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 diesem letzten Teil als PDF Datei zum Download zur Verfügung.

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► UK Foment of Islam’s Radical Fringe
► Mossad on Explosives
► Lack of Clues
► Terrorist Hardliner Suspected
► Bombers Reveal Huge Gap in Intel
► Police Call in Foreign Terror Experts
► The Suicide Bomb Squad from Leeds
► Hunt for the Master of Explosives
► Home Grown Terrorists
► Britain Shares Intelligence
► Terrorists Trained in Western Methods
► Terror Cell Capable of Further Attacks
► Terrorists ‘Used Military Explosives’

THE UK FOMENT OF ISLAM'S RADICAL FRINGE
► Financial Times / by Stephen Fidler, Jimmy Burns and Roula Khalaf
► Intelligence Digest / by Glenmore Trenear-Harvey

Jul 14 2005 ► Jul 13. Suicide attacks on London's transport system a week ago by young Muslims who were born and grew up in Britain are prompting soul-searching inside and outside Britain's Muslim community. The willingness of a few young men from Yorkshire to blow up their fellow citizens in their own capital - more than a tenth of whose population is itself Muslim - has opened up a debate that may produce far-reaching policy and other changes.

The bombings have also energised an international discussion about policy towards radical Muslims in Britain's midst. Some US officials think British official tolerance of radical foreign Muslims, many of whom have sought refuge from harsher regimes, sowed the seeds of Thursday's bombings. A similar message has come out of France, where the authorities have taken a much harsher line than the British against radical Islamists, especially since bombings hit Paris in 1995.

Though those now known to have been behind the London attacks were British, it is not yet clear whether there was a foreign mastermind or logistical support. Whatever facts emerge, some reassessment of British policy towards radicals within the Muslim community can be expected.

In the view of US critics, the UK should, for example, have acted more quickly in arresting clerics such as Abu Hamza al-Masri and Omar Bakri Mohammed, whom they see as having fomented extremism. Abu Hamza, whose Finsbury Park mosque in north London acted as a magnet for extremists including Richard Reid, the shoebomber who tried to blow up an airliner in December 2001, was arrested in May last year. His trial on charges including incitement to murder Jews and other non-Muslims started this month. Mr Bakri Mohammed, whose group was criticised for glorifying the September 11 attacks, told a Portuguese magazine last year that British troops in Iraq were "terrorists" and predicted that several groups were planning to target the UK. He also said the life of an unbeliever, in other words a non-Muslim, had no value. "There is a certain amount of reluctance on the British to move quickly. What they never seem to realise is that by the time they know they have a problem it is too late," a former senior US intelligence official said this week.

In France too, officials have been long-standing critics of British tolerance of Islamist dissidents, particularly from North Africa. They also believe that their policy at home of cracking down on jihadists and supporters - while not guaranteeing safety - has been more effective than Britain's. Surveillance of radicals is much more intense, with every mosque monitored; extremists and purveyors of hate speech are harassed and deportations are much more frequent. "The British do not have this system of permanent surveillance, with deep penetration of problem communities," Alain Chouet, former director general of the DGSE, the French foreign intelligence service, told Le Figaro. Referring to Britain's domestic security service, he added: "On the contrary, they have with MI5 a machine that performs well once the threat has been declared."Mr Chouet said French harassment techniques had limitations "but they upset networks and prevent them from moving into action".

The charge, then, is that the British approach to extremists is too soft or too reactive. While British surveillance of extremists is acknowledged to have been more intensive than elsewhere in Europe, bar France, the claim is also that the UK does not really understand what is going on inside Muslim communities. Though the government has reached out to leaders of the Muslim community, it is not clear how well connected with most Muslims some of these leaders are. Britain tried a light touch in part because it wanted to avoid action against extremists that would risk alienating what the government takes to be a quiet majority of Muslims. British security officials argue that the more than half-dozen terrorist plots they have uncovered before and after September 11 show they are doing something right. While they acknowledge that there may once have been substance to the French claims that the British were careless about the safe haven offered to Islamist radicals, that has not been the case for more than a decade. "From 1994 onwards, I don't think the 'Londonistan' claims could be levelled with any accuracy," says one.There are also differences that mean the UK is unable to follow aspects of the French approach. One is legal: France's system of investigating magistrates is recognised by some in the UK as more effective in dealing with terrorism than Britain's adversarial judicial system. Security officials say one reason they do not detain suspects more quickly is because they need to gather evidence that will stand up in court.

France has also chosen a course that insists on assimilation, as shown by the government's insistence that headscarves and other religious adornments should not be worn in schools. Britain's approach has been largely to let Muslim communities alone. There is still some official pride in the traditions of the rule of law, free speech and safe haven to dissidents. One official says the security services do not know whether more people than before were listening to radical clerics. "Attendance at a mosque and listening to a radical cleric or a moderate cleric is not a criminal offence. Free speech is entirely lawful and we don't monitor the activity of people going to mosques," he says.

Moreover, the experience of France, burned in the furnace of the Algerian war of independence that ended in 1962, is different from Britain's. People from the Asian subcontinent make up close to 80 per cent of Britain's 1.6m Muslims, Pakistanis alone accounting for 45 per cent of them. By contrast, North Africans make up more than half of France's Muslims, 30 per cent of whom are Algerian.

The perception of British laxness in dealing with the issue is by no means universal. "There are no liberal laws here," says an official of Amnesty International, the human rights organisation. "The UK has some of the most draconian emergency legislation in the whole western world."

Arab political activists warn that blaming last week's attacks on London's historic role as a refuge for dissidents is designed to divert attention from the real threat. "There is no evidence that the liberal values here are a reason behind last week's attacks," insists Saad Djebbar, a London-based Algerian lawyer. "There are many countries that don't allow any groups on their territory and have had the same terrorist attacks."

