NationStates Jolt Archive

It appears that UK intel had bugged Tanweer and Mohd. Siddique Khan but did not think that they were dangerous enough. I saw this news on Times of India, but it sources the news to the Sunday Times. Is the Sunday Times a reliable news outlet?

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1381611.cms
UK traces 7/7 to Pak terrorist camp
LONDON: Britain's lead intelligence agency has traced the origins of 7/7 back to a terrorist training camp in northern Pakistan, which was visited by the ringleader of the London suicide bombers as far back as the summer of 2003.

Mohammed Siddique Khan, the 31-year-old teaching assistant from north Yorkshire, who was married to a Gujarati Indian girl, is now revealed to have been within the sights of the British intelligence agencies more than a year before the attacks on London.

The revelation, by a leading British Sunday newspaper, challenges the hitherto-official explanation given by Tony Blair's government, that the four devastating suicide bomb attacks on London's transport network "came out of the blue".

The Sunday Times, however, quotes unnamed security sources to say that MI5 had bugged Khan and another bomber, Shehzad Tanweer for two whole months.

As the intelligence agents eavesdropped, they heard about Khan's desire to fight a so-called jihad in Britain. He also talked about returning to Pakistan and engaging in crime to raise money for jihad.

The intelligence agents subsequently concluded that the two men were likely to be primarily involved in fraud and minor criminal acts rather than a full-blown plan to attack London, Europe's financial heart.

This fatal misjudgement was made despite Khan's apparent knowledge of the art and science of making bombs. Khan, MI5 has now revealed, travelled to the northern Pakistani terrorist training camp only to return fully-versed in bombcraft.

Khan is now revealed to have travelled to other terrorist training camps in Pakistan that year. His last known visit to the country, along with Tanweer, was in November 2004.

I found the original report....

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-523-2003915-523,00.html
MI5 knew of bomber’s plan for holy war
David Leppard

BRITAIN’S top spies knew that the ringleader of the London bombers was planning to fight for Al-Qaeda more than a year before the July 7 suicide attacks, security sources have revealed.

MI5 bugged Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, a second bomber, for two months as they talked about Khan’s desire to fight in what he saw as the Islamic holy war.

Agents also listened in as the men talked between themselves about Khan’s plans to return to Pakistan where he had attended a camp for British terrorists. They also spoke about engaging in crime to raise money for Islamic extremism.

However, police and MI5 officers ruled that the two men were not an “immediate risk” and did not present a “direct threat” to national security.

The detectives’ assessment was that the men were primarily involved in fraud rather than preparing to mount attacks in the near future. As a result, surveillance on them stopped, allowing the attacks that killed 52 people and injured 700 to go ahead.

Security sources said that the disclosures come from a trawl by officials of MI5 files on all intelligence held on the four bombers.

The agency has traced the origins of the July 7 plot back to the summer of 2003 when Khan visited a terrorist training camp in northern Pakistan. It has established that the camp was set up by Al-Qaeda soon after Tony Blair sent British troops into Iraq.

The aim of the camp, security sources say, was to train would- be terrorists such as Khan to plan and carry out bomb attacks in Britain. A source said that when Khan returned from the camp in the summer of 2003 he was fully versed in how to make bombs.

The intelligence agency should have picked up the early warning signs about Khan and Tanweer’s intentions as they travelled together around England during 2004.

The disclosure is expected to lead to renewed calls for a public inquiry into the July 7 attacks and the potential intelligence failings. Last month Blair ruled out in inquiry, saying it would distract from the task of fighting terrorism. Instead the government is to publish an official “narrative of events” leading up to July 7.

Charles Clarke, the home secretary, said at the time of the bombings that they had “simply come out of the blue”. Security officials said the suicide bombers were “clean skins” — men not previously known to the intelligence services.

Two weeks after their denials, intelligence officials admitted that they knew at the time that Khan was “on the fringes” of terrorist activities. Officials said that hundreds of others had been in a similar situation, adding that they had made a “quick assessment” and ruled that Khan was not an immediate threat to national security.

The new evidence, uncovered in the trawl ordered by the Home Office of all relevant documents at Scotland Yard and MI5, shows the intelligence services knew far more about Khan and Tanweer than the government has publicly admitted.

A senior Whitehall official, defending the intelligence services last week, said that with hindsight, and the discovery of new evidence about the suicide bombers, MI5 had changed its view of them.

Hundreds of pages of transcripts obtained from the surveillance are contained in secret files being prepared by MI5 and Scotland Yard. Clarke has asked for the files to be collated so the government can prepare the official narrative of events.

