Die Serie "London Bombing" ist eine Sammlung relevanter Artikel und Nachrichten aus verschiedenen Quellen. Das hier veröffentlichte Material dient als Grundlage für weitere Diskussionen und zur Vertiefung über die Terroranschläge in London. Die Serie besteht aus vier Teilen und steht mit dem letzten Teil als PDF Datei zum Download zur Verfügung.


► NET INDUSTRY URGED TO CO-OPERATE AFTER LONDON BOMBINGS
► The Secret War on Terror
► British Consult Allies
► Gaps in Phone Intelligence
► Understanding the London Bombings
► No Link to Zarqawi
► Bosnia: The Birthplace of Al Qaeda
► Terror Probes Finds ‘the Hands’
► Who Was Behind the Bombings?
► Injured Moroccan Known to Police
► The New Al Qaeda: Local Franchises
► Will America Be the Next Target?
► The Morocco Connection
► Spain Warned of Syrian’s Bomb Plans


NET INDUSTRY URGED TO CO-OPERATE AFTER LONDON BOMBINGS
► The Register / by Tim Richardson
► Bits of Freedom

Jul 11 2005 ► Jul 11. ISPA - the UK's internet trade body - has called on ISPs to co-operate with police and other law enforcement agencies following last Thursday's terrorist bombings in London.

In a memo circulated to ISPs last Thursday the National High Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) called on ISPs to "preserve" where "reasonably practicable" communications data and content from electronic communica-tions so that it can be used if necessary as part of the investigation into last week's murderous events.

The data requested to be preserved includes content of email servers and email server logs; pager, SMS and MMS messages and call data records including content of voicemail platforms.

Investigators believe that those behind the bombing will have most likely used the net and mobile phones to help plan the bombings. They want to ensure that any information currently stored by service providers will not be lost over the coming months and that it can be made available as part of their ongoing investigation. The data preservation request issued last Thursday is similar to one made in 2001 following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US.

Even before the NHTCU wrote to service providers asking for their co-operation ISPA had already contacted the Home Office offering its help.

A spokesman for ISPA told us: "ISPA and its members are committed to undertaking practical measures to assist law enforcement agencies to prevent terrorism. "We ask that all UK ISPs provide what practical assistance they can to UK law enforcement agencies at this time."

THE SECRET WAR ON TERROR
► Times / by Michael Smith
► Cees Wiebes

Jul 11 2005 ► Jul 10. The MI5 surveillance team picks up its suspect as he leaves his parents’ house in an Asian-dominated area of one of Britain’s major cities. The watchers keep their distance unobtrusively as the target — we will call him Jamal — stops to speak to another young Asian.

The body language makes it clear that Jamal is in charge. The conversation is not aggressive, but nor are they merely chatting. It is clearly not a chance encounter, and it is taking place on a well chosen patch of waste ground where they cannot be overheard. The MI5 team holds off.
Jamal has no record of extremism. He has never been seen publicly to side with the angry young men who after Friday prayers rage against Britain’s involvement in the war in Iraq.

Jamal’s family has been here for several generations. He is regarded by those who know him as fully assimilated into British society. He has what his mother rightly regards as “a respectable job” working in computers.

On the face of it his frequent trips to Pakistan are innocent visits to see his aunts and uncles. But intelligence obtained by MI6 from a “liaison service”, in this case the CIA, shows that Jamal spends most of his “holidays” in Pakistan in guesthouses in the tribal homelands, talking to known members of Al-Qaeda.

Jamal does not exist, but his profile and the way the intelligence services deal with him exemplify the war on terror.

Britain’s security and intelligence services have had to revamp their operations completely in the four years since the September 11 attacks to keep track of home-grown terrorists like Jamal.

Surveillance is not confined simply to “watching”. His mobile phone is bugged, his conversations are recorded and analysed, his movements are filmed and his contacts are subjected to the same deep surveillance.

MI5 knows that simply dragging Jamal off the streets is not a solution; someone else will take his place.
Jamal has been under surveillance ever since the MI6/CIA report arrived in the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC), based in MI5’s Millbank offices.

Set up in May 2003, JTAC contains experts from every UK security and intelligence-gathering agency and is entirely focused on international terrorism.

Commanded by a member of the Defence Intelligence Staff and controlled by MI5’s director, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, it is a key part of Britain’s war against terror.

Changes designed to make the security service less hierarchal ensure that all the specialists, including the “visual surveillance” experts and the technical experts, are working together. Their work takes up around half the service’s annual budget, which has rocketed in recent years.

In Jamal’s case, the watchers have taking over a house close to his home, videoing everything. Conversations inside his home can be recorded by bouncing radio waves off the window panes.

These intrusive intelligence methods have been justified legally on the suspicion that Jamal is building up what is effectively a franchise for Al-Qaeda.

All such surveillance teams have an MI5 lawyer attached to the operation, overseeing everything they do to ensure that any evidence they collect will be admissible in court should they arrest their target.

Nobody is yet sure what role Jamal has been groomed for by Al-Qaeda. During his time in the Pakistani guesthouse he may have been trained as a bomb-maker. Certainly he has been taught leadership and recruitment skills, how to persuade other young Muslims that it is their duty to force the “new crusaders” out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The MI5 team knows that, using a pseudonym, he has set up his own weblog with links to radical websites that accuse Israel of being behind the 9/11 attacks. Visitors to the site are encouraged to post their own views. Jamal picks out those that seem most susceptible to recruitment, pliable young men who want to know more.

These recruits are steered away from the weblog to private one-to-one e-mail conversations in which they are groomed for roles within a group that Jamal initially portrays as innocuous.

Slowly and carefully Jamal will ease them into joining his terrorist group, not a part of Al-Qaeda but nevertheless one that regards Osama Bin Laden as its guiding light.
The warrants the MI5 watchers have obtained permit them to intercept Jamal’s e-mail conversations with those he is grooming, and to carry out “portscans” on his computer. Using sophisticated software, they reach into it to search for incriminating files.

