the year. And 300 more will be sent home next year once the government has new laws in place to strip them of their British citizenship and force them back to the countries of their birth.

Over the next week agreements will be completed with 10 African and Middle Eastern countries to make sure they will accept the extremists. The government has already signed a "memorandum of understanding" with Jordan. Similar agreements will be made with nine other countries including Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Kenya and Lebanon. The government is also trying to do a deal with Saudi Arabia.

News of the massive crackdown follows Prime Minister Tony Blair’s announcement on Friday of a purge on terrorists and extremists. A senior Home Office official said: "Just as the police operation over the past four weeks has been dynamic and fast-paced, so will our response."

The News of the World also claimed parliament will be recalled. MPs will be ordered to cut their holidays and be back in Westminster in five weeks. On September 12 the new Anti-Terrorism Bill will be presented to parliament.

One prominent Muslim cleric on Saturday caused outrage by comparing the crackdown on extremists to Adolf Hitler’s demonisation of the Jews in pre-war Germany. Dr Mohammed Naseem, chairman of the Birmingham Mosque, said: "He (Hitler) started a process of elimination of Jewish people. I see the similarities." Anti-terror cops are continuing to probe a haul of fake passports handed to them by the News of the World last week.

                                                 August 7, 2005 
                                 

Saudis warned Britain of terrorist threat to London: reports

LONDON; The British government declined to comment Sunday on reports that Saudi officials warned well ahead of last month's deadly London bombings that terrorists were planning to attack the British capital.

Two newspapers cited sources in Riyadh and London as indicating that Saudi officials alerted Britain several weeks before the July 7 bombings that left 56 people dead.

"We don't comment on intelligence issues," said a spokesman for the Foreign Office, although Prime Minister Tony Blair has previously rejected suggestions of an intelligence failure.

The July 7 bombings were the deadliest attack ever in the British capital, and were followed two weeks later by an attempted copycat attack in which the explosives, stuffed into rucksacks, failed to go off.

The Observer newspaper quoted a security official in the Saudi capital Riyadh as saying that information was passed to MI5 and MI6, Britain's domestic and foreign intelligence agencies respectively.

UK terrorists got cash from Saudi Arabia before 7/7

LONDON: Two senior al-Qaeda operatives in Saudi Arabia made money transfers and used coded text messages to communicate with suspected terrorists in Britain before last month's attacks in London, according to officials in the kingdom.

The two men, of Moroccan descent, have since been shot dead. Younis Mohammed Ibrahim al-Hayari, allegedly al-Qaeda's leader in Saudi Arabia, was killed in Riyadh three weeks ago and Abdel Karim al-Mejati died in a shoot-out in the central al-Qassim region in April.

Saudi security officials suspect both men of involvement in the attacks in London on July 7 and 21 and say that al-Qaeda is definitely operating in Britain. "It's beyond doubt they're active in your country," said one. 

Huge amounts of chemicals and other bomb-making materials were found at al-Hayari's hideout. Al-Mejati is said to have planned the train bombings in Madrid in March last year.

Zambia deports London bombing suspect to Britain

LUSAKA: Zambia has deported Haroon Rashid Aswat, a suspect of London bombings to Britain on Sunday. He was arrested in Zambia two weeks ago on suspicion of terrorism. He is reportedly wanted in connection with last month's deadly bomb attacks in London.

Meanwhile, Yassin Hassan Omar, 24, will appear before a judge in a high-security prison charged with attempted murder, conspiracy and possession of explosives, the Metropolitan Police said in a statement.

Permanent Secretary of the Zambian ministry of interior Peter Mumba has said Haroon Aswat left this morning from Lusaka international airport to Britain in a chartered plane.

Aswat, 31, has been named in US and British media reports as the alleged mastermind behind the July 7 blasts that killed 52 people.

According to media reports the four suicide bombers behind the July 7 attacks had made about 20 calls to Aswat on his mobile telephone.

US authorities have also reportedly sought to question Aswat over alleged attempts to set up a terrorist training camp in Bly, Oregon in United States.

London police have charged their first key suspect in a failed attempt of July 21 bombings in the British capital. Yassin Hassan Omar, 24, will appear before a judge in a high-security prison charged with attempted murder, conspiracy and possession of explosives, the Metropolitan Police said in a statement.

He had been identified as a prime suspect in a bid to bomb the Underground subway at Warren Street in central London on July 21 as three others tried to do the same elsewhere in the capital.

                                    August 6, 2005 

Three more faces London bombing charges 

LONDON: Three more people are due in court charged with failing to disclose information to police investigating the failed bombings in London on 21 July. 

The men, arrested in Brighton, Sussex, last weekend, will appear before Bow Street Magistrates' Court, in London. 

The accused are Shadi Sami Abdel Gadir, 22, Omar Nagmeloin Almagboul, 20 - both of Brighton - and Mohamed Kabashi, 23, of no fixed abode. 

Two women and a man have already appeared in court on similar charges. 

Wife of London bomb suspect appears in court

LONDON: Two sisters, one of them the wife of an alleged would-be bomber in the July 21 attacks on London, denied failing to disclose information about the suspect when they appeared in court for the first time on Friday.

Yeshshiembet Girma, 29, and Muluemebet Girma, 21, both from Stockwell in south London, are alleged to have witheld details about Hamdi Issac, who is suspected of trying to blow up a train in Shepherd’s Bush, west London. Bow Street Magistrate’s Court was told that Yeshiemebet was married to Isaac, a 27-year-old Briton born in Ethiopia also known as Osman Hussein, who is being held in Rome and is due to face an extradition hearing on August 17.

Both women spoke only to confirm their names, ages and addresses at a short hearing in the central London court and did not enter formal pleas. But lawyers acting on their behalf indicated that both would plead not guilty to charges being brought under the Terrorism Act 2000. The sisters, who held hands throughout the hearing, were remanded in custody until next Thursday.

The charge is similar to the one lodged against Ismael Abdurahman, 23, the first to be accused in Britain in connection with the failed attempt to repeat the July 7 suicide bombings in London, in which 56 people were killed.

He appeared in court on Thursday and was also remanded in custody until August 11.


UK’s anti-terror steps draw fury, applause

LONDON: Human rights experts and Muslim group blasted a raft of new powers to combat terrorism in Britain unveiled by Prime Minister Tony Blair on Friday, while mainstream Muslims applauded them. Drawn up in the wake of the London bombings, the measures include a possible review of human rights laws, the banning of certain Islamic groups and tougher rules to deport foreign nationals linked to terrorism. Britain is also seeking to strike deals with Algeria, Lebanon and several other countries to allow it to deport their nationals without fear of mistreatment after concluding such an accord with Jordan last month.

London-based human rights group Liberty condemned the move. "Shuffling people off around the globe is not an answer to national or world security," said Liberty’s director Shami Chakrabarti, after Blair announced the proposals during a pre-holiday press conference. "You do not deport people to places where they would face torture, and self-serving agreements and statements by governments that are not democratic are not going to cut it," she told BBC radio.

"People who incite terrorism can and should be prosecuted, but to move into the realms of condoning or justifying terrorism, undergraduate conversations, political discussions, is very dangerous," Chakrabarti said. "It is how we begin to shut down the very democracy that we say we are seeking to defend."

Similarly, a plan to outlaw the radical Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir in Britain was slammed as "most unjust" by a spokesman for the organisation. "Hizb ut-Tahrir is a non-violent political party," its spokesman, Imran Waheed, said.

"It has had a history of non-violence for the last 50 years and these measures are like what we have seen in Uzbekistan where President (Islam) Karimov has been burning his political opponents alive," he said. Waheed appeared to be referring to a military crackdown that claimed several hundred lives in eastern Uzbekistan in May, which the Uzbek government said was a response to a plot by Hizb ut-Tahrir to seize power in the country. "Our members are all for political expression, not for violence," said the spokesman.