While it is true that, 10 years ago, individuals who incited violence against targets outside the UK were rarely prosecuted, human rights activists say the liberal image is no longer valid. Even before September 11, legislation was tightened and suspects can be indefinitely detained without trial.

Moreover, though nothing has been announced, British policy appears to have shifted in emphasis in the last two years. Abu Hamza's arrest and the placing of his mosque into the hands of moderate Muslims was seen as a watershed. The British government last year also increased MI5's budget, mainly to help it deal with counter-terrorism, which occupies two-thirds of its personnel. The extra funds should allow the agency to increase its staff from 2,000 last year to 3,000 in 2008.

Whatever decisions are taken in dealing with Islamic extremism - and disaffected Muslim youth - the problem is unlikely to go away. One third of Britain's 1.6m Muslims are under 16 - compared to a fifth of the population as a whole. Timothy Savage, a US foreign service officer expressing his own opinion, argued in last summer's Washington Quarterly that dealing with Islam would do more to shape Europe than any other issue this century. If current trends of immigration, a low birth rate for non-Muslims and a high Muslim birth rate continued, he said, "Muslims could outnumber non-Muslims in France and perhaps in all western Europe by mid-century." According to the Pew Research Center, the population of the European Union's current 25 member states will be one-tenth Muslim by 2020.

Detailed but little-noticed research on the attitudes of British Muslims, published by the London-based Islamic Human Rights Commission at the end of last year, suggested a critical view of British foreign policies and a fear of being stereotyped as terrorist suspects. The research, based on interviews with people mostly between 15 and 29, found respondents overwhelmingly critical about British policy towards the Palestinians, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Bosnia and Iraq. In another finding, 57 per cent of respondents disapproved of the requirement for new citizens to swear allegiance to the crown. Another area of concern in the IHRC survey was a perception of increased Islamophobia in the aftermath of 9/11. A clear majority thought anti-terrorist laws and the way they were being implemented, coupled with media reporting of police investigations, needed to be more sensitive about the "stereotyping of all Muslims as potentially hostile terrorist suspects".

Massoud Shadjareh, the IHRC's main spokesman, says: "There has been a radicalisation of the British Muslim community - but in the sense of a raising of consciousness about issues which Muslims feel strongly about. The biggest expression of this has been the participation of British Muslims in demonstrations against the war in Iraq. But this doesn't mean that you now have large numbers of British Muslims prepared to blow people up."

According to Mr Shadjareh, firebrands such as the Syrian-born Mr Bakri Mohammed, who moved to the UK in 1985 and was the leader of the radical al-Mujahiroun group, have been "politically demonised" but have negligible backing among British Muslims. "He has between 50 and 100 supporters who turn up for his meetings."

Nevertheless, UK officials recognise that clerics such as Abu Hamza play an important role in radicalising young British Muslims. "There is certainly a link between some of the individuals and the radicalisation of young Muslims. When you look at the textbook of radicalisation, more often than not a radical cleric is somewhere in the picture," says one security official.How many such radicals there are is hard to tell. Sir John Stevens, the former head of London's Metropolitan Police, has said that there are 10,000-15,000 supporters of al-Qaeda. But security officials say they see this number as a reflection of passive support - the milieu in which it is possible for terrorists to operate - rather than the number of potential terrorists. "Al-Qaeda's strategy is deception," says Saad al-Faguih, a Saudi Islamist dissident who denies involvement with terrorism. "Look at the 19 bombers from September 11: they did nothing to show links with Muslim activities." Before the bombings, the police and MI5 were working on the basis of intelligence assessments that about 300 British nationals had gone though or been trained in al-Qaeda camps and most were identified and had been under surveillance.

Their most worrying admission, however, was an estimate that there could be as many as 30 unidentified people, among them British nationals, about whom they had no intelligence but who could potentially mount attacks. Officials say British participation in the US-led invasion of Iraq has motivated some radicals - but they are cautious about numbers. "A steady trickle of radicals is travelling from the UK to Iraq," says one. But in the past they have gone to Bosnia, Chechnya and Afghanistan. The fact is that there were and are young men who wanted to go and fight jihad. It's still in its early stages in terms of the numbers in Iraq. So far the numbers going to Iraq are far lower than Bosnia. A few we know have come back."

Finding out who will turn from radicalism to terrorism is a tough task for the security services. The initial reaction from those who lived near the young suicide bombers suggests they kept their activities and views secret from their neighbours and parents. "Those who engage in terrorism don't go around shouting about it before doing it," says Mr Shadjareh. "There is also some evidence that British Muslims who turn to terrorism are converts or reconverts, and do not have a really deep and sophisticated understanding of the Muslim faith." Yesterday in the House of Commons, Shahid Malik, Labour MP for Dewsbury, where one bomber had his home, said the attacks represented "a defining moment" both for the country and for its Muslim community. "Condemnation is not enough. British Muslims must, and I believe are, prepared to confront the voices of evil head-on," he told parliament.
Yet some resist steps that to bring Muslim leaders closer to the government. Imran Waheed, representative for the ultra-radical Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain, says: "The proximity between some individuals and organisations in the Muslim community and the British government has serious implications for the real interests of our community.

"If sincere, these individuals and organisations must now ask themselves why the British government, which pursues a brutal colonialist foreign policy over the entire Muslim world, is so keen to fund them, promote them and support them."

MOSSAD TELLS BRITS: SAME EXPLOSIVES IN TEL AVIV AND LONDON
► Israel Insider
► Spy News / by Mario Profaca

Jul 13 2005 ► Jul 11. The terror attack in London last week may be tied to a suicide bombing on Tel Aviv's beachfront in April 2003, German newspaper Bild am Sonntag reported.
According to the paper, Mossad officials informed British security officials that the explosive material used in the Tel Aviv attack on Mike's Place pub as apparently also utilized to stage the bombings in London on Thursday.

The Mossad office in London received advance notice about the attacks, but only six minutes before the first blast, the paper reports, confirming an earlier AP report. As a result, it was impossible to take any action to prevent the blasts.