His mobile telephone is being monitored by specialists from the British signals intelligence agency, GCHQ, whose experts carry out “traffic analysis” of all the calls to and from his phone, building up a picture of his contacts and, where appropriate, seeking fresh warrants to monitor their telephones.

GCHQ specialists don’t even need Jamal to be using his phone. As long as his mobile is switched on and he has it with him, it can be used to listen in to anything he is saying to anyone else.

Mobile telephone networks operate in a cellular structure with each cell of around 100 square miles controlled by a base station that keeps the phone linked to the central network. As its owner moves between the cells, the phone continuously links into the nearest base station, using a completely separate frequency to the one on which conversations take place, so that the network knows where to direct any incoming calls.

This “control frequency” can be used to take over the mobile phone and turn it into a bug. That’s the theory. But today Jamal’s telephone is in his pocket and its microphone cannot pick up what he is saying as he stands on the waste ground near his parents’ house.

This does not concern the surveillance team unduly, because the young man Jamal is talking to — we will call him Naz — is an undercover operator who has infiltrated Jamal’s terror network.

Naz, who is on loan from MI6, turned up on Jamal’s weblog not long after that first report from the CIA came in. One of a small but increasing number of young Asians using their understanding of their own culture and communities, Naz is helping to ensure that the JTAC teams can keep a watch on people like Jamal and stop terror attacks.

The lesson of last week’s outrages in London is grim, however. All the sophisticated surveillance of terror suspects had produced no hint of preparation for the bombings. MI5 knows that the likes of Jamal could never plant a bomb; it is the ones MI5 does not know about who are the real danger.


EMERGENCY SUMMIT TO DISCUSS GAPS IN PHONE INTELLIGENCE
► The Times / by Richard Ford and Rosemary Bennett
► Intelligence Digest / by Glenmore Trenear-Harvey

Jul 11 2005 ► Jul 11. Charles Clarke will urge EU countries to store millions of personal mobile phone and e-mail records and share them with police and intelligence services when he attends an emergency summit in Brussels later this week.

The Home Secretary will propose on Wednesday that telecommunications data should be held for between twelve months and three years as part of a package of measures to combat terrorist attacks. Mr Clarke will tell fellow EU interior ministers that action rather than talk is now needed. The Home Secretary said: "Telecommunications records, whether of telephones or of e-mails, which record what calls were made from what number to another number at what time, are of very important use for intelligence. "I am not talking about the content of any call but the fact that a call was made," he added.

A joint proposal by Britain, France, Ireland and Sweden is recommending that telecommunications records are stored for a minimum of twelve months and a maximum of three years.

At the moment there is a voluntary agreement in Britain for all data to be held for between six months and a year. In the Irish Republic information is kept for three years but in Germany and Denmark there is no obligation for telecommunications firms to retain any information.
The British proposal would require an estimated annual investment of €180 million (£124 million) by telecommunications firms.

It would allow the police and intelligence agencies access to "traffic" data - details about who has called or messaged whom with times and locations - and make it possible for security agencies to track individuals across the EU.

Mr Clarke, who called the emergency summit in Brussels following the terrorist attacks in London, will also urge all EU states to share more information with Europol and Interpol.
He will press for the tracking of lost or stolen explosives within the EU in an attempt to prevent terrorists obtaining raw material for bombs.

The Prime Minister will dismiss opposition calls today for an inquiry into the terrorist attacks and give his full backing to the work of the intelligence services and the police, when he makes a statement to MPs on the London bombings.

He will say that the focus of the security services should remain on catching the perpetrators of the four bomb attacks. Their efforts should not be disrupted by an inquiry into what may have gone wrong, he will say.

Mr Blair will brush aside demands from Michael Howard, the Conservative leader, for an inquiry to establish whether something had gone wrong.
The Prime Minister will also use his Commons statement to say that the "root causes" of the attacks have to be addressed.

He will make clear that he expects Muslim leaders to confront extremists in their communities who "distort" their faith, and defeat them.
Yesterday the Tory leader repeated his demands for a special police force to take charge of Britain's borders, and for a US-style Minister for Homeland Security to be appointed.

The Tory leader said that it was too early to say whether the Government had made mistakes in its handling of the attacks. "The inquiry we have asked for is an inquiry into what happened, what went wrong," Mr Howard told the BBC's News 24.

"Clearly in an ideal world we would have been able to prevent this dreadful attack and we weren't able to do that. It is not to say that was anybody's fault. We cannot achieve a guarantee of total immunity from these attacks in today's world.

"But it is sensible to have an inquiry with the benefit of hindsight into what was done and what wasn't done to see if there are lessons which can be learnt. Perhaps there are, perhaps there aren't."

MPs said that they would be seeking assurances from Mr Blair that the Government would not "steamroller" legislation through the Commons to toughen up the anti-terrorism laws in the wake of the attacks.

One former minister said that MPs had been put under pressure before to back security measures. "There is some concern that we will be presented with new proposals to lock up suspects and have our arms twisted even more than before," the MP said.

But Home Office officials said last night that a new planned anti-terror Bill would not be speeded up and would come to the Commons in the autumn as arranged.

The Bill will include a new offence of an "act preparatory to terrorism", which would be designed to help to convict those on the fringes of terrorist activity, including those providing financial and other kinds of logistical support.

UNDERSTANDING THE JULY 7 LONDON BOMBINGS
► Power and Interest News Report / by Erich Marquardt, Yevgeny Bendersky, Federico Bordonaro

Jul 11 2005 ► Jul 11. On July 7, terror attacks struck the West again, with the latest salvo occurring in downtown London. The unidentified attackers targeted London's transportation system, successfully ex-ploding four bombs within an hour time frame. Three of the bombs struck three underground trains, while the last bomb destroyed one of London's trademark double decker busses in the Russell Square area; the first blast occurred at 8:51 AM, while the last blast detonated at 9:47 AM. The attacks left some 50 dead and hundreds injured in what is considered to be the worst attack on British soil since World War II.

