There is a “human pipeline” that arranges for alienated British Muslim youths – many of them born in the UK of Pakistani heritage – to travel to Pakistan for indoctrination and training at temporary terrorist “camps”, believed to be operated by Al Qaeda leaders, according to a report in the current issue of Newsweek. Well, golly. Who'da ever guessed that?
The report quoted US authorities as saying that the UK-Pakistan pipeline had played a role in several planned terrorist plots. A US intelligence official said that agencies on both sides of the Atlantic had information linking a 26-year-old London man, Muhammed Al-Ghabra, as a major organiser for Al Qaeda and other terror groups to some of the well-known plots.
Things like this do happen every now and then without the knowledge of the host government. After all, they can't know everything that takes place within their borders. On the other hand, when these things happen on a regular basis, with sophisticated, large-scale support networks behind them, then we expect to find that the host government is actually involved in the activity.
The information that the US Treasury Department made public in its announcement freezing Ghabra’s assets appears to affirm his role as a “terrorist fixer”. The Treasury statement said some of the would-be terrorists that Ghabra allegedly helped travel to Pakistan returned to the UK to “engage in covert activity on Al Qaeda’s behalf”. It said that during a visit to Pakistan in 2002, Ghabra allegedly met and stayed at the home of Abu Faraj Al-Libi, who at the time was believed to have succeeded the 9/11 mastermind as the Al Qaeda operations chief. Ghabra was also accused of training at a terror camp in Kashmir. The US government is the only party involved in designating Ghabra as a terror organiser that has released such detailed information on him.