Hizb ut-Tahrir, or the Party of Islamic Liberation, is a Sunni movement founded in the Middle East in the 1950s. It established itself in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia 10 years ago and reportedly wants to create an Islamic state in the region. Russia’s Supreme Court classified the group as a "terrorist" organisation in February 2003. It is, however, legal in most Western countries, though Germany has imposed a ban due to the group’s anti-Semitism.

In contrast to the negative comments sparked by Blair’s tough measures, two mainstream British Muslim groups largely welcomed them, noting that rules to counter the threat of foreign extremists were long overdue. "We are frustrated to the bone with some of these people in the name of our great religion, in the name of our way of life, going day after day and causing damage to our way of life here," Omar Farooq of the Islamic Society of Britain told British Radio.

Similarly, Inayat Banglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain gave a thumbs up to many of Blair’s proposals.

"Some of the measures are quite sensible and are perhaps overdue," he said, while also noting that the council would seek assurances from the government that expressions of support for Muslims overseas, such as the Palestinians or the Chechens, would not be outlawed.

At the same time, both Banglawala and Farooq warned against banning Hizb ut-Tahrir. Farooq said the group had been growing weaker and its new-found notoriety may boost its appeal.

Blair cracks down on Muslim radicals

LONDON: Prime Minister Tony Blair announced on Friday a sweeping range of new powers to combat terrorism following the London bombings, warning hard-line clerics in the country that "the rules of the game are changing".

A combative Blair also responded furiously to an al-Qaeda statement justifying the attacks, the first of which killed 52 innocent people, as a response to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, labelling this argument an "obscenity".

Speaking at his final Downing Street news conference before an imminent summer break, Blair unveiled around a dozen proposals to crack down on radical Muslim clerics, who advocate terrorism or foment hatred. The messures also include an immidiate ban on Hizb ut-Tahrir and al Muhajiroun.

"Let no one be in any doubt that the rules of the game are changing," a stern Blair warned. "We are angry. We are angry about extremism and about what they are doing to our country, angry about their abuse of our good nature," said Blair. "We welcome people here who share our values and our way of life. But don’t meddle in extremism because if you meddle in it ... you are going back out again."

Among other potentially controversial moves is a possible review of the 1998 Human Rights Act, which incorporates the European Convention on Human Rights into British law, to speed up the deportation of foreigners linked to terror. Additionally, anyone linked to terrorism would be "automatically be refused asylum in our country", Blair said.

Attitudes have hardened following the July 7 attacks in which 52 people plus four suicide bombers died in blasts on subway trains and a bus, and a bungled attempted repeat a fortnight later when the bombs failed, Blair added.

Despite the "remarkable" tolerance shown by most Britons, "alongside these feelings is also a determination that this very tolerance and good nature should not be abused by a small but fanatical minority, and an anger that it has been," he said.

Although the four July 7 attackers were British Muslims, three of Pakistani origin, the measures were in no way an attack on the Islamic community, Blair said, arguing Muslim Britons had been among those calling for urgent action.

Blair said some of the new anti-terror measures will require legislation and he would consider asking Parliament to reconvene next month to begin considering the proposals. Other measures, such as broadening the grounds for deportation, can be enacted immediately, but likely will face court tests.

Blair recognised he faced battles ahead but vowed to ensure his proposals were implemented. "I’m also absolutely and completely determined to make sure this happens," he said. Blair said the government was prepared to amend human rights legislation if legal challenges proved insurmountable. He added the focus of the anti-terror proposals was on foreigners because authorities believe "the ideological drive and push is coming from the outside."

Later, interior minister Charles Clarke issued a long list of views for which foreigners could be deported, such as fomenting, glorifying or justifying terrorism, or expressing views that could spread hated.

It would be prohibited to express such views in a series of ways, such as publishing them on paper or the Internet, or expressing them in sermons.

Other changes are an immediate ban on hard-line Islamic groups Al Muhajiroun and Hizb ut-Tahrir, the latter of which condemned the move, insisting it was non-violent. The government also will consider a request from police and security services to hold terror suspects for three months without charge. The current time limit is 14 days. The measures would also extend the use of home arrest for Britons who can’t be deported.

New powers would be created to allow the closure of mosques that foment extremism. Authorities will draw up lists of radical preachers who will not be allowed to enter Britain, and a list of radical websites and bookstores.

Blair was again quizzed about whether the Iraq war made London a prime terrorism target, following a filmed statement on Thursday from al-Qaeda deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri warning of more attacks unless Britain withdrew from the country.

He stressed that the groups putting such arguments forward were also killing innocent people in Iraq and Afghanistan. "And that is why, when they try to use Iraq or use Afghanistan or use the Palestinian cause as a means of saying, you know, we have justification for what we do, it is a complete obscenity," the prime minister said.

Police have launched massive investigations into the two attacks, with 39 people arrested in total over the July 21 incidents. On Friday, police said that 14 people, including two people held in London earlier in the week whose arrest was only just announced, remained in their custody.


Blair, Bush have more blood on hands than bombers: MP

LONDON: Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George W Bush had more blood on their hands than the bombers who attacked London’s transit system, British lawmaker George Galloway said here on Friday

Prime Minister Tony Blair refused comment a news conference, while responding to a question about Galloway’s remarks. He said that he did not want to get drawn into a personal battle with the legislator.

Galloway said US and British military action in Iraq was responsible for the deaths of innocent people. He said he believed the London bombings were connected to the Iraq war, although he also condemned the attackers who killed 52 people on three subway trains and a bus on
July 7.

"The people who brought destruction to London were primarily the people who committed the acts of mass murder," he said, referring to the suspected suicide bombers. "I am utterly against the punishing of innocent people for the crimes of the guilty, whether it is done on the Underground in London or the streets of Fallujah by George Bush’s air force," Galloway told British radio.

Galloway repeated his view that Bush was "the biggest terrorist of the world". "If it is a question of quantum, there is far more blood on the hands of George Bush and Tony Blair than there is on the hands of the murderers who killed those people in London," he said.

He denied that he was seeking to justify the terrorist attacks, but said, "the al-Qaeda arose out of the first war on Iraq; arose out of the occupation of Jerusalem and the killing of the Palestinians and the dispersal of the refugees around the world. It arose out of our support for the puppet presidents and corrupt kings of the Muslim world," he said.

                                  August 5, 2005

London suspect remanded for a week

LONDON: The first suspect to be charged in Britain in connection with the July 21 attempted London bombings was remanded in custody for another week when he made an initial court appearance on Thursday.

Ismael Abdurahman, 23, is charged with failing to disclose information to police about a man suspected of trying to blow up a train in Shepherd’s Bush, west London. That suspect, Hamdi Issac, was arrested in Rome last week and is due to face an extradition hearing on August 17. Abdurahman did not enter a formal plea but his lawyer Ann Faul said he denied any connections to terrorism.

"I have been instructed to tell the court he is, and will be, vigorously contesting this charge and that he has no involvement in any terrorist activity whatsoever," she said at Bow Street Magistrates Court in central London. The suspect, who was arrested on July 28 in south London where he also lives, faces a maximum prison sentence of five years if found guilty. He made no application for bail.

As he entered the courtroom, Abdurahman blew a kiss to two women in Islamic dress who were sitting in the public gallery. He turned and waved to them and smiled during the hearing, which lasted less than 10 minutes. At one point, the man mouthed the words, "I’m okay, and I’m okay." Abdurahman, who was wearing a bulky black hooded coat, light blue open-necked shirt and dark trousers, sat between two guards in the dock and only spoke officially to give his name.