Islamic Extremism Strikes Again
British and international authorities believe al-Qaeda, or a group influenced by al-Qaeda, is behind the bombings. The attacks appeared to be perfectly timed with the opening of the G8 Summit of the world's leading industrial countries, which took place in Gleneagles, Scotland. The world's most influential leaders were present at the summit at the time of the attacks, including U.S. President George W. Bush. The target and timing of the strikes is significant, since it brought the most media attention possible to the bombings.

Furthermore, the attacks were very similar to the March 2004 terror attacks on Spain's transportation system which resulted in 191 deaths. In that incident, four commuter trains in Madrid were targeted in similar fashion. The Madrid attacks involved knapsack-contained bombs left on trains, equipped with cell phone triggered detonators. While it is not yet clear the exact nature of the explosives used in London, the international media has reported that British authorities recovered detonators and did not find any traces of the attacks being the result of suicide bombers.

Shortly after the London incident, a group calling itself the Secret Organization of al-Qaeda in Europe claimed responsibility for the bombings by releasing a statement on the Internet. The statement read: "the heroic mujahideen have carried out a blessed raid in London, Britain is now burning with fear, terror and panic in its northern, southern, eastern and western quarters." The statement also warned that Italy and Denmark, two states that support the United States in its ongoing intervention in Iraq, will suffer next.

It is far from clear whether this organization had any role in the bombings since often times after terror in-cidents there are diverging claims of responsibility by different organizations in the hopes of garnering media attention for themselves. The claim of responsibility by a relatively unknown group also highlights how difficult it is for authorities to find the perpetrators of attacks related to the Islamic revolutionary movement now that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network has been attacked and scattered as a result of the U.S. intervention of Afghanistan. [See: "The Threat of Al-Qaeda and the Islamic Revolutionary Movement"]

More Terrorism to Follow
London and Madrid style attacks can be expected to continue as long as countries in the West influence political affairs in Muslim-majority countries. Western influence in the Middle East led to al-Qaeda's targeting of the United States and Western interests, and so long as this relationship continues, attacks by both sides are inevitable.

The United States and its allies clearly have the upper hand when it comes to the level of accessible power available. The ongoing U.S.-led campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, in addition to U.S. military or political involvement in other Muslim-majority countries such as Yemen and Saudi Arabia, have been easy for the United States to initiate. That being said, the interventions have not been costless for the United States; Washington has suffered politically, economically and militarily due to the ongoing insurgency in Iraq.

The Islamic revolutionary movement, on the other hand, has less power at its disposal. The infrequency of its attacks demonstrates its inability to wage a constant campaign against the United States and its allies. While it is possible the attacks will increase in frequency, this has not yet occurred since the present day struggle began.

Instead, attacks are launched periodically with the hopes of using fear to damage the interests of the United States and its allies. As argued by bin Laden in the past, "Terror is the most dreaded weapon in the modern age.It can add fear and helplessness to the psyche of the people of Europe and the United States. . You can understand as to what will be the performance of the nation in a war, which suffers from fear and helplessness."

Furthermore, while the United States and its allies must generally restrict its targets to the military and political spheres, the Islamic revolutionary movement has the advantage of being able to target any industry, including those that have the best ability to influence public opinion. As al-Qaeda articulated in late 2002, "The enemy's tourist industry.includes easy targets with major economic, political, and security importance. This is because the impact of an attack on a tourist facility that cannot be protected equals, and sometimes surpasses, the impact of an attack against an enemy warship."
The attacks in Madrid and London were clear demonstrations of this, and an attack in other relevant countries -- Italy, Denmark, Poland -- can be expected to mimic this style. Such attacks can also influence political decisions in the affected country. After the Madrid bombings, for instance, the incumbent government lost the subsequent elections partially as a result of fallout from the attacks.

Yet, when measuring the psychological effects of the July 7 bombings on British society, one is forced to notice how the first days after the attacks signal a different dynamic at work when compared to the incidents in Madrid. London's political situation is different from the Spanish one. In Spain, the bombings were immediately followed by national elections. The then ruling party, José Maria Aznar's conservative Partido Popular, stood as a strong supporter of the U.S.-led intervention in Iraq.

Its opposition, formed around José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Socialist Party, had in contrast promised a quick withdrawal from the Iraqi theater of operations. The catastrophic attacks in Madrid and Aznar's awkward attempt to use the tragedy as a tool to increase repression against Basque separatists led to Zapatero's victory and to the promised withdrawal.

On the contrary, British citizens of today just recently made their political decision to reconfirm Tony Blair as prime minister. Therefore, unlike the Spanish operation, last week's terrorist attacks do not appear aimed at "regime change," but rather at sending a strong political message to the world. That message is that U.S. moves in Afghanistan and Iraq have not seriously hampered al-Qaeda nor improved security for the United States and its allies.

Attacks Reverberate Through Europe
The London blasts are having a deep impact on other European societies. Italy, Denmark and Poland believe they are the next targets since they support ongoing U.S. military operations in the Muslim world. Additionally, of the countries present at the G8 summit, a majority have experienced similar attacks on their soil propagated or sponsored by Muslim forces or organizations. London's attack is a clear message to the G8, highlighting these states' vulnerability to similar strikes, as the visiting powers have extensive involvement in Muslim-majority countries, whether or not they openly support U.S. policies in Iraq, Afghanistan or the Middle East in general.