"They reached us too late for us to do something about it," a Mossad source is quoted as saying.
The German newspaper reported that the Mossad relayed an analysis of the explosives used in the Mike's Place attack to British security officials, with sources in the Israeli intelligence agency quoted as saying there is a "high likelihood" the explosives used in Tel Aviv were the same ones used in London.

After analyzing the explosive material used in the Mike's Place attack, the Mossad concluded it was produced in China and later smuggled into Britain, the paper reported. The explosives were apparently stashed by terrorists connected to al-Qaeda who were able to evade raids by British security forces.

Mossad Chief Meir Dagan is reported to have said that the explosive in question is very powerful, and "much more lethal than plastic explosives and can be smuggled undetected due to its composition."
The Mossad determined that the substance was developed and produced at the Chinese ZDF arms factory, located about 65 kilometers (about 40 miles) from Beijing, the paper reported.

However, the German story was not clear as to whether the Mossad is involved in any way in the investigation into the London bombings.

3 people murdered at Mike's Place
The Mike's Place attack killed three people, Ran Baron, 24, Yanai Weiss, 46, and Caroline Dominique Hess, 29. The bombing was carried out by two terrorists, Asif Mohammed Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif, who were recruited by Hamas in Britain and affiliated with the International Solidarity Movement in Gaza, where they stayed before carrying out the murder. The two entered Israel using their British passports.

Hanif blew himself up at the beachfront Tel Aviv pub, but Sharif failed to detonate his explosives and fled the scene in shame. A few weeks later, his body washed up on a Tel Aviv beach.

The terrorists' relatives were detained in Britain after the attack on suspicion they knew of the plot and did nothing to prevent the attack. The relatives' trial ended in July of last year, with the court ordering a retrial for Sharif's sister and brother.

LACK OF CLUES
► The Wall Street Journal / by Keith Johnson, David Crawford, Jeanne Whalen and Jay Solomon
► Spy News / by Mario Profaca

Jul 13 2005 Jul 13. British police are concerned that the terrorists' elusiveness after Thursday's blasts means the attackers have learned from mistakes that led to the discovery of the Madrid bombers last year, according to European law-enforcement officials close to the investigation.

British police raised the death toll from the attacks on three subways and a bus to at least 52. Investigators have been pursuing similarities between the London bombings and those in Madrid, which killed 191 people. In Madrid, the train bombers tried in vain to blow up a high-speed rail link days after the first blast but couldn't place the detonators.

Two weeks later, the bulk of the terrorists blew themselves up in a Madrid safe house after they were cornered by police. Investigators said they had planned additional attacks in Madrid: Plans found in the building's rubble highlighted new targets, and the seven terrorists retained more than half of their initial cache of 440 pounds of dynamite, according to Spanish police and court documents.

That has sparked concern among British police that the terrorists involved in last week's bombings could have additional explosives and operatives for more attacks, these officials say. A British police spokesman wasn't available to comment. British police have warned the public to be on high alert for attacks, and Britain is on a higher security alert than after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington.

Counterterrorism experts say radical cells learn from each attack and refine their operations, making preventive measures and police investigations more difficult. "Terrorists discover our tactics and respond," said Bernd Carstensen, a German counterterrorism detective. "The competition is continuous."

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, speaking in Parliament, said there was no specific intelligence pointing to the attacks before they happened and that they couldn't have been prevented. He said it was probable the London attacks were carried out by Islamist extremists, though no group has been blamed.

The suspected masterminds of Madrid still are at large. A senior Spanish antiterrorist investigator said in an interview it was "very likely" that Moroccan Amer el Azizi, who allegedly helped organize the Madrid bombings, also helped organize the London attacks. Mr. Azizi is at large, after fleeing Spain in November 2001 for Tehran.

British police also have asked their European counterparts for information on Mustafa Setmarian Nasar, a 47-year-old Syrian militant, in connection with the London attacks. Spanish police believe Mr. Nasar may have helped organize the Madrid attacks.

U.S. officials have said in recent days that they were working with British intelligence to find Mr. Nasar, who is a naturalized citizen of Spain. U.S. and European authorities said they also are investigating whether Mr. Nasar is a link between senior al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan and Afghanistan and European-based militants and sleeper cells.

As recently as January, Mr. Nasar called for the use of dirty bombs inside the U.S. in an article in a Syrian online magazine. The comments were circulated on a number of important Islamic Web sites.
Mr. Nasar wrote that Muslim militants world-wide should work with countries that could possess nuclear and biological weapons -- such as North Korea and Iran -- to attain the tools to deliver a devastating blow inside the U.S.

As of yesterday, Mr. Nasar's writings were still posted on the Web site. Counterterrorism experts said they are unsure of Mr. Nasar's whereabouts, but he is believed to have been operating out of Pakistan and Afghanistan as recently as November. Officials at the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence yesterday declined to comment on Mr. Nasar.

The attackers in London already have avoided some mistakes that put police on the trail of the Madrid bombers within two days, the time they took to make their first arrest. The Madrid terrorists abandoned a stolen van with detonators, a cassette tape of Quranic verses and multiple fingerprints.
London police still are searching for hard leads inside the subway tunnels where the bombs exploded and on the remains of the bus.

Andy Trotter, deputy chief constable of the British Transport Police, said the world's leading forensic experts were examining the bomb fragments for clues.
He said police were taking "many hundreds of statements" from members of the public who believe they have information tied to the bombings.

The London bombers also apparently relied on timing devices for the explosives on the subway cars, instead of using cellphones to detonate the bombs, according to British police. Sir Ian Blair, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, said at a news conference the explosives in the London bombs "certainly were not homemade" but declined to give more detail.

In Madrid, the bombs were detonated using cellphone alarms. By tracing the serial number and subscriber card inside the one cellphone bomb that failed to explode, Spanish police quickly traced the attack to a shop in Madrid run by known radical Muslims. The police then traced cellphone calls from those initially arrested to round up the bulk of those who carried out the bombings.