Members of the parliamentary intelligence and security committee, which is holding a confidential inquiry into the intelligence agency’s handling of the attacks, have also been briefed on the findings.

This weekend Rachel North, an advertising executive from north London who was injured in the King’s Cross bombing, said: “This is a compelling reason why we need a full public inquiry. The public has a right to know what the risks were and why this happened.”

Patrick Mercer, the Tories’ homeland security spokesman, said: “We need the government to reveal the full details of what it knew of the threat at the time. This absolutely underlines the need for an independent inquiry.”

MI5 has now established that Khan travelled to other camps in Pakistan in the summer of 2003 and may well have visited Afghanistan. His and Tanweer’s last known visit was in November 2004, according to immigration officials in Pakistan.

MI5 has calculated that the entire plot cost less than £10,000 to carry out. It has also employed a team of in-house psychologists to analyse why the four men became terrorists.

Khan, who was 31 when he blew up himself and six others at Edgware Road Tube station, had been working as a learning “mentor” in a primary school in Leeds. Tanweer, 21, blew himself up at Aldgate station, killing eight others.

When the files go to Clarke they will be reviewed by William Nye, the new director of counter-terrorism and intelligence at the Home Office. He will advise Clarke on how much of the intelligence material on the four bombers should be made public in the narrative of events. It is expected to be complete by the spring.

It appears that UK intel had bugged Tanweer and Mohd. Siddique Khan but did not think that they were dangerous enough. I saw this news on Times of India, but it sources the news to the Sunday Times. Is the Sunday Times a reliable news outlet?The Sunday Times is a broadsheet, sibling of The Times (The Times, but "The Times Of London" by the naming standards of some people) and does not have the bad reputations that the tabloids (such as the Mirror (or Sunday Mirror), Sun, etc, etc, do, so I'd say it's about as reliable as any paper is, give or take the usual fallibility.

UK traces 7/7 to Pak terrorist campWhile I remember seeing something some months ago (post-7/7) about the fact he had been 'looked at', I didn't see anything saying whether all this incrimination was collated prior to his rather terminal action in July.

There will have been an awful lot of people who would have (at least momentarily) come under the scrutiny of the security services, and if he had (as it seems he did) managed to look uninteresting enough for surveillance to be dropped, he could have fallen off the radar up until the question "what should we have known about him?" was asked, after the event.

But who knows. Let's wait thirty years and see if the Thirty Year Rule releases any relevant information. Were there people in the security srvices kicking themselves for underestimating him and his confederates? Was he essentially quiet/evasive enough that nothing barring (at the time unjustified) blanket surveillance would have revealed the threat? Given the relatives hadn't apparently spotted any abnormalities in the behaviours of those responsible, it might have taken more than the standard amount of detection to discover the plans...

Is the Sunday Times a reliable news outlet?


Normally, in my opinion, yes.

Not to hijack, but, blame Blair and Brown entirely for leading us into Iraq, and facilitating this.

Like Howard would have done any different, or IDS, or Cameron. Or Kennedy like as not...

Just a small point, the Times and Sun are both owned by Murdoch an the Times has definitely suffered for it, a lot more partisan now than it was.

Like Howard would have done any different, or IDS, or Cameron. Or Kennedy like as not...

Just a small point, the Times and Sun are both owned by Murdoch an the Times has definitely suffered for it, a lot more partisan now than it was.

I doubt the Tory party would have been so obseiquios in relation to Bush, and Clarke alone would have made the action unlikely.

But who knows. Let's wait thirty years and see if the Thirty Year Rule releases any relevant information. Were there people in the security srvices kicking themselves for underestimating him and his confederates? Was he essentially quiet/evasive enough that nothing barring (at the time unjustified) blanket surveillance would have revealed the threat? Given the relatives hadn't apparently spotted any abnormalities in the behaviours of those responsible, it might have taken more than the standard amount of detection to discover the plans...

Thanks for the replies.

My take is different.

Terrorist attacks by Brit-Pak muslims is not new. In 1994, Omar Sheikh, a British citizen of Pak descent was arrested in Delhi for kidnapping 3 Britons and an American. In 2000 Mohammad Bilal, another Brit-Pak, blew himself up at an army post in Kashmir. Pakistani terrorist orgs like Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Toiba were openly collecting funds and spreading their ideology amongst the muslims in UK.

The law enforcement, either thought that they would not harm UK, or that they did not want to risk enraging the jihadis and invite attacks. By the way, those camps that trained them are still functioning.

But don't worry, let's invade Iran.;)