While the party allegedly responsible for the July 7 bombings singled out Italy and Denmark as the next possible targets, the actual list could be much longer and may include the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. All three states have Muslim populations that harbor strong sympathies with al-Qaeda. In all three states, local Muslim populations have not been able to successfully assimilate, thus potentially mitigating societal tensions, with the German, Dutch and Belgian governments being partly responsible for this result. This, in turn, translates into misunderstanding and resentment between some Muslims and local populations that may lead to an agreeable environment for certain al-Qaeda or al-Qaeda affiliated organizations to orchestrate similar bombings in more European capitals.

Conclusion
The July 7 bombings in London have brought the war on terrorism back to the doorstep of Western capitals. The attacks demonstrate that while terror attacks on Western interests do not occur on a frequent basis, al-Qaeda and those organizations influenced by its ideology are continuing to plan and execute military operations. The ability to strike at the heart of a major European capital -- whether in London or Madrid -- demonstrates that any city in any country is at risk. It is only a matter of time before other Western cities, including cities in the United States, suffer from new terror attacks. Furthermore, the attacks will not be limited to the country's transportation system, but could take place in a historic shopping district, filled with pedestrians; the goal of most terror attacks is to create a feeling of insecurity, and any location that fulfills these objectives can become a target.

NO LINK TO ZARQAWI
► Prof Juan Cole / University of Michigan

Jul 11 2005 ► "If the communique issued by Qaeda al-Jihad in Europe is authentic, then this attack cannot be linked to Zarqawi. They say they are taking revenge for British troops' "massacres" of Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq. But Zarqawi's Salafi group would never celebrate "Arabism" or speak of "heroes" (abtal) when referring to the "holy warriors" or mujahidin. Urubah and batal, Arabism and hero, are typical of the vocabulary of secular Arab nationalism-- in, say, the tradition of Gamal Abdel Nasser. That message is coming from a group of terrorists that is much more comfortable with this language than are typically the extremist Salafis like Zarqawi. "Hero" would seem a term of humanistic pride to them, and Arabism would seem narrow and idolatrous as a competitor with Islam. There are Muslim thinkers who meld political Islam and Arabism-- this is common in Egypt, e.g. But they belong to a different religious and intellectual tradition than Zarqawi.

BOSNIA: THE BIRTHPLACE OF AL-QAEDA
► Serbianna / by Stella Jatras

Jul 11 2005 ► Jul 11. A series of bombs devasted London; the number of casualties numbered more than 40, 13 of whom died in a bus attack. An al-Qaeda group is linked to the London blasts: AP reports, "A group calling itself 'Secret Organization - al-Qaeda in Europe' has posted a claim of responsibility for the series of blasts in London according to a report in Der Spiegel."

Evan F. Kohlmann, author of Al-Qaeda's Jihad in Europe: The Afghan-Bosnian Network, argues that the "key to understanding Al Qaida's European cells lies in the Bosnian war of the 1990s. Using the Bosnian war as their cover, Afghan-trained Islamic militants loyal to Osama bin Laden convened in the Balkans in 1992 to establish a European domestic terrorist infrastructure in order to plot their violent strikes against the United States. As the West and the United Nations looked on with disapproval, the fanatic foreign 'mujahideen', or holy warriors, wreaked havoc across southern Europe, taking particular aim at UN peacekeepers and even openly fighting with Bosnian Muslims at times. Middle Eastern religious and charitable organizations, largely based in and funded from the Arabian Gulf, were responsible for bankrolling this effort, and providing travel documentation for would-be mujahideen recruits." Kohlmann adds that "many of the cell members - responsible for some of the most notorious terrorist attacks of the past decade - spent their formative years waging jihad in the unlikely Muslim land of Bosnia."

Therefore, it is safe to say that the birth of al-Qaeda as a force on the world stage can be traced directly back to 1992, when the Bosnian Muslim government of Alija Izetbegovic issued a passport in the Vienna embassy to Osama bin Laden. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2001 that "for the past 10 years, the most senior leaders of al Qaeda have visited the Balkans, including bin Laden himself on three occasions between 1994 and 1996. The Egyptian surgeon turned terrorist leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri has operated terrorist training camps, weapons of mass destruction factories and money-laundering and drug-trading networks throughout Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Bosnia. This has gone on for a decade. Many recruits to the Balkan wars came originally from Chechnya, a jihad in which Al Qaeda has also played a part."

THE BOSNIA/911 CONNECTION
An AP article of 2002 entitled, "U.N. Lawyer Turns Over Hijacker Info," reported that "the chief U.N war crimes prosecutor has turned over information about one of the Sept. 11 hijackers to the United States, France and the Netherlands, the U.N. spokesman said Wednesday...The war crimes prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, said last October that information concerning people with connections to terrorist groups, primarily in Bosnia, was provided to Pierre Prosper, the U.S. ambassador at large for war crimes.

"On Wednesday, [UN Spokesman] Eckhard confirmed for the first time that the information included material related to 'one of the named terrorists said to have been on one of the hijacked aircraft' on Sept. 11. Eckhard refused to name the hijacker but said the information was also shared with the French and Dutch governments."

The report further states that "following the terrorist attacks on the United States, Del Ponte was approached by the U.S. Embassy in The Hague, Netherlands and asked for information in identifying those responsible, Eckhard said. The office of the prosecutor did in fact have some information in relation to one of the named terrorists said to have been on one of the hijacked aircraft, he said. An electronic version of some of the information was then given to Prosper as well as French and Dutch officials, Eckhard said.

"Florence Hartmann, the spokeswoman for Del Ponte, said U.N. investigators may have had information about some Muslim fighters who stayed on in Bosnia after the civil war ended in 1995."
Moreover, Gregory R. Copley, editor of Defense & Foreign Affairs, writes: "The Islamist-dominated Government of Bosnia & Herzegovina (B-H) is proposing as its new Ambassador to the United States a woman who was one of the founders of the radical Islamist Muslim SDA Party (Party of Democratic Action [Stranka Demokratske Akcije]), which has had, since its foundation, strong links with al-Qaida and a variety of other Islamist terrorist organizations, and to the intelligence and terrorist-training arms of the Iranian Government."