According to Spanish court documents and police reports, suspected Islamic terrorists have refined how they plan for such attacks. First, they started using coded conversations to confound wiretaps, and then they began using encryption to try to establish secure communications.

The aftermath of the London attacks continued to ripple through Europe. During the weekend, police in Italy mounted a broad antiterrorism sweep, arresting 142 suspects, 83 of them immigrants. The stepped-up operation was in response to the bombing in London, though authorities didn't say that any of the suspects were linked to Thursday's attacks.

Lessons Learned
The London bombers sought to avoid the mistakes made by those who attacked trains in Madrid:
-- Cellphones: Spanish police traced bombers through cellphone data in 48 hours
-- Safe house: Madrid bombers used only one safe house to assemble bombs
-- Oversized bombs: Huge packs drew attention; London bombers halved the amount of explosive
-- Planning: The Madrid bombers had a poor strategy for after the attack
-- Evidence: Madrid bombers left detonators, Quran tape, fingerprints at crime scene

TERRORIST HARDLINER SUSPECTED
► Mirror / by Jeff Edwards
► Spy News / by Mario Profaca

Jul 13 2005 Jul 13. Police believe a highly experienced al-Qaeda-trained terror team may have masterminded and set up the London bomb blitz.

Anti-terrorist squad officers are convinced the four young Britons who martyred themselves were merely willing "foot soldiers" prepared to die for their cause.

Scotland Yard suspect an international team of hardline terrorists - including a specialist bomb maker - came to Britain to orchestrate the attacks. A senior source within the security services said last night: "We do not believe for a moment the young men who carried out these suicide attacks acted alone.
"They were mere cannon fodder, impressionable young men brainwashed to do the vile deeds of other people who are still out there somewhere." Detectives suspect four to six terrorist planners, some of whom may have learned their skills in Afghanistan, Syria or Iraq, probably entered the country earlier this year on forged travel documents.

From there they were introduced to the four men selected for the deadly mission and then set about training them in how to carry out the job without being intercepted.

It is thought that the terrorist group probably carried out a series of reconnaissance missions on the Underground and London streets looking for suitable targets.

A Special Branch insider said: "This attack probably followed the same pattern as we have seen in a number of incidents carried out by al-Qaeda abroad. The actual bombers do not have skills, they are just willing young troops who are happy to die for their beliefs.

"The real villains of the piece are the people who supplied and smuggled in the explosives, filled the weapons and trained the young volunteers in how to use them. We know there must be plotters and planners. We are checking records now to see if we can find how they entered the country, whether they are still here or if they have left.

"We are convinced other attacks are on the way. There was a large stock of explosives discovered at one house in Yorkshire. It was clearly there for a purpose and that can only be more attacks were planned.

"What we don't know is if there are parallel teams hiding in other cities around the country waiting for the word to attack.

"The people behind these plots are almost certainly veterans of other al-Qaeda inspired atrocities around the world. They may be Middle Eastern or Asian and travel on a series of false identities provided for them."

Police yesterday carried out four controlled explosions on a car they believe could have been used by the London bombers - and were last night planning a fifth.

Bomb disposal officers were said to be trying to remove explosives from the car and detonate them outside. Hundreds of people were evacuated from the area around Luton railway station car park amid fears the vehicle had a bomb inside.

Bedfordshire Police were tipped off by Scotland Yard after a woman reported seeing a group of men leaving the car, which is not thought to have been moved since Thursday - the day of the bombings.
Police evacuated the railway and bus stations, nearby businesses and student accommodation shortly before 3pm.

Scotland Yard want to take the car for forensic examination. Martin Stuart, deputy chief constable of Bedfordshire Police, said: "We can only apologise for the inconvenience this has caused but safety is our priority, which can only be ensured by this action.

"We are working closely with the Metropolitan Police during this time and hope the disruption can be kept to a minimum."

Luton has been at the centre of a series of anti-terrorism raids in recent years.
A second car was seized by Bedfordshire Police after another tip-off from Scotland Yard, a force spokesman said later.

The car was found at an undisclosed location in the county before being taken to Leighton Buzzard for examination.
Police said: "We now have a second vehicle we are examining. We are carrying out forensic work on it."

The seizure was based on intelligence from Scotland Yard.

BOMBERS REVEAL HUGE GAP IN INTELLIGENCE
► The Guardian / by Richard Norton-Taylor
► Spy News / by Mario Profaca

Jul 13 2005 ► Jul 13. Britain's intelligence and security agencies were having to come to terms last night with something they had feared but hoped they would never have to face - the presence of suicide bombers in Britain. It is the first time, not only in Britain but Western Europe, that bombers have been prepared to commit suicide and completed the act.

In Madrid last year, the train bombs were set off by timers triggered by mobile phones. Some of the bombers were prepared to commit suicide but only when they were cornered later by the Spanish police.

Yesterday we learned that, for the first time, suicide bombers - four of them - had carried out an attack in Britain, choosing the most vulnerable of targets. Furthermore, the bombers, in the view of the security services, were British born and bred.

Not only that: they could plot the attack without being detected, either by MI5 agents and informants or by the security and intelligence officials scanning emails and intercepting telephone calls looking for suspicious communications.

What concerns the security services is that the four bombers appear to have been "radicalised" in Britain, not indoctrinated in training camps and religious schools in the Middle East.

How young men apparently from stable backgrounds - as well as from broken or unstable families - are attracted to commit such atrocities has concerned MI5 and the Home Office for a long time. Whitehall has commissioned reports on the phenomenon. A senior MI5 officer is understood to have addressed a meeting of G8 home and interior ministers on the issue in Sheffield last month.