District judge Timothy Workman remanded him in custody until a further hearing on August 11. The suspect was not handcuffed during the hearing, and as he was led away the young man waved again to the public gallery. Abdurahman is not one of the four key suspects whose pictures were released after the abortive bombings.

They are accused of carrying out the operation, which backfired after their bombs apparently failed to explode properly. Scotland Yard said Abdurahman was first arrested under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) on suspicion of harbouring an offender.

 August 4, 2005

Passengers shy away from subway after terror attacks

LONDON: Passenger numbers on London's subway have plunged by up to nearly a third since last month's bombings, new data showed Thursday, but officials said figures should fully recover as near-normal services resumed.

Weekend traffic on the capital's web of Underground trains has fallen 30 percent since it was hit by suicide bombers four weeks ago, while the level of weekday users has dropped by five to 15 percent, said Transport for London.

The slump, however, was largely a reflection of a reduction in the service due to the attacks, which closed or partially closed about 10 percent of the system, said a London transport spokeswoman, noting that subway trains Thursday were running to all stations in London for the first time since July 7.

"Passenger numbers have been lower since the attacks but this roughly mirrors the amount of the network that has been out of the operation," the spokeswoman told a foreign news agency.

"Instead of catching the Tube we assume people are either catching buses or walking or cycling to work, also it is summer holidays so it is natural for passenger numbers to be a bit lower," she said.

"Our latest figures show that ridership levels are coming back up and we are confident that passenger numbers will return to normal as services become restored and also the high police presence is making people feel more comfortable on the Tube," the spokeswoman added.

In a sign of progress, Transport for London said near-normal services had resumed across the entire subway network Thursday in a symbolic tribute to the 52 people who were killed by four suicide bombers exactly four weeks ago.

London Police mounts massive operation to guard London

LONDON: Thousands of police mounted a huge operation Thursday to protect London, exactly four weeks after suicide bombers brought carnage to the city, as Al-Qaeda warned of more horrors.

Amid the jitters, the first suspect to be charged in Britain in connection with a second wave of attempted attacks in London on July 21 was ordered to reappear in court on August 11, while his lawyer denied any link to terrorism.

More than 6,000 police officers, many of them armed, were on duty in shifts in the British capital in part of what has become the biggest and most expensive security deployment here since World War II.

"It is certainly a very big police operation today," Andy Trotter, the Metropolitan Police's deputy assistant commissioner, told BBC radio.

Different police forces in the capital have rallied together, cancelling their holidays, to stand guard at stations and on platforms, with undercover officers also posted on trains and buses, trying to spot potential suicide bombers.

"We are out there to reassure Londoners and also to deter any further attacks on the system," Trotter said, adding: "London is at a very high state of alert."

Fuelling fears of another terrorist strike, Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's right-hand man Ayman al-Zawahiri warned Britain and the United States they would face more attacks, in a video broadcast Thursday.

"These policies (of British Prime Minister Tony Blair) will bring them more destruction after the explosions of London," he said in the footage shown on the Al-Jazeera satellite channel.

Zawahiri also threatened the United States with "horror that would make them forget the horror they saw in Vietnam", referring to the war there. 

Four weeks ago on July 7, Britain's worst nightmare came true when four suicide bombers blew themselves up on three Underground trains and a double-decker bus, killing 52 people and injuring hundreds more.

Zawahiri warns Britain of more attacks

DUBAI: Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's right-hand man Ayman al-Zawahiri warned Britain it would face more attacks, in a new videotape shown on the Al-Jazeera satellite channel Thursday.

Zawahiri while addressing the British people told them that recent spate of London blasts were actually result of Prime Minister erroneous Tony Blair’s policies and warned them that if these policies were continued further, then they should be ready for more holocaust and deadly blasts.

London suspect extradition hearing set for August 17: judge
 
ROME: The London bombing suspect in custody in Rome, Hamdi Issac, will be brought before an extradition hearing on August 17, the judge in charge of the case said Thursday.

Suspect appears in London court in connection with July 21 

LONDON: The first suspect to be charged in Britain in connection with the July 21 attempted London bombings was ordered to remain in custody until August 11 when he appeared in court on Thursday.

UK charges man over July 21 bombings

LONDON: British police on Wednesday filed their first charges against a suspect in relation to the failed July 21 bombings in London as moves to extradite two other men arrested in Italy and Zambia gathered pace.

Ismael Abdurahman, 23, was charged under anti-terrorism laws and is due to appear before a magistrates court in London on Thursday, Scotland Yard said. The man is not one of the four key suspects whose pictures were released after the abortive bombings.
"Between July 23 and July 28 he had information he knew or believed may be of material assistance in securing the apprehension, prosecution or conviction of another person in the UK for an offence involving the commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism," the charge against Abdurahman read. Scotland Yard said the suspect, who lived in south London, was first arrested on July 28 under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) on suspicion of harbouring an offender. The following day, he was re-arrested under the Terrorism Act. The police also confirmed that a man who was detained at the weekend in Brighton, on the south coast, had now been released with no further action.

The British authorities are holding a total of 15 people in custody in relation to the attacks, while one of the prime suspected would-be bombers, Hamdi Issac, is being held in Rome. An Italian judge, meanwhile, said Britain has delivered the documents he needs to start extradition proceedings against Issac, a 27-year-old Briton born in Ethiopia who is also known as Osman Hussein. Judge Domenico Miceli, in charge of the case, said a date for a hearing could be established this week and that the hearing itself could take place this month. Issac was formally charged in Italy on Monday with international terrorism and with possessing false identity documents.

Britain considers Issac as one of four prime suspects in the botched attempts to bomb three Underground subway trains and a double-decker bus. The other three are among those in custody in London.

In a fast-moving, international investigation, Zambia officially announced it would deport Haroon Aswat, the alleged mastermind behind London’s first attacks on July 7, who was arrested in the capital Lusaka two weeks ago. "We had discussions with the governments of the US and Britain and finally agreed that Aswat should be deported to his country which is Britain," Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa told reporters in Lusaka. "I can’t say when he will deported, but it will be soon," he added.

Aswat, 31, has been named in US and British media reports as the suspected ringleader behind western Europe’s first-ever suicide bombings. A London postal worker who racially abused a shopkeeper in the hours after deadly bombings on July 7 was sentenced on Wednesday to 200 hours of community service.

David Parritt, 45, pleaded guilty to bursting into Aman Moradi’s shop in Fulham Road, west London, and lashing out at Muslims, following the attacks that killed 56 people, including four suicide bombers.

West London magistrates court heard that Parritt had downed about six pints of beer in two pubs after finishing work at lunchtime and watching TV news reports of the atrocities. He spat outside Moradi’s shop, and attacked the shopkeeper.

Prosecutor Arlene De Silva said Parritt pushed Moradi in the face, before he stormed out of the shop, knocking over a stand filled with candy bars. In sentencing Parritt, judge Lili Massey took into account his guilty plea to charges of racially aggravated common assault and racially aggravated criminal damage, and the seven days he spent in custody.

London police overstretched in wake of terror attacks

LONDON: The investigation into the London terror attacks and the huge operations to prevent further strikes have left the British capital’s police force overstretched, a member of the force’s watchdog said on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Zambian authorities said a man wanted in connection with the deadly July 7 bombings would be deported to Britain. British officials have only said that they are seeking consular access to a Briton held in Zambia. Many officers in the Metropolitan Police have been working longer hours and more days as they investigate the July 7 suicide attacks that killed 52 people, as well as the four bombers, and the failed July 21 bombings, said Richard Barnes, a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority. Thousands of officers from the force and the British Transport Police have been deployed at subway and train stations across London in recent weeks in a bid to avert more attacks. Police have also had to deal with numerous security alerts in the wake of the bombings, prompting frequent road and station closures in the jittery capital. The alerts are often caused by suspicious packages that prove to be harmless.