In his commentary, "We bombed the wrong side?" former Canadian UNPROFOR Commander Lewis MacKenzie wrote, "The Kosovo-Albanians have played us like a Stradivarius. We have subsidized and indirectly supported their violent campaign for an ethnically pure and independent Kosovo. We have never blamed them for being the perpetrators of the violence in the early '90s and we continue to portray them as the designated victim today in spite of evidence to the contrary. When they achieve independence with the help of our tax dollars combined with those of bin Laden and al-Qaeda, just consider the message of encouragement this sends to other terrorist-supported independence movements around the world."

I repeat these words of General MacKenzie: "Just consider the message of encouragement this sends to other terrorist-supported independence movements around the world."

WE HAD HIM!
In his book, Dereliction of Duty, Lt. Col. Robert "Buzz" Patterson, chief military aide to President Clinton writes: "The White House Situation Room was buzzing. It was fall 1998 and the National Security Council (NSC) and the 'intelligence community' were tracking the whereabout of Osama bin Laden, the shadowy mastermind of terrorist attacks on American targets overseas. 'They successfully triangulated his location,' yelled a 'Sit Room' watch stand. 'We've got him.' Beneath the West Wing of the White House, behind a vaulted steel door, the Sit Room staff sprang into action. The watch officer notified National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, 'Sir, we've located bin Laden. We have a two-hour window to strike'. Characteristic of the Clinton administration, the weapons of choice would be Tomahawk missiles. After several attempts to first locate President Clinton to receive permission to get Osama bin Laden, President Clinton was nowhere to be found. When the President finally accepted Berger's call, there was discussion, there were pauses -- and no decision. 'We studied the issue until it was too late -- the window of opportunity closed'."

On 11 March 2004, 190 people were killed at the Madrid Train Station. One of the main terrorists was born in Bosnia yet very little was made of this important connection. However, whenever or if ever information is uncovered of a possible connection of the London terrorists to Bosnia, it will be played down as was the Bosnia connection to the Madrid bombing. It wouldn't be prudent.

TERROR PROBES FIND 'THE HANDS, BUT NOT THE BRAINS'
Attackers Often Caught As Masterminds Flee
► Washington Post / by Craig Whitlock

Jul 11 2005 ► Jul 10. As British police searched for the bombers who killed at least 49 people in London last week, they faced the same problem that has stymied investigations into several other major al Qaeda-style strikes around the world: finding the masterminds in the background.

A clear pattern has emerged from attacks in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East in recent years that strongly suggests an element of central planning or instruction, according to counterterrorism officials and analysts. But so far, the people at the top have managed to cover their tracks by using a sophisticated cell structure that keeps their identities secret, even from the foot soldiers and mid-level operatives in their networks.

In the aftermath of the London bombings and others in the past three years in Madrid, Casablanca, Istanbul, Mombasa, Kenya, and the Red Sea resort of Taba, Egypt, counterterrorism officials were able to determine who actually carried out the attacks and arrest most of the surviving perpetrators, usually homegrown cells of Islamic radicals who lived nearby. Authorities blamed al Qaeda for inspiring the plots in each case, but failed to find or even learn the names of the individuals who conceived and directed the attacks.

"We might be able to apprehend the hands, but not the brains behind it," said Mustafa Alani, an expert on Islamic terrorist networks and a senior adviser with the Gulf Research Center in Dubai. "This is the problem. The brain keeps working somewhere else."

The Bush administration has said that al Qaeda's old command structure has been decimated. Much of the organization's top leadership has been captured or killed since the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackings, while the rest -- including founder Osama bin Laden -- are in hiding or on the run. The training camps that graduated tens of thousands of Islamic radicals in Afghanistan in the 1990s have been put out of commission.

But the remaining operatives work in an amorphous network that in many ways is even more difficult to fight. Several major bombings since 2002 have reflected a pattern in which experienced operatives and bomb-makers travel around the world to give strategic and technical advice to local cells of Islamic extremists who otherwise lack the knowledge to launch sophisticated attacks. By the time the attacks take place, the advisers have long since left the country and erased their tracks, counterterrorism officials and analysts say.

"There are middlemen who are effectively giving the al Qaeda stamp and some professional help to these local groups," said Michael Clarke, director of the International Policy Institute at King's College London. "They're giving them some real expertise. They're also creating this dynamic which is very difficult for the authorities to follow."

In Madrid, Spanish police arrested more than two dozen people for playing a role in the March 11, 2004, commuter-train explosions that killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,800. Seven other suspects were killed a few weeks later after police surrounded them in a suburb of the capital. Many of those detained were Moroccan immigrants who had lived in Madrid for several years and had records for petty crime, but were not veterans of al Qaeda training camps or considered terrorist threats.
Since then, Spanish investigators have identified two al Qaeda veterans who they think may have helped orchestrate the bombings but whose exact roles remain a mystery. One of them, Amer Azizi, is a Moroccan national who provided military training at camps in Afghanistan and who is also a suspect in the May 16, 2003, suicide bombings in Casablanca, according to Spanish court records.

Another is Mustafa Setmarian Nasar, a native of Syria with Spanish citizenship who is a leading ideologue in radical Islamic circles. The U.S. Justice Department has posted a $5 million reward for Nasar's capture, accusing him of training extremists to concoct chemical weapons.

British newspapers reported Sunday that Spanish intelligence officials had warned their counterparts in the United Kingdom four months ago that Nasar may have been planning an attack in London. Nasar lived in London in the late 1990s before moving with his family to Afghanistan in 1998. "He's one of the go-betweens who could be a connection between al Qaeda the movement and al Qaeda the organization," said a European intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

But Spanish investigators remain uncertain about how the Madrid bombings were conceived and developed. Counterterrorism officials and analysts in Madrid said there could be other figures in the plot whom they still haven't identified. "We don't really know who the intellectual author was," said Charles Powell, deputy director of the Elcano Royal Institute, a think tank in Madrid that specializes in security issues.

