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July 17, 2007

Britain: New Leadership Fails To Prevent Islamic Terrorism (1 of 4)

This article by Adrian Morgan (Giraldus Cambrensis of Western Resistance) appeared earlier in Family Security Matters and is reproduced with their permission.

Britain: New Leadership Fails To Prevent Islamic Terrorism (1 of 4)

Part One (of Four)

"Those who cure you are going to kill you."

On 27 June 2007, Britain gained a new Prime Minister. Gordon Brown had been the Chancellor since May 1997, while Tony Blair led the nation. After a six week transition period Brown became the premier, with no election mandate from the British public. Two days after Brown took the reins of power, a terror crisis involving car bombs erupted. The premier and his newly-appointed home secretary Jacqui Smith initially dealt with the situation calmly, appearing to be in control of the situation. Now, after a fortnight of the new regime, massive flaws in Britain's security and ability to tackle terrorism have been revealed. As Brown was an integral part of Blair's government, he cannot escape blame for these security lapses and policy failures.

The car bomb plots could have caused massive loss of life. At 1.30 am local time on the morning of Friday June 29 a green Mercedes was found outside a nightclub in Haymarket, central London, with smoke filling its interior. Containing propane gas cylinders, nails and 60 liters of gasoline, the vehicle was parked outside a busy nightclub on its "ladies' night". Another vehicle which had been illegally parked not far from the Tiger Tiger nightclub had been towed to Park Lane to be impounded. Staff at the car pound noticed a strong smell of gasoline, and later this vehicle was found to be a car bomb. Both vehicles were designed to be triggered by cellular phone. The Haymarket vehicle had received two calls during the time it was left outside the nightclub, but the detonation devices failed to ignite.

At 3.30 pm on Saturday June 30, a blazing Cherokee Jeep careered into the front entrance of Glasgow Airport in Scotland. Children had just ended their school terms, and there were several families at the airport. Two men were in the vehicle. They jumped out of the Jeep, and one poured gasoline over himself. The other, shouting "Allahu Ackbar" and trying to throw punches, was wrestled to the ground by police and passers by. The burning man was hosed down by police, but received 90% burns. He was taken to the Royal Alexandra Hospital at Paisley, near Glasgow.

It was soon revealed that this individual, 27-year old Kafeel Ahmed, had ironically worked at the same hospital as a locum doctor, before the attack which left him in a critical condition. He is not expected to survive. Ahmed has not been officially arrested. The cellular phones in the two London car bombs had led to arrests. What shocked the public was that seven of the eight suspects arrested in Britain were all doctors who had been employed in the UK's state-funded National Health Service (NHS). A doctor questioned in Brisbane, Australia, in connection with the failed attacks, was named as Mohammed Haneef. This man, born in Bangalore, India, had trained and worked at a British hospital. He was a cousin of Kafeel and Sabeel Ahmed, two of the suspects in the UK.

It emerged that the passenger of the Glasgow Airport Cherokee Jeep who had not been burned, 27-year old Dr Bilal Abdulla, had already been identified as a radical in his native Iraq. He had qualified as a doctor in 2004, but Professor Ahmed Ali of the University of Baghdad's College of Medicine claimed that Abdulla had been one of the most extremist students he had taught. Abdulla would tell colleagues: "We should not learn medicine. We should learn how to fight the occupation." When US Army representatives entered the college, Abdulla had said to them: "You are a kafir and all of you should die." Professor Ali said: "Many times in the class he interrupted to talk about the mujaheddin. I thought he was crazy."

Bilal Abdulla had apparently been a member of the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir while based in Cambridge, eastern England. Abdulla had, according to former Hizb member Shiraz Maher: "talked about the validity of jihad, about expelling American and British troops. He described jihad as the highest pinnacle of Islam. He worked to the same endgame that we were all working to. He would laugh when we talked about a particular bomb attack in Iraq. We all rejoiced then. And yet even I didn't think that he would take action himself."

On Wednesday, July 4, Gordon Brown had his first Prime Minister's Question Time (PMQ) in Parliament. He was grilled by the opposition leader, David Cameron, about why the government had failed to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir. The full exchange can be found on a video here. In August, 2005, Tony Blair had said he would be banning the international Islamist group, which calls for an abolition of democracy, and is banned in the Netherlands and Germany, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, and most Middle Eastern nations. No action was taken to ban the group.

Gordon Brown responded: "Of course in all these details - and I have had to deal with this in the Treasury, when we're dealing with terrorist finance - you have to have evidence to do so." David Cameron stated: "The prime minister said we need evidence to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir. This organization said, and I quote, 'Jews should be killed wherever they are found.' What more evidence do we need before we ban this organization? It is poisoning the minds of young people. Two years ago the government said it should be banned. I ask again - when will this be done?"

