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| Britain |
| Arab "dissident" sez Binny warned the truce was up |
| 2005-07-08 |
| A PREVIOUSLY unknown al-Qaeda group yesterday claimed it had carried out the London bombings, as a huge police and intelligence operation got under way to catch those responsible. Forensic teams were looking for any trace of the explosives used in the attacks, which could provide clues. Hours of CCTV footage was also being studied. Thousands of police officers and intelligence experts will be involved in the hunt for the perpetrators - 252 specialist officers from the Metropolitan and City of London police forces on duty at the Gleneagles Hotel summit were flown home yesterday to aid the investigation. As the hunt for the bombers began, an Islamic website called al-Qal'ah - Fortress - published a claim of responsibility signed by "the Secret Organisation Group of al-Qaeda of Jihad Organisation in Europe". Experts in terrorism, while cautioning that the website had carried both reliable and unreliable information in the past, said it appeared to be credible. The statement claimed that Britain was "burning with fear and terror" and said the attacks were vengeance for the deployment of British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. An Arab dissident, who has been accused by the security services of having links to al-Qaeda, told The Scotsman that the bombings were a continuation of Osama bin Laden's strategy to split Europe from the United States, and yesterday's statement on the al-Qal'ah website continued this theme. It said: "Rejoice, Islamic nation. Rejoice, Arab world. The time has come for vengeance against the Zionist crusader government of Britain in response to the massacres Britain committed in Iraq and Afghanistan. "The heroic mujahideen carried out a blessed attack in London, and now Britain is burning with fear and terror, from north to south, east to west." The Arab dissident said: "Remember bin Laden's truce offer? My theory was that he was aware that the Europeans wouldn't accept the truce immediately, but when there's a second attack, they'll say 'al-Qaeda can never be eradicated'. "They'll say: 'Why are we staying with America when it is doing all these atrocities? We should abandon support of America and stay safe and prosperous'." Bin Laden, in a "reconciliation initiative" delivered in an April 2004 audiotape, offered to cease targeting European countries if they withdrew their troops from Muslim lands and broke from the "US conspiracy on the greater Muslim world". The offer met with unanimous rejection. Professor Paul Wilkinson, of St Andrews University, one of the world's leading terrorism experts, said the language of the internet message was "perfectly in tune with current ideology and terminology". "It's quite frequent that they adopt some new, very grandiose title. The message itself seems to indicate an authentic group, whatever it calls itself," he said. He added: "This appears to be a network undoubtedly inspired by al-Qaeda and using the same sort of tactics: co- ordinated attacks on the transport system at the height of the rush hour, with hundreds of civilians to attack; a soft target. "They have no remorse about that kind of attack. This is the typical kind of attack they would launch. The choice of the first day of G8 is significant. From previous attacks we have become aware they are following current events." Despite the name of their organisation, the terrorists behind the attack may not actually be part of a large group, according to Professor Chris Bellamy, the director of the Security Studies Institute at Cranfield University, Bedfordshire. He said: "The fact it avoided detection suggests it would be a small, secretive group. To plant a number of explosive devices in Tube trains and buses would not require a huge amount of people, and nor would it cost a huge amount of money. To keep a few people in London, rent a house and maybe a garage somewhere to make the bombs - you may not be talking more than £30,000." Prof Bellamy continued: "But I don't think these people were amateurs. The people who set these bombs off had a fair idea what they were doing, although anybody who has got the same level of training as a soldier in an engineers' regiment could do it - it's not that difficult." However, it is also possible that yesterday's attack was carried out by European-based organisations, such as the Dutch Hofstad group, which was blamed for the murder of the film-maker Theo van Gogh and of plots to kill other politicians, or the remnants of the Bosnian Mujahideen Brigade, which has been linked to bombings in France. Al-Qaeda groups in Spain and Morocco could also be to blame. One of the police's first priorities will be to pore over hours of footage from CCTV cameras at the Tube stations and on the trains involved, as well as street cameras, to look for anyone acting suspiciously, as well as known and suspected terrorists. The other main strand of the investigation is a forensic operation which began almost immediately, with specialist police officers carrying out searches of the bomb sites for clues as to the explosives used. Each explosive has a unique chemical fingerprint which reveals where it was manufactured. Within hours of the attacks, police began to search every bus and Tube train for other devices which had failed to go off - to safeguard the public but also for such highly valuable evidence. A security insider said: "Forensic management is absolutely crucial, and this is where the UK is a step ahead of the rest of the world because of the IRA experience. "Forensic scientists will be taking every little item of debris and analysing it in laboratories to see what they can find out about the source." He added: "Each explosive has a 'fingerprint' and they will be studying that and cross-referring it against other explosives used in previous bombings, such as Madrid. "If it is Semtex, you can tell where it was made, which batch it came from. Manufacturers have put these fingerprints into the explosives, under pressure from governments. "Police will be working with Europol to see if they get a profile of the specific device, where it came from and who has used similar ones in the past." Clive Fairweather, a former SAS colonel, said: "MI5 will be poring over every piece of intelligence about terrorist suspects and activities in the country. "MI6 will be analysing the overseas net to find out what is going on, and GCHQ, the eavesdropping centre at Cheltenham, will be going through recent 'noise' on the intelligence wires for any signals." |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #2 Now remember you can't look at those middle-eastern or Muslim looking men in those CCTV tapes! That would be profiling! You must examine only white christians or else its racism. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2005-07-08 16:30 |
| #1 Forensic teams were looking for any trace of the explosives used in the attacks, which could provide clues. Hours of CCTV footage was also being studied. As a side note, It'll be interesting to find out if those ubiquitous cameras all over the UK will prove to have been of some value in determining the identities of the guilty parties. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2005-07-08 16:01 |