"The Met has risen, as it always does, remarkably well to the challenge. But you can’t sustain people working 12 hours a day, six days a week, constantly,’’ Barnes told British Broadcasting Corp. radio. "There are some specialists who are working far more than that. ... The pressure is just enormous,’’ he said, adding that the Metropolitan Police was overstretched "without a shadow of a doubt.’’ Barnes said it was time to consider whether some of the duties performed by uniformed officers could be carried out by civilians. A Metropolitan Police spokeswoman had no immediate response to Barnes’ comments. One of the lines bombed in the July 7 attacks will reopen Thursday, subway operator London Underground said. The Piccadilly Line _ where the deadliest blast occurred, between the King’s Cross and Russell Square stations _ will resume service Thursday, exactly four weeks after the attacks.

The spot where the bombs went off is one of the deepest on the subway system and the car was badly mangled, making its removal extremely complicated. British police have arrested 37 people over the unsuccessful July 21 bomb attacks, and on Wednesday were still holding 16 of them in connection with the investigation.

UK parliament plans hearings on bombings

LONDON: An all-party committee of the British parliament intends to hold hearings in September on the London bombings and their aftermath, its chairman said on Wednesday. The Home Affairs select committee plans to take testimony from government ministers, Metropolitan Police chief Sir Ian Blair, London Mayor Ken Livingstone and Sir Iqbal Sacranie of the Muslim Council of Britain. The hearings, to start on September 13, will focus on a range of concerns arising from the July 7 attacks, which killed 52 people plus four suicide bombers, and an attempt on July 21 to repeat the atrocities. "Our main intention will be to spend most of the session on a longer-term look at the issues arising from the bombings," said chairman John Denham, a former Home Office minister in Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government.

Piccadilly Line to resume normal service

LONDON: All stations on the London Underground will be open for service on Thursday for the first time since 52 commuters died in attacks exactly four weeks ago, transport officials said on Wednesday. A normal service will return to the Piccadilly Line, the site of the deadliest attack where 27 people died. That leaves the Circle line as the only service still suspended. Other trains serve all stations on this line however. "The return of the Piccadilly line is a major step as the Underground and London gets back to normal," London underground managing director Tim O’Toole said in a statement. "We are now serving all stations and are determined to get on with the job of transforming the Tube." O’Toole thanked his staff who had worked to restore a normal service. "Not only did they perform magnificently on July 7 and 21, but they have enabled the Tube and London to get back to normal within four weeks."


  

August 3, 2005

First suspect in Britain charged in July 21 bombings: police
 
LONDON: A man in Britain arrested in connection with the July 21 attempted bombings in London was charged on Wednesday by police under anti-terrorism laws, Scotland Yard said.

Bus fire creates panic in UK

LONDON: Frightened passengers on a London bus leapt from the upper deck window on Tuesday when a small fire on board triggered panic amid fears of another terror attack, witnesses was quoted by a foreign news agency as saying.

Police briefly sealed off part of the city centre after smoke was seen billowing from the double-decker bus, but lifted the alert after nothing alarming was found, a spokesman said. The incident, the exact cause of which was not immediately clear, reflected jittery nerves of residents in the British capital since the July 7 bombings.

Police have warned that the threat of further attacks remains "very real". "Everyone panicked, but it was only a small fire and no one was hurt," said a Metropolitan Police spokesman after the alarm near King’s Cross station.

No signs of fire were visible on the bus, but the access cover to the rear-mounted engine was open. Objects left by the bus as frightened passengers ran off included a laptop computer bag, a jacket, a purse and a pair of women’s shoes. "People were dropping out of the top back window, shouting and just running," said picture framer David Day, 42, whose shop was just yards from the scene.

"They did look really frightened. The way they were coming out of there they were really panicking," he told AFP. "I saw about 10 or 12 jumping out of the back window. You could smell burning. It was surreal. We’ve had this a few times over the last few weeks," he said.

The bus was stationary opposite the fish bar where Agatha Mazgis, 25, works. The incident occurred on a number 205 double-decker bus, which runs between the Paddington and Whitechapel districts.

August 2,2005

UK seeks return of bomb suspect from Italy

ROME: The London bombing suspect arrested in Rome last week was more likely part of a loose group of amateurs than an Islamist militant ring, Italian police said , as Britain sought his extradition.

Investigators in Rome said Hamdi Issac, also known as Osman Hussein, did not fit the profile of a member of a large and organized insurgent network.

"Concerning Hamdi, we are presented with details that very likely appear more part of an impromptu group than a structured organization that had broader terrorist projects," said head of Italy's anti-terrorism police forces.

De Stefano told reporters that Issac was cooperating with authorities. Two of his brothers have been arrested in Italy on lesser charges, including the possession of false documents.


British police quiz two more over London bombings 

LONDON: British police were on Tuesday quizzing two more men as part of a widening investigation into last month's failed bomb attacks on London, as officials moved to extradite one of the key suspects from Italy.

The two men detained taking to 20 the total number of arrests since the July 21 attacks were seized when three homes were raided in south London.

They were both held under anti-terrorism laws and taken for questioning, a brief police statement said.

Two searches took place in Stockwell, where previous arrests have taken place, and also the location of the subway station where innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes was shot dead by police a day after the attacks.

Neither man was identified, but residents at an apartment block in Stockwell said a man in his late 20s of ethnic Asian origin, who lived with his girlfriend and her two children, inhabited one of the flats raided.

Armed police, some of whom wore masks and forensic suits to protect evidence, said sources.


British police hunt terror masterminds

LONDON: Police in London were on high alert on Monday as they hunted for the masterminds behind two waves of terror attacks, while Rome said a decision on whether to extradite a suspected bomber may take weeks. Anxious to thwart any other plots, detectives were probing whether there was a network or networks behind the failed bombings on July 21 and the deadliest ever terror attack on Britain July 7, both on London subway trains and buses.

The Times newspaper said another bombing squad, linked to the four suspected July 7 suicide attackers, was plotting a third attack on the capital but police at Scotland Yard played down the report as "speculation". Nevertheless, officers were deployed in large numbers around the city, hoping to calm fears among commuters.

In a fast-moving investigation, British police have arrested 18 people in connection with the botched July 21 attacks, when an attempt to repeat the carnage of July 7 was frustrated by faulty bombs, while their Italian counterparts detained one of four prime suspects in Rome last Friday. "We have had a significant number of arrests over the last few days and I suspect over the next few days we will be sorting those out," said a spokesman for Scotland Yard, noting that there had been no further arrests, releases or significant raids in Britain on Monday.

Italian magistrates mulling the fate of Hamdi Issac, one of four suspected bombers, warned that judges could take until the end of September to decide whether he should be extradited to face charges in Britain for his alleged role in the failed July 21 attacks.

Judge Domenico Miceli, who interrogated the 27-year-old Ethiopian-born Briton in prison, said a date for a preliminary appeal court hearing would be set in "the next few days, certainly before the end of the week." London still had to hand over all of the requisite documents accompanying a European arrest warrant, which must be deposited with an Italian court within 10 days of last Friday’s arrest, he said. Once a date has been fixed, the Italian court has within 60 days of the date of the suspect’s arrest to give its decision.

Issac was formally charged in Italy on Monday with international terrorism and with possessing false identity documents, his court-appointed defence lawyer Antonietta Sonnessa said.

Issac, naturalised Briton also known as Osman Hussain, has already signalled through his lawyer his intention to fight extradition. Italian authorities are also holding two of his brothers but police in Rome said his support network was not considered to be part of an organised terrorist web.