Turkish investigators are also still trying to figure out who orchestrated multiple explosions that hit synagogues and the British Consulate and a bank in Istanbul in November 2003. Those attacks killed 57 people and wounded more than 700, the deadliest bombings in the country's history. An al Qaeda-related group asserted responsibility and police said a cell of Turkish nationals carried out the bombings, but investigators have been unable to identify the mastermind. "It's just been a dead end," said Alani, the Dubai researcher, who has studied the case extensively.

Similarly, Moroccan officials detained more than 2,000 suspects after the May 16, 2003, attacks in Casablanca that killed 45, and quickly determined that the suicide bombers came from the slums that ring the capital. While Moroccan security officials have variously blamed al Qaeda and Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian who is a leader of foreign fighters in Iraq, they also have had difficulty pinning down how the plot was organized, and by whom.

That counterterrorism officials have been unable to figure out how the operations were put together indicates that al Qaeda has shifted its approach since the Sept. 11 hijackings in the United States, a conspiracy that investigators were able to trace in great detail from beginning to end.

Unlike the 1990s, when terrorist groups were quick to take credit for bombings and hijackings, al Qaeda and other networks of Islamic extremists have increasingly embraced a strategy of silence.

In 2001, for example, about 80 percent of terrorist attacks worldwide were committed by groups that publicly asserted responsibility, according to Raphael F. Perl, a terrorism expert with the Congressional Research Service. Last year, the figure dropped to about 30 percent, he said.

The statistics do not include shadowy groups that assert responsibility for attacks but whose existence or role cannot be verified, Perl said. Already, two organizations identifying themselves as al Qaeda splinter groups have posted Internet statements saying they were behind the London bombings last week. British authorities said they were taking the claims seriously but weren't sure whether to believe either one.

"They've become increasingly decentralized," Perl said of al Qaeda. "It's like a fungus: They send out spores all over the place. That makes it much harder for law enforcement and the intelligence community to go after them."

WHO WAS BEHIND THE BOMBINGS? THE FOUR KEY THEORIES
► Independent

HOME GROWN BOMBERS
Jul 11 2005 ► Jul 11. Evidence is growing that small numbers of young Muslims in the UK are willing to adopt violence in protest against events such as the war in Iraq.
Because these people do not have any history of violence or involvement in terrorism, it is hard for intelligence agencies to investigate them.
One group of British-born Muslims is awaiting trial on terrorism charges involving a plot to build a bomb in the UK.

While MI5 has become alarmed at this new category, the skill and equipment needed to make four high-explosive bombs, and to set them off at the same time, makes it unlikely that the group responsible for Thursday's attack acted without foreign help.

THE FOREIGN CELL
The need for knowledge about how to make reliable explosive devices suggests that the bombers either had help from foreign terrorists or were themselves seasoned fighters.
Activists in al-Qa'ida, or sympathetic to Osama bin Laden, could have travelled to Britain months ago from France or Spain. Here they may have stayed in safe houses or received forged papers from al-Qa'ida supporters.

Such teams are hard to track as they are not part of a formal network. Of the eight terrorist plots the police say they have foiled since 11 September 2001, not one involved the same group. The possibility of a sleeper al-Qa'ida hit squad, sent years ago, seems remote.

THE MADRID TEAM
Similarities between the bombings of commuter trains in Madrid and the Tube and bus attacks in London raise the possibility that they are linked. As in Madrid, the bombs appear to have been in rucksacks left during the morning rush-hour.

Several suspects from the Madrid cell are still at large and some are thought to have fled to the UK. Among them is Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, 47, a Syrian who is believed to be the mastermind of the attacks in Spain. He has lived in London and has connections with Britain going back 10 years.

The Spanish security services have been providing intelligence and help to MI5 and the Metropolitan Police, but as yet no link has been established.

BRITISH AL-QA'IDA
A strong possibility is that the bombers were either headed or advised by a British-born Muslim trained at an al-Qa'ida camp in Afghanistan or Pakistan.
Back in the UK, he would have gathered other fanatics radicalised by extremist clerics and passed on the terrorist skills and organisation.

The police think about 200 extremists have travelled abroad and returned to the UK with terrorist skills.
Saajid Badat, 26, a British-born Muslim who was trained at al-Qa'ida camps, admitted plotting in 2003 to blow up an aircraft bound for America. Jailed in April 2005 for 13 years, Badat had planned to set off a shoe bomb but changed his mind and dismantled it.

INJURED MOROCCAN ON BUS WAS 'KNOWN TO POLICE' ON CONTINENT
► Independent / By Kim Sengupta

Jul 11 2005 ► Jul 11. Police and security agencies investigating the London bombings are trying to ascertain the identity of a north African man injured in one of the blasts. The man, believed to be from Morocco and in his late twenties, was wounded in the blast which destroyed the double-decker bus in Tavistock Square. Security sources said last night the man was not wanted for any crimes in Britain. He is believed to be known to police on the Continent although it is unclear if this is for political activity. Investigators are looking into the possibility that the bus bomb went off accidentally. Security sources stressed that there was nothing to suggest that it was a deliberate suicide attack. Scotland Yard Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick said: "There is a possibility that the person with the bomb died on the bus, there's also the possibility that they just left the bag with the bomb and left." It is believed that none of the injured man's relatives or friends have been traced and he has not been able to provide information.


THE NEW AL QAEDA: LOCAL FRANCHISES
► Christian Science Monitor / by Peter Grier

Jul 11 2005 ► Jul 11. A decade ago Al Qaeda was an entrepreneurial jihadist start-up firm. Today it may have evolved into something bigger, and less tightly controlled: a worldwide franchiser of terrorist attacks.