Security sources said yesterday that ministers would have to look again at radical clerics who can encourage extremism and influence young men disillusioned with western culture. It seems clear that MI5, the domestic security service, needs to build up its network of agents, an anti-terrorist official said yesterday. It is already setting up regional offices in Britain.

"Agents are essential," a senior official said last night. He compared the task facing MI5 to looking at a blank piece of paper. "The four bombers are in the middle. You then go out from there, look at their pasts, where they met, what they had done in the past, where they had travelled, who they associated with."

That should help the security and intelligence agencies to build up a picture, not only of these four bombers, but the extent of the potential threat posed by other suicide bombers in Britain.
In an interview with BBC London yesterday morning - after the security services and the police made their breakthrough - Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner, said it was likely there would be another attack, although he insisted the terrorist threat could be defeated. "Another attack is likely, there's no doubt about that. But when - who knows?" he said.

Since the September 11 attacks on the US, senior British anti-terrorist officials have said there are probably fewer than 30 or so extremists prepared to commit a terrorist attack - and they meant plant a bomb, not blow themselves up with it.

Ever since Thursday's attacks, briefings by the police and intelligence officials - offering guidance on conditions of anonymity - consistently indicated that the bombers got away. The prospect of suicide bombers may have seemed too remote, or too awful, to contemplate.

The immediate question they are confronted with is who were their associates, in particular who, if not they themselves, made the bombs and procured the equipment for them.
Anti-terrorist officials said yesterday that the bombs were "high grade" but could have been made with commercially available material with the help of instructions on the internet.

POLICE CALL IN FOREIGN TERROR EXPERTS
► The Guardian / by Ian Cobain
► Spy News / by Mario Profaca

Jul 13 2005 ► Jul 12. Police, intelligence agents and forensics experts from 27 countries have been ask-ed to help develop leads in the hunt for the London bombers, it emerged yesterday. They were brought together for a confidential summit at Scotland Yard at the weekend, where they were asked to assist with every aspect of the inquiry. While Scotland Yard declined to discuss the meeting, some of those present said it was apparent that, at that stage, the British authorities were frustrated at their lack of progress.

As well as representatives from the US, France, Germany and the Netherlands, officials from Turkey, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Romania, Ireland and Japan attended the summit, which is thought to have been unprecedented during a terrorist investigation in this country. There were also officials from Interpol and Europol, as well as at least one representative from the British military bases on Cyprus.

A team of Spanish police had already begun working alongside their British counterparts to examine possible links with the Madrid train attacks in March last year which claimed 191 lives. They held a separate meeting with British detectives yesterday, at which they discussed the possibility that the terrorists could have made last Thursday's bombings resemble the Madrid attacks in order to confuse the investigation.

American investigators flew to London within hours of the bombings. Several Australian police officers present at the summit offered help in identifying the type of bombs used in the attacks, while an Israeli delegate is understood to have offered assistance with victim identification.

The head of one European domestic intelligence service said that there was considerable discussion of the difficulties with the inquiry. "They briefed us first on what they know and what they don't know," he told the New York Times. "We were asked to help them answer every question they have. The clear message was that there are a lot of hypotheses, some ideas, for the moment no actual concrete piece of evidence, no formal element to guide you."

The participants were asked to look at suspects in their own countries who may have links with the UK, and individuals who may have recently returned from Iraq.

Some European delegates expressed surprise at Scotland Yard's request for help, believing that this country's close intelligence links with the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand would have ensured that investigators already had access to a large pool of information and expertise. "We're all under threat of attack, and we must work together to stop the next one," said one delegate. "The next attack could happen outside my window."

Russian counter-terrorism officials - who were not present at the Scotland Yard summit - are said to suspect that terrorist attacks were planned in each of the five cities competing for the 2012 Olympic games, and were carried out in London the day after it won the bid.

Nikolai Kovalyov, a former head of the Russian federal security service, who now heads a parliamentary committee, said: "The global community overlooked this threat from a common enemy."

Among the countries reportedly participating in this unprecedented meeting were: In addition to Israel and Spain, the countries involved were Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the United States. Officials from Europol and Interpol also attended the meeting.
Thanks to Professor Martin Rudner / Canadian Centre of Intelligence and Security Studies

THE SUICIDE BOMB SQUAD FROM LEEDS
► The Times / by Michael Evans, Daniel McGrory and Stewart Tendler

Jul 13 2005 ► Jul 13. Four friends from northern England have changed the face of terrorism by carrying out the suicide bombings that brought carnage to London last week. It emerged last night that, for the first time in Western Europe, suicide bombers have been recruited for attacks. Security forces are coming to terms with the realisation that young Britons are prepared to die for their militant cause.

Three of the men lived in Leeds and the immediate fear is that members of a terrorist cell linked to the city are planning further strikes. The mastermind behind the attacks and the bombmaker are both still thought to be at large. The man who planted the bomb at Edgware Road was named last night as Mohammed Sidique Khan, 30, the married father of an eight-month-old baby, who is believed to have come from the Leeds area.

Two other terrorists were Hasib Hussain, 19, who bombed the bus in Tavistock Square, of Colenso Mount, Leeds, and Shehzad Tanweer, 22, the Aldgate bomber, who lived at Colwyn Road, Leeds.
Police are still trying to identify the fourth, whose remains are believed to be in the bombed Tube train carriage on the Piccadilly Line. It is thought that he comes from Luton.

Armed police raided six addresses in West Yorkshire yesterday, including the homes of three of the men, who they now know travelled to Luton in a hired car last Wednesday to join the fourth man. They boarded the 7.40 Thameslink train to King's Cross the next day, each armed with a 10lb rucksack bomb. Police found a bomb factory in Leeds containing a "viable amount of explosives". Explosives were also recovered from a car left parked near Luton station.