31 July 2005

London police nab 7 more in blasts probe 

London: Police arrested seven people in southern England on Sunday in connection with the failed July 21 London transit bombings and reportedly were investigating the attackers' ties to Saudi Arabia and Italy. 

Police made the arrests during raids on two properties in Brighton, on the coast, a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police said, providing no other details. 

In northern Italy, police took a second brother of a main suspect into custody for questioning Sunday, the Italian news agency ANSA said. Another brother of Osman Hussain, also known as Hamdi Issac, was detained Friday. 

Sunday's arrests follow dramatic raids earlier this week in London and Rome that netted the four men police believe tried to set off bombs in three subway trains and a bus July 21, two weeks after the deadly July 7 attacks.

Police were searching for those who may have recruited and directed the bombers and built the explosives, while also looking for links between the two terror cells, one made up mostly of Britons of Pakistani descent, the other mainly of east African-born Britons. 

Six more detained in Britain over terror bombings

LONDON: Six more people were arrested in two police raids south of London Sunday in connection with the July 21 bombings in the British capital, police said.



                                                          30 July 2005


London bomb suspect's brother arrested

LONDON: A third man arrested in police raids in west London is Wahbi Mohammed, 23, the brother of suspected terrorist bomber Ramzi Mohammed, a report said on Saturday.

The local press quoted unnamed police sources as saying Wahbi Mohammed was arrested Friday in Tavistock Crescent along with his brother and Muktar Said Ibrahim, who has been previously named as a suspected bomber.

Police would not release the third man's name when contacted , saying 
only that he was a person "of interest" in their investigation into the botched 
July 21 London bomb attacks.

A third alleged bomber, Somali national Osman Hussain, was arrested Friday 
in Rome and a fourth, Somali-born Yassin Hassan Omar, was detained in a raid in 
the central English city of Birmingham on Wednesday.

                                                                     29 July 2005


Four suspects behind failed 21/7 London bomb attack captured 
 
LONDON: All four fugitive suspects from the botched July 21 London bomb attacks were reported to be behind bars Friday after a massive international manhunt culminated with dramatic raids in Britain and Italy.

In a dizzying sequence of events, machine gun-toting British police were seen by witnesses firing tear gas and apparently setting off stun grenades as they raided two addresses in west London, arresting three men in all.

According to a series of reports -- unconfirmed by police -- two of those arrested were among the four suspected bombers who fled when their explosives failed to detonate on London subway trains and a double-decker bus on July 21.

Another suspect, Somali-born Yasin Hassan Omar, had already been detained on Wednesday in Birmingham, central England.

Within hours of the London arrests, Italy's Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu announced that a Somali-born Briton, Osman Hussain, who he called "the fourth attacker in London on July 21", had been arrested in Rome.

Italy's ANSA news agency said Hussain was seized by a special police anti-terrorist force from an apartment on edge of Rome at about 4:30 pm (1430 GMT).

The London arrests followed one of the biggest police hunts in British history, an operation made all the more desperate by repeated official warnings that while still at large the bombers could strike again.

Police warned that another attack might yet succeed in repeating the carnage of July 7, when 56 people, including four British Muslim suicide bombers, were killed by bombs ripping through three subway trains and a bus.

In a flurry of activity in London Friday, armed police launched raids on two separate parts of west London and also shut down one of the city's main stations.

The most dramatic scenes were played out in Dalgarno Gardens, a run-down estate of public housing apartments in the White City area, where locals were shaken by a massive blast, seemingly police blowing a door off its hinges.

Armed officers were then seen laying siege to a flat in which a lone man sheltered.

"They are saying: You must take off your clothes, put your hands on your head and come out,'" Paul Redfern, a 72-year-old retired man said as the siege continued.

London police confirm three arrests in raids

LONDON: London's Metropolitan Police said Friday it had arrested three men during two raids in the west of the capital, while refusing to confirm that among them were suspected bombers who targeted the city last week.

Several suspects over 21/7 London blast held

LONDON: Scores of suspects have been captured from Notting Hill area of West London by London Police during an operation launched in Dalmore Gardens and Ladbroke areas with regard to a failed attack on the city on July 21. 

According to latest reports, the citizens in Dalmore Garden area said that armed contingents of police have rounded up a home.  

Two suspected July 21 London bombers arrested: report

LONDON: Two more of the suspected bombers who fled following failed bomb attacks in London last week were arrested Friday, foreign media reported citing police sources.

London station evacuated as armed police make arrests

LONDON: One of London's busiest Underground stations was evacuated on Friday as armed police made arrests, a spokesman for the British Transport Police said.

Aswat arrested in Zambia

WASHINGTON: CNN television reported on Thursday that a suspected organiser of the London bomb attacks, Haroon Aswat, has been detained in Zambia.

The report, which quoted US and Zambian officials, said there were now international negotiations over who would get access to Aswat, who is also wanted in the United States. Aswat, who is about 31, is a British-born Pakistani suspected of playing a role in organising the four suicide bomb attacks in London on July 7. According to media reports, the hunt for Aswat intensified after it was found that his mobile phone received up to 20 calls from the four London suicide bombers before the attacks.

A British Foreign Office spokesman said he could not identify the man or confirm media reports but added London wanted to speak to him. "We are currently seeking consular access to a British national reported to be in custody in Zambia," the spokesman said.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman also refused to confirm the reports, saying: ìItís all speculation and not something that we will discuss at the moment.î US investigators also want to question Aswat over attempts to set up a terrorist training camp in Bly, Oregon. CNN quoted US officials as saying Aswat was "in their grasp" one month before the London attacks but British counterparts would not let them detain him. It also quoted the sources as saying the suspect had been under surveillance in South Africa.


UK may face more bombers: police chief

LONDON: Police arrested nine more people on Thursday in a massive manhunt for train and bus attackers, but warned a new wave of bombers could be poised to strike Britain again.

"This is a campaign we are facing, it is not a one-off event," Commissioner Ian Blair told Londoners. "It does remain possible that those at large will strike again. It does also remain possible that there are other cells that are capable and intent on striking again," Blair said.

Police are still hunting three of four men wanted for trying to detonate bombs in failed attacks on July 21. "This is not the B-team, these weren’t the amateurs," Blair said. "They made a mistake. They only made one mistake and we’re very, very lucky."

Police arrested nine men in Tooting, south London, on Thursday morning, bringing to 20 the number of people being held in connection with the failed July 21 attacks. Police said the nine did not include the three suspected bombers they are still hunting.

British Transport Police said it had scrambled the "largest ever deployment of police" to patrol the country’s rail network. "It is a time of heightened tension, and we have this deployment of police to give reassurance and deterrence," said spokesman Simon Lubin.

Police interrogated their first captured July 21 London bombing suspect. Somali-born Yasin Hassan Omar, 24, is suspected of an attempted suicide attack on a London Underground train near central London’s Warren Street train station.

London transport police spokesman Simon Lubin told AFP officers also had flooded the Underground system. "The state of alert hasn’t changed. The operational deployment is to get as many people out there as possible," he said. London’s top police officer, Sir Ian Blair, renewed a warning that as long as the other three suspected bombers remained on the loose, their potential to cause death and mayhem was undiminished.




                                                                    July 27 2005



Man held under anti-terror laws at London Luton airport

LONDON: British police arrested a man under anti-terrorism laws as he prepared to embark on a flight from Luton airport north of London to the southern French city of Nimes, police said Wednesday.

Britain imposes "air exclusion zone" over Luton airport

LONDON: British authorities have announced a security alert at Luton airport north of London and imposed an "air exclusion zone", sources reported Wednesday.

Four arrested over London bombs 

LONDON: Anti-terror police investigating the failed London bombings on 21 July have arrested four men in Birmingham.

