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| India-Pakistan |
| Phone calls to Pakistan reveal al-Qaeda links to 7/7 |
| 2006-05-16 |
| British and Pakistani investigators are focusing on almost 200 phone calls made from Pakistan to one of the London bombers in a bid to uncover his links to al-Qaeda, security officials here said on Thursday. One of the bombers may have also travelled to Waziristan, they said, as two British official reports released in London on Thursday said two of the 7/7 attackers, Muhammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, were in Pakistan from November 2004 to February 2005 and likely had contacts with al-Qaeda and received "operational training", but there was no concrete evidence. A senior Pakistani investigator said on condition of anonymity that Khan, 30, received calls from dozens of phone booths and mobiles in the months after he returned to Britain and before the July 7 attacks on London Underground train and a bus. The investigators believe the person or people who made the calls - all from Rawalpindi - had prior knowledge of the attacks, although they have not been traced. "A British team is due to arrive here to study an area around 50 square km near Rawalpindi from where nearly 200 phone calls were made to Khan's number in the months leading up to the bombings," he added. "The callers never used the same PCO twice. Also they used other mobile numbers on SIM cards that were issued unnamed," said the investigator, who has liaised with British officials, probing the background to the attacks. "We have found no evidence so far to prove any direct links with terrorists ... but some of the mobile and fixed phone numbers in some cities and villages are still being monitored," said an official, familiar with the investigation. "There is no evidence that the attacks were planned or ordered from here," said another official, who is senior in the Interior Ministry. A Pakistani security source said Khan and Tanweer arrived in Karachi in November 2004 and stayed for three days before going to Lahore, where they registered at the Raiwind Tableeghi centre. The pair registered there to perform 40 days of prayer but they disappeared after a day, thesource said. He said Khan's uncle told investigators that his nephew also stayed with him for a week in Rawalpindi then went away. He has been ruled out as the source of the calls, along with Khan's other relatives and friends in Pakistan, officials said. A separate security source said there was no record of Khan's movements after that but it has been suggested that he "went to Waziristan and metal-Qaeda operatives there." The official did not name the operatives. Two official British reports - one by an influential parliamentary committee and another by the Home Office - suggest the two of the four suicide bombers had contacts with al-Qaeda and that the government security lacked resources to stop the atrocity. British Home Secretary John Reid told parliament after the release of the reports that Khan and Tanweer are "likely to have met al-Qaeda figures" during their visit to Pakistan. "There were a series of suspicious contacts from an unknown individual or individuals in Pakistan in the immediate run-up to the bombing: we do not know their content," he said. Reid said there was no need for another inquiry. The first detailed accounts of the July 7 bombings cleared the intelligence services of any failings in not preventing the terrorist strike. At the same time the reports highlighted the magnitude of the task they face in foiling such plots. The parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee said in its 44-page report, it emerged after the bombings that they had been to Pakistan. "It has not yet been established who they met in Pakistan but it is assessed as likely that they had some contact with al-Qaeda figures," the report said - same comments echoed in the 37-page Home Office document. Committee Chairman Paul Murphy said the intelligence services were not to blame. The committee noted both Khan and Tanweer had spent time in Pakistan and it was likely they had come into contact with al-Qaeda figures. But it said the extent of any direct al-Qaeda control over the attacks was unclear. "My instinct is that these were home-grown plots and that the links ... are not as great as some people might have thought in the past," Murphy said. The report said security services had come across Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer but did not believe they posed an urgent threat Shehzad. The government insists little backgrounds of Sidique Khan, the group's leader, and Tanweer and Hasib Hussein, who all lived in the Leeds area, suggested they were vulnerable to radicalisation. The fourth bomber, 19-year-old Jermaine Lindsay, also had a turbulent upbringing. With his own father absent, he had two stepfathers and followed his mother's example in converting to Islam in 2000. The report said it was clear by 2001, when Khan was working as a much-praised mentor to children at a Leeds school, that he was "serious" about religion. "There is still much to be discovered about how the group were radicalised, how the bombings were planned and executed and whether others were involved," the report concludes. "This is still very much a live investigation." Brig Javed Iqbal Cheema, head of Interior Ministry's National Crisis Management Cell, has issued the following statement in response to United Kingdom's Parliamentary Committee's report on the July 7 attacks in Britain. "The two perpetrators of this act of terrorism, namely Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer were from Pakistani parentage but second generation British. They had been born, bred and educated in England. The government of Pakistan afforded all possible help and support to the UK government in the investigation of the case. There is no denying the fact that these terrorists visited Pakistan from 19 November 2004 to 8th February 2005 but their contact or association with any organization for getting training here was not established. The report itself says the two men probably received "operational training there (in Pakistan)." Obviously, the comment is based on probability and assumption which is without any proof or evidence." |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #1 Had there only been a Data Mining program looking at patterns of phone calls... |
| Posted by: doc 2006-05-16 09:10 |