The raids came after the discovery of driving licences and credit cards at the scenes of the explosions, and a telephone call from the mother of Hasib Hussain, who asked police to try to trace her son.
A relative of one of the bombers was arrested and taken to London for questioning. Intelligence agencies say that at least two of the men had recently returned from Pakistan. All four were British, but with origins in Pakistan. MI6, MI5 and British diplomats were in touch with the Pakistani authorities last night to try to track down any connections with terrorists there. Security sources confirmed that none of the bombers was on any MI5 file, although one had links to a person investigated by police.

The four were captured on CCTV cameras at King's Cross Thames link station, laughing together and carrying rucksacks, minutes before they set off for their targets at 8.30am on July 7.

HUNT FOR THE MASTER OF EXPLOSIVES
► The Times/ by Daniel McGrory and Michael Evans
► Spy News / by Mario Profaca

Jul 13 2005 ► Jul 13. A Europe wide investigation was under way yesterday to uncover the source of the military explosives used in the bombings. Traces of military plastic explosive, more deadly and efficient than commercial varieties, are understood to have been found in the debris of the wrecked Underground carriages and the bus.

Determining the origin of the explosives is vital and, as The Times has disclosed, one man is believed to have assembled all four devices. Scotland Yard has asked its counterparts around Europe to check stock-piles at military bases and building sites for missing explosives.

Military explosive is hard to detect, easy to hide, stable and, if smuggled across a European border and then into Britain in a drum or other container, would most likely evade any explosive-sniffing devices.

The availability of Semtex, originating from a Czech factory and used extensively by the Provisional IRA, has dried up as a result of intensive efforts.

However, there are a number of alternatives, notably C4, which comes in sticks and can then be moulded into a shape suitable for a bomb. Military sources said that 10lb of C4 - the size of each of the London bombs - would fit into a shoebox or standard rucksack. C4 is a high-quality plastic explosive that has been used by al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists in other attacks. Richard Reid, the British shoe bomber, hid ten ounces in each of his shoes when he boarded Flight 63 in Paris on December 22, 2001.

Indonesian police found traces of C4 at the Bali bomb scene in October 2002; and C4 was used by the terrorists who attacked the American warship, USS Cole, in Yemen in 2000.

The explosive is manufactured mainly in the US but there has been evidence that military explosives have been bought by terrorist groups from sources in Croatia and elsewhere in the Balkans, a region heavily imbued with criminal organisations.

Islamic militants are reported to have obtained military explosives from sources in Belgrade in recent years.

Forensic scientists have told The Times that the construction of the four devices detonated in London was very technically advanced. "You keep hearing that terrorists can easily make a bomb from using instructions on the internet. You can, but not of the design and sophistication of these devices. These were well put together, and it would appear the bomb-maker has highly developed skill," one expert said.

The trigger device was "almost identical" to the ones found in the rucksack bombs used in the Madrid bombings in March last year - although the terrorists used industrial dynamite stolen from a quarry in northern Spain rather than plastic explosives.

Investigators have not determined whether the London bombs were set off by synchronised alarms using mobile telephones - as they were in Madrid - or some other device such as a watch alarm.
Superintendent Christophe Chaboud, head of the French security service's Anti-terrorist Co-ordination Unit, said: "The use of military explosives is very worrying. We are more used to seeing home-made explosives made from chemicals. "How did they procure them? Either they were supplied by the underground market, for example from the Balkans, or they benefited from accomplices who removed explosives from a military base."

THE POLICE'S NIGHTMARE: HOME-GROWN TERRORISTS
► Independent / By Kim Sengupta
► Spy News / by Mario Profaca

Jul 13 2005 ► Jul 13. This was the nightmare scenario that the authorities feared most - suicide bombings carried out by British citizens leading seemingly ordinary lives, slipping under the radar of the security agencies.

What emerged yesterday transforms the investigation into the London attacks. These, the first suicide bombings in western Europe, put into grim context just how much Britain is now on the front line. Until now the images of militants blowing themselves up had only been seen in television pictures from Palestine and Israel, Iraq and Chechnya. The security agencies will now have to unravel how this was replicated in Britain and work out how to prevent a recurrence.

The task they face is daunting. At the end of a dramatic day of raids and arrests, a few stark facts have emerged - the men who bombed London were "home-grown" terrorists, who travelled to London to kill and maim fellow residents of this country, and to die in the process.

Along with recriminations about the failure of intelligence over the London bombings, over the past four days there had been speculation they had been the work of foreign insurgents.

Scotland Yard helped to add to this impression by urgently requesting information from European security agencies about north African suspects and dismissing reports of suicide bombers being involved for as long as possible to avoid panicking the public. Intelligence sources acknowledge that dealing with an attack by foreign Islamists would have been easier. There were available databases, recognisable suspects, and tranches of information from allied services in Europe and the Middle East.
What they are faced with instead appears to have been a small cell of Britons, hitherto unknown to the authorities, who carried out a fairly unsophisticated operation by simply getting on to trains and a bus with their deadly packages.

Such acts are unlikely to be affected by pronouncements from the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, on tracking and seizing international terrorist funds. The whole London operation probably cost less than £1,000.

The painstaking forensic tests have given the police a fairly accurate idea of the type of bombs used and inquiries are under way as to whether the bombers or their associates had been in contact with foreign groups to smuggle in explosives and manufacture the device.

But Robert Emerson, a security analyst, pointed out: "These appear to be pretty simple devices, easy to put together from manuals, or the internet, pretty cheaply. What we saw last Thursday was a pretty base-level operation. The critical advantage the terrorists had was that they were unknown. There are certain to be other, similar, groups out there. Then we have the biggest problem, what sanction can you have against someone who is already prepared to give up his life."

Lack of intelligence remains the biggest problem. Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, has admitted that the bombings "came of the blue" and the police and MI5 had been caught completely unaware.
Yesterday's development showed the great pace at which the investigation has moved. The main reasons for this, however, have been the discovery of items belonging to the bombers at the site of the bombings and CCTV footage at King's Cross station. It was these leads which allowed the security agencies to sift through the information which came in huge amount from the public and make their move yesterday.