One man was held in the Heybarnes Road area of the city and has been taken to Paddington Green high security police station in London for questioning. 

A suspect package was found during the operation and the area has been evacuated. 

Three other men were arrested on Bankdale Road in Washwood Heath and are in custody in the West Midlands.  

The arrest of the man on the Heybarnes Road took place on Wednesday, following a joint operation between West Midlands Police and officers from the Metropolitan Police Anti-Terrorist Branch. The man was held under the Terrorism Act 2000.

He was shot with a Taser gun during the operation, but police say no firearms were used.

"A suspect package was found and as a precautionary measure evacuations have been undertaken in the vicinity," a police statement said. 

Shortly afterwards the second address was raided and the other three men were arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000.


British union leader blames UK for bomb blasts

KARACHI: Manchester Trade Union General Secretary Geoff Brown has said that the London bomb blasts were a reaction to the policies of British Government. Brown, who was delivering a lecture at the PMA House, organised by Pakistan Institute of Labour Education & Research (PILER), Karachi, observed the people as a whole had rejected the policies of the allied forces and those who hated such policies were now giving vent to their anger. He said that thousands of security guards and staff were deployed at the site of the G-8 Summit and yet people were holding massive protest demonstrations against their controversial policies. Hence, he said the developed countries must avoid creating an Iraq- and Afghanistan-like situation in the developing countries.


Rein in Madaris, Blair tells Pakistan

LONDON: British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Tuesday categorically said it was prime responsibility of Pakistan to rein in seminaries imparting teachings of extremism and militancy.

Meanwhile, police said two suspects in last week’s failed bombings were legal immigrants who moved to Britain from Somalia and Eritrea as children. "It is the responsibility of Pakistan to control seminaries involved in imparting religious extremism," Blair said while talking to mediapersons at his residence.

He vowed to use all measures to root out terrorism saying laws would be made to tackle the menace of terrorism. "I don’t see situations in Afghanistan and Iraq breed militancy and terrorism," he said, adding that lasting democracy in the Middle East would help eradicate growing terrorism. "The people of the Middle East and Arab countries not only have unleashed movements against their governments as the latter denied people’s rights but their people after getting terrorism training are waging war against the West," he said.

Blair said Britain would not "give one inch" to terrorists on his government’s policy on Iraq and the Middle East. Blair made his comments after holding a rare meeting with opposition party leaders to discuss new anti-terror legislation aimed at preventing a repeat of the July 7 suicide bombings that killed 52 people and four suspected suicide bombers.

The opposition, however, had reservations about extending custody for such suspects, saying it could erode civil liberties. Asked whether the British-backed and US-led invasion of Iraq had fuelled terrorist attacks around the world and in London, Blair said "there was no excuse or justification" for the actions of the bombers.

"Whatever excuse or justification these people use, I do not believe we should give one inch to them, not in this country and the way we live our lives here, not in Iraq, not in Afghanistan, not in our support for two states, Israel and Palestine, not in our support for the alliances we choose including with America. Not one inch should we give to these people," Blair said.

"Sept 11 for me was a wake-up call," he said. "Do you know what I think the problem is? A lot of the world woke up for a short time and then turned over and went back to sleep again." As police searched for the four men wanted for the July 21 attempted bombings, the Home Office said on Tuesday that two of the suspects were immigrants who moved to Britain as children, both coming as the dependents of refugees. Suspect Yasin Hassan Omar, 24, is a legal British resident who arrived in Britain in 1992 from Somalia when he was 11, the Home Office said. He is suspected of trying to blow up a subway train near Warren Street station.

Muktar Said Ibrahim, 27, suspected of trying to bomb a bus last Thursday, moved to Britain from Eritrea as a child. Said, also known as Muktar Mohammad Said, gained residency in 1992 at age 14 and became a British citizen in September 2004, the Home Office said.

Explosives experts were examining suspicious material found on Tuesday in a north London flat recently visited by Said, police said. A car found nearby the flat was impounded, a police spokeswoman said.

"We have seized a car ... in connection with the investigation into the incidents of July 21 but we’re not prepared to discuss it further," she said on customary condition of anonymity. Police were questioning five suspects arrested in connection with the July 21 attacks. The bombs, which failed to fully detonate, were stored in clear plastic food containers and put into dark-coloured bags or backpacks. Those four bombs were similar to another found abandoned in a park on Saturday, raising fears that a fifth bomber was on the loose, said Peter Clarke, head of the Metropolitan Police anti-terrorist squad.



                                                                       26 July 2005


Britain, Israel in anti-terror talks after London bombings

LONDON: The British and Israeli foreign ministers held talks here Tuesday on how to deal with international terrorism in the wake of the London bombings which killed 56 people earlier this month.

British police have been criticised for allegedly copying Israeli shoot-to-kill tactics in the hunt for suspected suicide bombers after an innocent Brazilian man was killed by anti-terrorism police here last week.

Visiting Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom refused to comment about the specific nature of the cooperation between Israeli and British security forces, saying only that both countries stood united in the "war on terror".

"Our discussions today of course focused on the question of terrorism and how well it can be combated," Shalom told a press conference alongside British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.

"We are sharing our assessments as well as our experience with all the world, not especially the United Kingdom. Of course we will be very happy to help anybody who asks for this help," he said.

Both ministers stressed that international Islamic terrorism had to be met head-on and could not be justified by the US-led war in Iraq or Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories.

"Don't believe for a moment that if we were to withdraw from Iraq or if we were never there that this terrorism would stop. It's really poor journalism for people to run around looking for excuses when those excuses just are not there," Straw said.

Blair backs calls for expanded powers to detain terror suspects 

LONDON: British Prime Minister Tony Blair said he favors giving police expanded powers to detain terrorist suspects, threatening to break a truce with opposition parties over legislation to respond to the attacks on London. 

The Association of Chief Police Officers has asked for powers to hold terrorist suspects for three months instead of the current 14 days, saying itÆs hard to gather enough evidence in two weeks to make charges stick. 

Opposition Conservative and Liberal Democrat leaders emerged from talks with Blair earlier today saying they remain concerned about the proposal. The meeting sought to cement cross-party support for ways of strengthening anti-terror laws following the July 7 attacks that killed at least 56 people. 

``My basic posture on this is to support the police and security services,'' Blair told his monthly press conference in London. ``This is a perfectly obvious balance between the liberties of the suspect and what the police need. They have found the 14 days an inhibition, a problem. You would obviously have to have some sort of judicial oversight.'' 

Blair was forced to scale back plans for ``control orders'' on terrorist suspects in March after some ruling Labour Party lawmakers sided with opposition parties in opposing the bill. 

Divisions over how long police should be able to detain terrorist suspects could undermine party unity behind tougher anti-terror laws since the July 7 bombings on three subway trains and a bus and attempted bombings on the transport system two weeks later. 

``So far as the three-month period of detention, we see very considerable difficulties with that,'' Conservative leader Michael Howard said. ``That's a long time to hold someone without charge.'' 

The Liberal Democrats' Charles Kennedy said he would aim to safeguard ``basic civil liberties, although both opposition parties believe that ``constructive agreement can be reached.'' 

Blair said today that `the cross party consensus on the way forward is continuing. It sends an important signal to the terrorists about our strength, our unity.'' The world should not give ``one inch'' to terrorists, he said. 

New legislation could be drafted before Parliament returns from its summer recess on Oct. 9 would make it an offense to prepare for terrorist acts, incite attacks or give or receive terrorist training, Blair said on July 20, a day before four attempted attacks on the capital's transport network. 

Today, Blair said he is keeping open the option of recalling parliament early if necessary. Kennedy said it was possible Parliament will sit sometime in September to begin work on the legislation. 

