BRITISH agents are operating in the United States to trace links with Islamic extremists from England who recruit Muslims to fight for terrorist groups abroad. The British-led investigation has played a part in identifying a number of US-based terrorists and helped the authorities in Washington to break up an al-Qaeda cell operating in Falls Church, Virginia. The agents are particularly keen to discover if the visitors included Mohammad Sidique Khan, leader of the July 7 suicide bombers, who is alleged to have travelled to AmericaÂ’s East Coast to meet fellow militants and stage a series of attacks on synagogues. Khan was considered such a threat that he was banned from returning to America two years before the attack on London, according to a book written by a US intelligence specialist. The disclosure, made by the award-winning author Ron Suskind in an extract from The One Percent Doctrine in The Times yesterday, led to calls for a full public inquiry into intelligence lapses before the attacks on July 7 which killed 52 people in London.
Intelligence sources in America insist that the man they were alerted to was Khan. However, Tony Blair’s spokesman said the claims would not lead to any further investigation by the Intelligence and Security Committee, which last month cleared MI5 of serious errors, or any other form of inquiry. “The [Security and Intelligence] Committee’s conclusion is that there was not an intelligence failure,” he said.