It is this bank of information and the inroads made by yesterday's raids and arrests which will form the basis of the investigation from now on.

The police and the security agencies will be able to establish the contacts of the bombers, the mosques they attended and trace a wider circle of sympathisers.

But removing a few heads of the hydra does not guarantee future security. John Stevens, the former commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, disclosed at the weekend that during his tenure there were eight separate extremely serious plots by "home-grown terrorists" - and each one involved a different group. According to MI5, about 3,000 British Muslims have passed through paramilitary training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The majority, it was thought, had divorced themselves from extremist activities after returning to the UK.

Senior police now believe, however, that there is a far greater pool of recruits for a British insurgency, fuelled by anger over the Iraq invasion, than previously thought.

Much had been made of the similarities between the London and Madrid bombings. The commuter trains in the Spanish capital were not blown up in suicide attacks, but, like here, took place simultaneously at the height of the morning rush hour without warning.

At the end of a 14-month investigation, Jorge Dezcallar, the former head of CNI, the Spanish security service, said: "This was a local sleeper cell. It may have been inspired by al-Qa'ida, but it had no links with Osama bin Laden. Some of the bombers were thieves and petty criminals. They did not even have an Islamic past. They are almost impossible to detect."

The Spanish investigation, too, benefited from luck. A van containing Islamic tapes and traces of explosives was found at a station car park. Then a bag retrieved on a train, initially thought to belong to one of the victims, yielded an unexploded bomb. From such breaks Spanish police managed to hunt down the terrorists and plug vital information into the international security system.
The British authorities can only hope they have similar success.

The unanswered questions
* How did this group remain undetected to make their attack?
* Were they working with associates who are preparing further bombings?
* Did the group receive bomb-making material from abroad? If so, where?
* If this was an autonomous cell, how many more are there?
* And do they also contain people prepared to carry out suicide missions?
* Just how many so-called "home-grown terrorists" are active at present?
* Have these people been involved in armed struggles abroad - perhaps in Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan - and returned to carry on the war in this country?
* Why did it take the authorities so long to admit publicly that suicide bombers may have been involved?

BRITAIN SHARES INTELLIGENCE ON LONDON BLASTS
► AFP
► SAPA
► Spy News / by Mario Profaca

Jul 12 2005 ► Jul 11. British intelligence officials met at the weekend with counterparts from 28 countries, including the United States and Israel, to brief them on the investigation into the London bombings, police said on Monday.

"A briefing was held at Scotland Yard on Saturday with foreign liaison officers and foreign delegations from 30 countries and organisations," a Metropolitan Police spokesperson told reporters.
At least 52 people were killed and 700 injured in three blasts on the London Underground and one on a bus.

The briefing, opened by a top Metropolitan Police official, was to "update our partners on the details of the attack and give an overview of the investigation to date", the spokesperson said.
"The briefing was part of our continuing close liaison with agencies across the world," he added.
Delegates from Australia, the United States, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Israel and Singapore among other countries attended, plus Interpol and Europol.

TERRORISTS TRAINED IN WESTERN METHODS WILL LEAVE FEW CLUES
'Sleeper' cells have learnt how to avoid detection
► The Times / by Michael Evans and Daniel McGrory
► Intelligence Digest / by Glenmore Trenear-Harvey

Jul 12 2005 ► Jul 12. The new breed of terrorists behind the London bombings are techno-experts who have become skilled in evading the electronic surveillance methods used by Western intelligence services.

Trained in counter-surveillance techniques in camps in Pakistan, Afghanistan and the southern Philippines, the latest generation of Islamic extremist espouses the al-Qaeda terrorist organisation's hatred of the West but relies on its own motivation and planning to carry out attacks.

This new breed does not wait for orders from on high, or for some coded message from the al-Qaeda hierarchy. In every sense these mostly young international terrorists have become the equivalent of the old Cold War Soviet "sleepers" - men and women committed to a cause who learn to blend in with their host countries to undermine it.

Those responsible for the London bombings have already proved that they were sufficiently savvy to avoid becoming one of the many terrorist suspects who are watched and monitored by MI5.
Security sources said: "It's clear they have a general awareness of some of the techniques that can be used against them and have become more and more conscious of surveillance activities."

The sources added: "They are also aware that while modern technology, such as mobile phones and e-mails, can enhance their way of operating, there are also built-in risks because they know they can be traced when they make use of them."

Recruits to what is being called the "new al-Qaeda" are computer-literate and skilled at ensuring that they leave no electronic footprints. This generation of jihadists was given as much training in technology as it was in bomb-making and reconnaissance missions.

They have learnt from the mistakes made by previous terror cells in allowing telephone calls and e-mails to be intercepted. The new recruits are taught how to communicate without sending e-mails or encrypting messages in seemingly harmless websites.

The easiest method is for a cell to share a single anonymous e-mail account. All the members of the cell would know the log-in and password, but instead of sending messages, they write their communications and leave them in the draft folder. This allows the others to read the message which never leaves the account. If the terrorists have to exchange information they use more complex forms of encryption, relying on mathematical algorithms to scramble communications, so that they are meaningless to anyone who does not have a numerical key to decode them.

They have also mastered the art of steganography, which involves hiding messages inside picture or music files sent over the internet. The key to the sleeper terrorist is his normal appearance and his ability to avoid standing out in a crowd. Although some of the thousands of closed-circuit televisions in the capital may have the bombers on tape, they will be difficult to distinguish from anyone else caught on camera. "We expect they will be clean-shaven, smartly dressed and looking every inch the Westerner," one security source said.

Dominic Armstrong, director of research and intelligence at Aegis Defence Services, said: "The London bombers were an 'A team', clearly well trained and good at counter-surveillance."