Blair's proposal in March was for restraints on suspected terrorists ranging from house arrest to electronic tagging. Howard said at the time that the measures curtailed rights to trial enshrined in the Magna Carta signed by King John in 1215. 

Blair is ``seriously'' considering Conservative calls for the government to use evidence gathered from phone taps and electronic surveillance in court against terrorism suspects, Howard said. 

Today's meeting was also attended by Home Secretary Charles Clarke as well as his opposite numbers in the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties, David Davis and Mark Oaten. Clarke said the parties would maintain contact over the summer. 

London police investigating last week's attempted bombings found a possible bomb factory in the north of the city, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported today. 

Yesterday, Blair apologized to the family of a Brazilian man who was shot dead by police who mistakenly suspected him of terrorism. Jean Charles de Menezes, a 27-year-old electrician, died at Stockwell station in south London on July 22 after eight gunshot wounds, seven to the head and one in the shoulder. 

"We are desperately sorry for the death of an innocent person,'' Blair said. "I understand entirely the feelings of the young man's family. But we also have to understand that the police are doing their job in very, very difficult circumstances and it's important that we give them every support.'' 

No justification for suicide bombing anywhere in the world 

LONDON: Britain's prime minister Tony Blair said Tuesday there was no justification whatsoever for suicide bombing anywhere in the world.

Benazir condemns London bombings

ISLAMABAD: Chairperson of the Pakistan People’s Party Benazir Bhutto has condemned the acts of terrorism in London and condoled with the families of the victims. In a letter addressed to the British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Benazir said, "The vast majority of the world’s Muslims abhors terrorism and rejects the claim of certain terrorist groups to speak in the name of the Muslim community."

"Moderate and democratic Muslims all over the world will continue to support the struggle against obscurantism, authoritarianism and terrorism, all of which feed each other," she said adding, "The PPP pays tribute to the people of the United Kingdom who, under your leadership, faced the terrorist assault with courage and calmness."

London Metro reopens

LONDON: Sombre defiance tinged with anxiety prevailed at Aldgate Street Underground station in London on Monday as commuters flowed through for the first time since seven people lost their lives to a suicide bomber there on July 7.

Aldgate, one of the three stations hit by suicide blasts, reopened after police wound up forensic work and repairs were completed at the spot where the explosion triggered by a man identified as 22-year-old Shahzad Tanweer ripped apart a Circle Line carriage.

Commuters heading into the capital’s nearby financial district expressed a sense of relief combined with apprehension and thought for the victims after renewed but failed attacks last Thursday. But Londoners, especially those who make the subway work, also showed defiance after the attacks on three Underground trains and a bus that left a total of 56 people including the bombers dead.

Howard Collins, the London transport official responsible for the recovery operation, said engineers had worked around the clock to get Aldgate station running again as soon as possible.

"It is a very solemn occasion. I travelled down in one of the first trains with the driver and I think we were quite thoughtful as we passed through, but also defiant and determined," Collins said, quoted by Britain’s domestic Press Association news agency.

Traveller Nicola Strack, 39, said she had felt sick at the thought of travelling to Aldgate. "I did not want to do it at all. Since it happened, you are so alert to the people around you. You look at people and wonder what they have in their bags," she told the Press Association.

"You have just got to get on with life, but you feel so much for the people who died," she added. Stuart Johnston, 37, remarked on the tense atmosphere prevailing on public transport in the British capital.


UK police arrest two more suspects

LONDON: British police arrested two more suspects on Monday in connection with the terrorist investigation into the attempted July 21 attacks, an official said.

Metropolitan police did not release any details of the arrests, except to say that they were not carried out at the home of one of the four suspected bombers which was being searched. A Metropolitan police spokeswoman, who asked not to be named in accordance with British practice, would not say where the two were arrested.

Police identified on Monday two men wanted for last week’s attempted terrorist attacks in London but investigators are still grasping for breakthroughs despite their claims to be making "rapid progress".

Peter Clarke of Scotland Yard said Mukhtar Said Ibrahim, 27, was the man who tried to blow up a bus last Thursday and Yassin Hassan Omar, 24, was one of three men who tried to bomb underground trains the same day. The pair are among four suspected Islamic extremists police have been hunting since the near-simultaneous attacks on three underground trains and a bus in London on July 21, which failed because their home-made bombs did not explode.

Grainy security camera photographs of the four July 21 bombers have been plastered across London since the day of the failed attack, and on Monday police released fresh images of Ibrahim and an unnamed suspect in a bid to jog the public’s memory.

Police also confirmed that a suspect package found in a west London park on Saturday was a bomb which had "clear similarities" to the ones abandoned by the attackers on Thursday after they failed to explode. But they refused to confirm a media report that the fifth bomb had been abandoned by a fifth bomber who was also on the loose and being sought by investigators. At a news conference on Monday, Clarke revealed another potentially crucial clue — that all the devices used last week were put in the same type of plastic food container before being carried in rucksacks. The white-lidded containers, manufactured in India, were only sold by around 100 outlets in Britain, Clarke said, appealing to shopkeepers who had sold five or more of them to any customer to contact police. "Do you remember selling any of these items at the same time, do you remember selling them to men you perhaps recognise from the pictures we put out today?" Clark pleaded.

Clarke, who is also deputy assistant commissioner, said Ibrahim was believed to have recently visited an address in north London which police searched on Monday. Ibrahim, a heavy-set, dark-skinned man with a moustache and beard, was broadly smiling in the latest photograph released by the police. His alleged accomplice, Omar, was also of dark complexion but thinner.

Meanwhile police still held for interrogation three men arrested since Friday in connection with the investigation, though they are not believed to be among the bombers. As millions of Londoners went back into the famous "Tube" Underground rail network on Monday morning at the start of a new working week, many were hoping to read headlines that the bombers had been found and removed from their midst. But the police could offer little reassurance. "We think they could strike again. That is why it is a race against time," a police spokesman said.

The British press also began to ask questions on Monday about the police’s handling of the investigation in the wake of the fatal shooting of an innocent Brazilian man by anti-terrorist police on Friday.

The Guardian said in an editorial the shooting of Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, was a major blow to the investigation. "Now public trust in the police in ethnic communities, which holds a key to identifying terrorists, has understandably been badly shaken," it said. Police inquiries in Egypt and Pakistan have failed to yield results, with Egyptian authorities saying last week that bio-chemist Magdi el-Nachar had no role in preparing the explosive chemical mixture used in the July 7 bombs

The Brazilian man killed by British anti-terror police was shot eight times in total, the country’s Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said on Monday. The information had been given at the opening of an inquest into the death of 27-year-old electrician Jean Charles de Menezes earlier Monday, an IPCC spokeswoman told AFP.

The spokeswoman said she could not confirm reports that Menezes was shot seven times in the head and once in the shoulder. Witnesses reported seeing an apparently terrified Menezes pursued by police through Stockwell Underground station in south London on Friday morning, before being cornered in a carriage and shot repeatedly in the head. Police said at the time that they opened fire because he had refused to obey instructions.




                                                                       25 July 2005 

Third suspect held as UK police defends shoot to kill policy

LONDON: Police, investigating the July 21 attempted suicide bombings in London, have arrested a third man under Britain’s anti-terrorism laws, police said on Sunday.

The man was arrested late on Saturday in south London, close to the neighbourhood of Stockwell where two other suspects were arrested on Friday, they said. A police spokeswoman said the man, who was not identified, was arrested "on suspicion of the commission or instigation or preparation of acts of terrorism".

"He has now been taken to a central London police station for questioning," she said. Police have released no details about how the suspect was believed to be con nected to Thursday’s bomb attacks in London, when four men tried but failed to blow up three Underground trains and a bus.