That may be one lesson of last week's London bombings, say some terrorism experts. The British attacks were well-organized, low-tech, and prepared in great secrecy - all hallmarks of the now-decentralized Al Qaeda network. The Madrid subway attacks of 2004 were similar. So were the bombings carried out in Casablanca, Morocco, in 2003.

Having ceded some initiative to local operations, Al Qaeda may now find it more difficult to carry out such spectacular assaults as those of Sept. 11, 2001. But it possibly has evolved into a threat that extends across the globe, capable of striking almost anywhere, at almost any time.

"Al Qaeda is no longer a hierarchical organization, but rather an enabler for myriad terrorist groups and sympathizers to fight the jihadist holy war," says Ivo Daalder, senior fellow in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution.

Last Thursday's bombings have yet to be definitively linked to Al Qaeda by British investigators. But in Washington, at least, some officials were openly calling them an act of jihad.

Osama bin Laden or other prominent jihadists such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi may not have been the planners of the attacks, said the US Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff in a broadcast interview on Sunday. But "clearly we're dealing with a group that is sympathetic to Al Qaeda," Mr. Chertoff said on ABC's "This Week."

For now the US terrorism alert level for mass transit will remain at elevated levels. Both Secretary Chertoff and Frances Townsend, President Bush's homeland security adviser, said that they had no warning, through "chatter" at Islamist websites or other intelligence, that attacks were going to occur anywhere last week.

There is no guarantee that similar bombings could not occur in the US, said Ms. Townsend in a broadcast interview. The best defense, she insisted, is to confront terrorists overseas. "That's why you're in Iraq and Afghanistan, fighting them there so you don't have to fight them here," said Townsend.

But the nature of Al Qaeda today means the "fighting them in Iraq" scenario just won't work, says Daalder of Brookings. Sleeper cells and jihadist sympathizers are now spread around the world, he argues. Al Qaeda-linked attacks have occurred from Indonesia to the US. "Terrorists are everywhere, and emphatically not only in Iraq," says Daalder.

Furthermore, if it is true that Western intelligence services had no or little warning prior to the London bombings, that means their focus must be off the mark, says another analyst.

After all, given last week's meeting of G-8 heads of state in Scotland, security was presumably extra-tight. It is likely that intelligence and security officials from every nation represented at the meeting swept through the UK prior to their leaders' arrival, notes Juliette Kayyem, a terrorism expert at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. "We know that something called Al Qaeda exists, but we have no sense of its contours or context or even if it has a leader," says Ms. Kayyem.

A decade ago Al Qaeda was more knowable, a start-up company that showed evidence of an entrepreneur's strengths and weaknesses. Testimony by Al Qaeda informers in US court proceedings connected with the group's first US attack - the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center - depicted jealousy over office space, fighting over expense accounts, and overall money woes.
Today Al Qaeda's leadership has been ousted from its Afghan hideaway and remains hard-pressed by US forces, says the State Department's "Country Reports on Terrorism, 2004," which was released this spring.

The group's ability to project power has been limited. Local groups affiliated with Al Qaeda, or simply imbued with their worldview, now carry out most terror attacks against the US and its allies, says the study.

Southwest Asia's Jemaah Islamiyah is one of the best-known such groups. "An increasing percentage of jihadist attacks are more local, less sophisticated, but still lethal," says the report.
To most of the world the scenes of violence in London - and in Madrid, and other recent bomb targets - are senseless. The victims were innocent people, for the most part just on their way to work. If polls are any guide, a majority of them opposed the British participation in the US invasion of Iraq.
"The human response is to say this is senseless violence. But the whole point is it is not senseless. There are goals, and this is an attempt to communicate," says Gary LaFree, director of the University of Maryland's National Center for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism.

One of the main tenets of the jihadist ideology is that US power is based on its economy - and thus a primary goal is to damage US and other Western economic targets. Commuter mass transit is a mundane, but highly vulnerable, such target.

The jihadists may also be still attempting to splinter the US coalition in Iraq. For that reason, many in Italy, another nation where the government has pushed participation with the US while the population has largely opposed it, fear that they may be the next terror target.

WILL AMERICA BE THE NEXT TERROR TARGET?
London attack shows Al Qaeda's strategy
► SFGate / by John Arquilla [professor of defense analysis at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in
Monterey. His views do not represent official Defense Department policy.

Jul 11 2005 ► Jul 10. While our hearts go out to the victims of the terrorist bombings in London, our minds inevitably turn to one question: After nearly four years, why hasn't al Qaeda returned to attack America again?

There are two possible answers. One is that terror networks have been hit so hard by our military over-seas and our defenses are so improved that they can't come back to prey upon our homeland. Another, more troubling possibility is that al Qaeda has deliberately chosen a strategy of striking elsewhere and that it will turn its sights on us when it is ready.

Both answers must be considered, but the first explanation falls apart quickly when we look at al Qaeda's actions in the past few years.

For example, in April 2003, the month after the United States invaded Iraq, al Qaeda mounted a major assault in Saudi Arabia. By August 2003, it had expanded its attacks into Iraq, where it still wages a vicious insurgency. Osama bin Laden's minions are still fighting in Afghanistan and have even gone after the Pakistani military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, coming close to assassinating him on a couple of occasions.

Beyond these major offensive moves, al Qaeda and its affiliates also have mounted substantial strikes in Spain, Tunisia, Turkey and Indonesia. Now they have attacked in Britain. And if official government statis-tics are to be relied upon, the number of significant terrorist attacks since Sept. 11, 2001, has skyrocketed to a total of 651 in 2004, according to the State Department. That's an all-time high, except for revised 2004 figures just put out by the National Counterterrorism Center, which puts the number at 3,192.

No, terror networks are not too crippled to continue to fight us and our allies. But perhaps they haven't co-me back to attack America because our defenses have become too good, sharply reducing their chances of success in any new terrorist venture.