TERROR CELL 'CAPABLE OF FURTHER ATTACKS'
Security experts point to home-grown group using small explosives which can be easily hidden and detonated
► The Guardian / by Richard Norton-Taylor and Duncan Campbell
► Intelligence Digest / by Glenmore Trenear-Harvey

Jul 12 2005 ► Jul 12. A small British-based terrorist cell with the ability to strike again placed the bombs on the London underground and bus, intelligence and anti-terrorism officials suggested yesterday.

A senior police officer warned that another attack could be imminent and anti-terrorism officials pointed to the possibility of future bombings. "It is more difficult to detect home-grown groups," said one anti-terrorism official. "They are less conspicuous and they don't move around." The task of the security and intelligence agencies was made more difficult, officials said, because local cells do not need to take instructions from abroad. But they said they had no concrete evidence to back up their suspicions.

"People are radicalised and take it on themselves [to carry out terrorist attacks]," a senior anti-terrorism official said.

Another told the Guardian: "It was not necessarily a closely affiliated [al-Qaida] group waiting for the green light. They do it in their own time." He said it would not have been difficult for a small group of individuals to plant bombs on the underground. No detailed reconnaissance was needed, and there was no complicated access, he said. "It could have been a very self-contained operation".

"If the bombers had got away and live to fight another day, they would do it again," an official said. "If they did not, [the attacks] could be replicated. They have identified a gap in the defences."
Security and intelligence sources said it was not difficult to make small bombs with timers and detonators. Microchips and a small circuit board could explode a device which previously required large and unwieldy equipment.
Christophe Chaboud, the head of the French Anti-Terrorism Coordination Unit and one of five senior officials sent by the French government to London immediately after Thursday's attacks, told Le Monde that the explosives used appeared to be of military origin.

"The charges were not heavy but powerful," said Mr Chaboud. "Among the victims, many of the wounds [lesions] were in the lower limbs, indicating that the explosives were placed on the ground, perhaps under the seats. The type of explosives appear to be military, something which is very worrying. We're more used to cells making home-made explosives with chemicals. How did they get them?

Either by trafficking, for example, in the Balkans, or they had someone on the inside who enabled them to get them out of a military establishment." Asked about his discussions with British anti-terrorism officials, he replied: "I noticed sangfroid but also serious concern. We know the bombings in Madrid would have been the start of a wave of attacks thwarted by the speedy actions of the Spanish police."

The French official said that "for us, the bombings were not a surprise, but the confirmation of something that was inevitable, given the international context, notably the war in Iraq ... The war in Iraq has revived the logic of total conflict against the west."

A senior British anti-terrorism official said it was "entirely possible" the explosives had a military origin, adding that nothing had been ruled out. The police have said only that the bombs contained less than 10lb (4.5 kg) each of "high explosives" and were small enough to be carried in rucksacks. A source from a European intelligence agency represented at the meeting in London of 30 countries told Reuters news agency the attacks were most likely carried out by a local cell of Islamist militants with no track record. "We think the known Islamists who live in Britain are under such close observation that they're limited in their capacity for action. Against that background, the suspicion is that it's a local group," the source said. Senior police officers continue to warn of the possibility of a further attack.

The commissioner of police for the City of London, James Hart, said there was a strong possibility of another attack. Mr Hart said: "We can't possibly assume that what happened on Thursday was the last of these events." In a bid to get closer to potential home-grown terrorists, newly recruited police officers are being encouraged to plan a terrorist attack. The course is designed by Hertfordshire police.


TERRORIST GANG 'USED MILITARY EXPLOSIVES'
► The Times / by Michael Evans, Sean O’Neill and Philip Webster
► Intelligence Digest / by Glenmore Trenear-Harvey

Jul 12 2005 ► Jul 12. A Single bombmaker using high-grade military explosives is believed to be responsible for building the four devices that killed more than 50 people last week, The Times can reveal.

Similar components from the explosive devices have been found at all four murder sites, leading detectives to believe that each of the 10lb rucksack bombs was the work of one man. They also believe that the materials used were not home made but sophisticated military explosives, possibly smuggled into Britain from the Balkans.

"The nature of the explosives appears to be military, which is very worrying," said Superintendent Christophe Chaboud, the chief of the French anti-terrorist police, who was in London to help Scotland Yard.

News of the breakthrough comes as a Times poll conducted in the aftermath of the bombings indicates that an overwhelming majority of the British public favours a tough approach to terrorist suspects. Almost 90 per cent of people want the police to be given new powers to arrest people suspected of planning terrorist acts, tighter immigration controls and strict baggage inspections.
Londoners, who bore the brunt of last Thursday's carnage, were not as supportive of draconian measures as people in the rest of the country.

The public anger will strengthen Tony Blair's hand as he prepares to speed up new anti-terrorist laws to help the hunt for the bombers. "If, as the fuller picture about these incidents emerges and the investigation proceeds, it becomes clear that there are powers which the police and intelligence agencies need immediately to combat terrorism, it is plainly sensible to reserve the right to return to Parliament with an accelerated timetable," he said.

More than 800 police officers were being drafted in to assist Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist branch in Britain's largest criminal inquiry. Film from 2,500 CCTV cameras in the centre of the capital is being examined and more is being taken from cameras across Greater London. Detectives are also searching for a vehicle, flat or garage that the terrorists may have used as a bomb factory.

It is understood that the examination of the No 30 bus at Tavistock Square has yielded vital fragments that have sharpened the focus of the police inquiry. Forensic pathologists have been paying particular attention to the remains of two bodies found in the mangled wreckage of the double-decker.

A senior police source said: "There are two bodies which have to be examined in great detail because they appear to have been holding the bomb or sitting on top of it. One of those might turn out to be the bomber." A decapitated head was found at the bus scene which has been, in Israeli experience, the sign of a suicide bomber.

The confirmed death toll stands at 52 but is expected to rise. Police family liaison officers have been assigned to 74 families. As London prepares to hold a two-minute silence and mass vigil on Thursday to commemorate its dead, 12,000 United States service personnel have been ordered not to visit the city for security reasons.


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