Meanwhile London’s police chief Sir Ian Blair said that four suspects who fled after attempted bombings last week in London were probably still in Britain and the police anxiously await public sightings of them.

Blair said he was confident of a breakthrough in the "incredibly fast-moving" investigation — the biggest in British history — into the bombings on London’s public transport system on July 7 and attempted attacks on Thursday.

"We are still anxious for any sightings of the four individuals and there are inquiries all over London and indeed in the rest of Britain," Blair told Sky News. Asked if he believed the would-be bombers were still in Britain, Blair replied: "We have no reason to believe they’re not." Blair said police had also found a common thread between the July 7 bombings and Thursday’s attempts, because both targeted Underground trains and buses and because of similarities in the explosives. "The equipment in the (Thursday’s) bombs had all the elements it should have and it didn’t work," he said, adding police were still studying the explosives. "We haven’t proof there are linked but clearly there is a pattern," he said.

Blair also defended a policy of shooting to kill suspected suicide bombers despite killing a Brazilian electrician by mistake in the hunt for attackers who tried to set off bombs in London. "I think we are quite comfortable that the policy is right, but of course these are fantastically difficult times," Blair said. Asked if police instructions were to shoot to kill suspected suicide bombers, he said: "Correct. They have to be that." He expressed deep regret for the slaying of a Brazilian electrician mistaken by police.

Police have no proof of a link between the two waves of attacks although there was a common pattern, Blair said. They had no reason to believe the four suspects had left Britain. British media, citing security sources, said police were investigating the possibility that two of the July 7 bombers had attended a white water rafting trip at the same centre in Wales as some of the suspected July 21 attackers.

The Observer newspaper also said two properties that police raided on Friday were linked to people with family connections in Somalia and Ethiopia. Police were trying to establish how the first group of bombers, three of them Britons of Pakistani origin from northern England, might be linked to a second cell with African connections, the newspaper said. Police had earned widespread praise for their investigations into the attacks, but the killing of an innocent man raised concern about the balance between human rights and security.


Terrorist attacks impact Britons way of life

ISLAMABAD: Terrorist attacks and bombing attempts on London have greatly impacted Britons' way of life they had been proud of.

Perhaps, Prime Minister Tony Blair too didn't believe his words, but he uttered them for the sake of morale boosting shortly after the 7/7 attack when he said terrorists want to change Britons' way of life but they wouldn't be able to achieve that. However, they have considerably succeeded.

Some extraordinary scenario has beset the British capital and other major cities and towns these heady days as observed by this correspondent during his just ended visit to Britain. Police pickets are a commonplace. Random stopping of vehicles for search is resorted to. "Stop if directed [by police]" is a common announcement displayed at different places.

Indeed, the police pickets do tremendously slow down the movement of the huge traffic particularly in central London, and at times, even on motorways, but there is no general hold-up unless cops are acting on a specific tip about any suspects. Vehicles keep on moving at a snail's pace at such places. Total blockade would certainly lead to worst chaotic traffic congestion.

Additionally, there is ominous presence of policemen in busy shopping areas and public places even in relatively small town apart from London and other cities. Previously, it used to be extremely less menacing.

Another change is the hurried setting up of immigration counters at British airports for passengers departing from the country. These were scrapped a few years back. Then, nobody used to ask for passports. Now, every passport is glanced at by immigration personnel under the vigilant eyes of some other monitors standing close. Data of some of passport holders is entered by the immigration officers in their laptops. After some time, they may start putting the exit stamp on passports if Britain remained under constant threat of terrorist attacks.

In the present wave, most scared, threatened and vulnerable community is Asian, and Pakistanis and Arabs are a special species in this lot. Many fear unnecessary hassle and even expulsions.

Except a few irrational voices, there is no general campaign at the government level against Pakistanis though they are under a strict watch. The fears among a predominant majority of Pakistani Britons are much more deep and severe than the official drive to track down terrorists.

The British government faces the dilemma of dealing with the huge Asian and Arab community particularly Pakistanis in a way that doesn't estrange them too much. Such a huge majority of Britons can't be simply dispensed with. The problem lies somewhere in the bringing up and education of Muslim Britons, born and bred there. This lot is actually Britons. A couple of their visits to Pakistan and other countries of their descent may not change them to an extent where they become too hardened to take others' lives.

At this heightened time, British police have at times not shown the requisite sanity, even common sense, as is evident from the shooting dead of an innocent man in broad daylight in the presence of some terrified passengers two days back. The man officers killed in a dramatic subway shooting apparently had nothing to do with a series of bombing attacks on London's transit system.

At the very outset, the ill-fated man was dubbed as a suspected terrorist. Now, police have realized that the "killer" personnel were not in their senses when they gunned down the man on the spot just for not obeying an ordinary order.

                                                                          24 July 2005

London police apologize for shooting innocent Brazilian man

LONDON: London's police chief has apologized to the family of a Brazilian man shot to death during a police manhunt for suspects in a bungled bombing of the mass transit network.

The killing of a 27-year-old Brazilian, Jean Charles de Menezes, has become an international incident, and has set back police efforts to reach out to disaffected British Muslims.

Police shot and killed Mr. Menezes on a subway train Friday during a manhunt for four suspects in the attempted bombing of three subway cars and a bus one day earlier.

Witnesses say Mr. Menezes was wearing an unseasonably heavy coat, and was running away from plainclothes police officers moments before he was fatally shot. Police sources say officers feared he had explosives hidden under the coat.

On Sunday, London Police Commissioner, Ian Blair, offered an apology during interview with a foreign news channel. 

"The Metropolitan Police accepts the full responsibility for this. And to the family, I can only express our deep regrets," he said. "But I think it is also important to recognize that the underlying causes of this are not a police action or a police policy or procedures, but actually the fact that we have terrorists using suicide as a weapon on the streets of London and below the streets of London and that is the context in which we are operating."

Mr. Menezes's body was identified by his cousin, Alex Pereira, who is in no mood to accept regrets from the police.

"He had nothing to hide from anyone and I tell you, it is incompetence, it could be you, it could be anyone," said Mr. Pereira.

The revelation that London police have shoot-to-kill orders for suspected suicide bombers has angered some segments of Britain's Muslim community, particularly younger Muslims, who have been under scrutiny since July 7, when four young British Muslim suicide bombers killed 52 people in attacks on London's transport network.

But other Muslim community leaders say they understand the pressure police are under, as explained by the founder of London's Muslim College, Zaki Badawi.

"I sympathize with the police. These are exceptional circumstances, and what happened to the Brazilian is regrettable, but understandable in the circumstances," he said.

In another development, police are investigating links between the July 7 bombers and the four men who are still at large after Thursday's failed bombing attempts. Operators of a white-water rafting company in Wales say two men from each group recently participated together in a river trip there.

                                                                          23 July 2005


Shot man not connected to bombing 

LONDON: A man shot dead by police hunting the bombers behind Thursday's London attacks was unconnected to the incidents, police have confirmed. 

A Scotland Yard statement said the shooting was a "tragedy" which was regretted by the Metropolitan Police. 

The man was shot dead after police followed him from a south London flat to Stockwell Tube station on Friday. 

Two other men have been arrested and are being questioned after bombers targeted three Tube trains and a bus. 

The statement read: "We believe we now know the identity of the man shot at Stockwell Underground station by police on Friday 22nd July 2005, although he is still subject to formal identification. 

"We are now satisfied that he was not connected with the incidents of Thursday 21st July 2005. 

"For somebody to lose their life in such circumstances is a tragedy and one that the Metropolitan Police Service regrets." 

The statement confirmed the man was followed by police from a block of flats that was under surveillance. 

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