This is not likely either. We do pay more attention now to patrolling our long, unfortified borders, and we have gotten better at protecting our vulnerable power and transportation infrastructures. Nevertheless, hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants still arrive every year.

Our local transit and long-range rail systems remain at risk. And, despite the advance warning provided by earlier terrorist attempts to shoot down planes using shoulder-mounted missiles in Mombasa and Baghdad, airliners remain vulnerable to this form of attack.

Thus, it seems that the answer to our nagging question must be that al Qaeda has made a strategic choice not to bring the war back to America -- yet.

What does the logic behind such a decision look like? At the broadest level, taking the war elsewhere, as al Qaeda has, follows the concept of the indirect approach championed by the great British strategist B.H. Liddell Hart. This method consists of trying to knock away the props upon which even the strongest combatant must rely.

For example, if al Qaeda succeeded in toppling the Saudi government and replacing it with radical Islamists, they would have their finger on the oil pumps feeding the global economic pulse. Similarly, if Pakistan fell to the terrorists and their supporters, they would inherit an arsenal of nuclear weapons, upsetting the whole strategic calculus of the war.

Then there is Iraq, which seems to afford nothing but room to maneuver for al Qaeda. If U.S. troops were ever to leave, as everybody including President Bush wants them to, al Qaeda would claim credit for having driven us out. That would be a public relations bonanza for bin Laden. But if we stay, al Qaeda has a handy, easy-to-reach location for fighting Americans and sapping our will to continue the terror war.

In its March 11, 2004, attacks in Madrid, al Qaeda drove a powerful wedge between the Spanish people, who opposed the war in Iraq, and their pro-U.S. government, which fell from power after those strikes.

Now, threats have been made against Italy and Denmark, two other coalition members whose publics have opposed the war on Iraq.

It remains to be seen how the British public will respond to these latest attacks, but it seems clear that the terrorist choice of London as a target is yet another aspect of the indirect approach. For if staunch British support for the U.S. intervention in Iraq were to falter, our whole policy there might come undone.

So it seems that the invasion and occupation of Iraq, which many of us opposed beforehand, have become both our Achilles' heel and the single most important reason al Qaeda has chosen not to resume its terror campaign in America. Iraq provides our principal enemy with a place to fight us directly and a reason to mount an indirect campaign against our allies.

Some might now say that this makes our presence in Iraq worthwhile. As the president has put it, "We fight the terrorists in Iraq so that we do not have to face them at home."

Perhaps. Yet for a small fraction of what our involvement in Iraq has cost us in blood and treasure, we could have shored up our homeland defenses and made it well-nigh impossible for the terrorists to attack America again.

The rerouting of an even tinier fraction of these vast resources in support of a proactive campaign by small teams of special forces hunter networks would keep the terrorists perpetually on the run, unable even to think about coming back here or about striking elsewhere.

But we're still in Iraq, and we'll be there for years to come. Oddly, this probably means few, if any, attacks will be attempted on American territory. It also means there will be more Madrids and Londons. This should remind us that, in a war fought for all that we call civilization, feeling more assured about our own safety is hardly a sign that victory is near.


SPAIN WARNED FOR MONTHS AGO OF SYRIAN’S BOMB PLANS
► The Australian

Jul 11 2005 ► Jul 11. Spanish security sources are said to have warned four months ago that a Syrian al-Qa'ida veteran suspected of the London bombings had identified Britain as a likely target.
Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, 47 - the terrorist believed to have organised last year's Madrid train attacks and now believed to be in Iraq - had set up a sleeper cell of terrorists in Britain, Spanish investigators said. Coded commands from the Syrian, thought to have included threats to other European countries such as Britain, were found in a flat raided after the Madrid bombings in March last year.

But the Spanish investigators said they believed he was planning an attack to coincide with the British general election in May, rather than the G8 summit last week.
Investigators have noted strong similarities in the methods of the two multiple, co-ordinated bombings against public transport systems.

Last Friday, a team of Spanish detectives arrived in London to help the Metropolitan Police with the investigation.

After last week's explosions, police were believed to be looking into Mohammed al-Gerbouzi, a Moroccan living in London who has been jailed in Morocco in his absence for terrorism offences. Yesterday, however, senior police officers were strongly discounting that he had any involvement in the London bombings.

Nasar, from Aleppo, Syria, also known as Abu Musab al-Asuri, who has a $5million bounty on his head, is believed to have fled to Iraq or the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
He has connections with London going back more than 10 years, has mixed with many prominent terror suspects and has reportedly been arrested in Britain in connection with bombings on the Paris Metro.

When Nasar moved to London in June 1995, he was already under surveillance by Spanish police, who made a video recording of his departure with his wife Elena.

They were accompanied by Abu Dahdah, a Syrian later arrested in Spain, accused of recruiting bombers and now on trial for providing support to the September 11, 2001, conspiracy.
Once in London, Nasar moved his family into a house in Paddock Road, Neasden.
From there, he edited the Al Ansar magazine, a newsletter of the Algerian Armed Islamic Group.
He became an associate of the cleric Abu Qatada, one of the detainees released from a British prison last year and accused of being al-Qa'ida's ambassador to Europe.

Nasar was reported to have been arrested but later released by British police following the 1995 bomb attacks on the Paris Metro.
The US Department of Justice said at the weekend that Nasar had served as a European intermediary for al-Qa'ida before leaving for Afghanistan in 1998. He is now believed to be an associate of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qa'ida chief in Iraq. Some reports claim he has been spotted in London since the Madrid bombings.

Nasar is at the centre of a network of connections uncovered by British and Spanish police that link Britain and the Madrid atrocities.

One of the last phone calls made by a group of seven bombers cornered in a police siege of a flat near Madrid was to a British Muslim cleric using the name Ben Salawi.

After the call, the bombers blew themselves up, apparently at his command. British police said the cleric's name was not known to them but might have been an alias.


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