Brown's response was surprising. "We can ban it under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, and, of course, of course - I think the leader of the opposition forgets I've been at this job for five days." Brown had been in his post for a full week, not five days. Under the terms of Schedule 1 of the Terrorism Act 2006, any group that "glorifies terrorism", as Hizb does with attacks upon Israeli civilians, can be banned. Former Home Secretary John Reid explained that two reviews had taken place on the subject, and both times the decision had been taken to allow the group to continue operating in the UK. In late 2005, the Association of Chief Police Officers had advised against banning Hizb, for fear of sending it underground.

As pointed out by WorldNetDaily, BBC Newsnight's reporter Richard Watson, who has made frequent exposures of Hizb and other extremist groups, presented another video presentation. Watson stated: "Today's would-be suicide bombers are almost invariably yesterday's campaigners for political Islam. This is the start of the radicalization process..." Former Hizb member Shiraz Maher claimed on Newsnight that publicly Hizb no longer makes extremist comments, effectively making them now "underground".

None of the car bomb suspects, apart from Bilal Abdulla, was born in Britain. One of the first to be arrested was Saudi-born Dr Mohammed Asha, a neurosurgeon from Jordan, who was regarded as a "clean skin". He had no criminal record in Jordan. Whether or not these doctors arrived in Britain already intending to be terrorists, or had become radicalized within the country is still not clear. However, several of these suspects were found to be on the files of MI5. At least one individual had been placed on a Home Office "watch list", which meant that any travel outside or into Britain would have been monitored. It seems that the mobile phone numbers had enabled arrests to be made so swiftly in the aftermath of the failed car bomb attacks.

Doctors from abroad are subjected to routine criminal and security checks, but even though some of the suspects were known to MI5, none were regarded as imminent threats. Bilal Adbullah had been born in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, to Iraqi parents, so he was entitled to own a British passport.

The fact that Britain even needs to import its doctors highlights some of the fiscal wastage carried out by Gordon Brown when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer. The problem of junior doctors becoming unemployed after massive amounts of taxpayers' funds had been used to train them has long been an issue in Britain. When the British Medical Association reported in 2006 that 11,500 junior doctors would fail to find a job in 2007, NHS decision-makers dismissed the claim. Yet in February it was again claimed that 6,000 junior doctors could fail to find work in the NHS this year.

On July 4, the day that Gordon Brown stammered and blustered in the House of Commons, an Anglican priest made an extraordinary claim. Canon Andrew White usually works in Baghdad, but on April 18 this year he was in Amman, Jordan, where "clean skin" suspect Dr Mohammed Asha had hailed from. White had said he had met a man who had traveled from Syria, who was reputed to be with Al Qaeda. "It was like meeting the devil. He talked of destroying Britain and the United States," the priest said. The man had then told him: "Those who cure you are going to kill you."

On the same day, three men admitted inciting terrorist acts over the internet, at Woolwich Crown Court in London. These individuals were 21-year old Tariq Al Daour who had been born in the United Arab Emirates, British-born Waseem Mughal, aged 24, and Moroccan-born Younis Tsouli, aged 23. On July 5, the three men were jailed. They had run an internet forum which had been used to relay terror messages. According to prosecutor Mark Ellison, the three had close links to the terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, notorious for his beheadings of captives in Iraq. They had been arrested in October 2005, and information from their web forum had been used to arrest individuals in Denmark and Bosnia. The individuals in Bosnia had produced a video of themselves in masks, surrounded by weaponry and explosives, which was displayed on the forum.

What is interesting about the trial of these three men in London is the mention of a plot to use 45 doctors to commit terrorist actions in the United States - another echo of the words "those who cure you are going to kill you." On February 12, 2005, an entry appeared on the web forum. It stated: "We are 45 doctors and we are determined to undertake jihad and take the battle inside America. The first target which will be penetrated by nine brothers is the naval base which gives shelter to the ship Kennedy." This is thought to be USS John F. Kennedy, an out of service aircraft carrier, situated at Mayport Naval Base in Florida.

The representative of the "45 doctors" stated that other targets would be hit close to the base, such as "clubs for naked women" used by marines. The forum user wrote that the plot would involve six Chevrolet GT vehicles, and three fishing boats. Younis Tsouli, using his pseudonym "Irhabi007" (Terrorist 007) responded: "He needs the recipe for making car bombs" and then sent instructions on car bomb manufacture to the person representing the "45 doctors".

On July 5 an asylum seeker who had used three separate identities was jailed for nine years by a court in Manchester, northern England. This man, Omar Altimimi, had three separate identities, and was said to be an Al Qaeda "sleeper" agent. His trial had revealed disturbing evidence which bore an uncanny relevance to the events of 29-30 June. Altimimi's computer had carried recipes for cyanide gas and jihadist videos of beheadings, but also instructions for manufacturing car bombs using gas cylinders.

It should be noted that the FBI has confirmed that two of the doctors who were suspected of plotting the British car bomb attacks had applied to work in the United States. Dr. Mohammad Asha and Dr Mohammed Haneef (the Indian-born doctor being questioned in Australia, pictured) had made attempts to enroll at the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates, Philadelphia, since the summer of 2006.

In the immediate aftermath of the failed car bomb attacks in Britain, both Gordon Brown and his newly-appointed Home Secretary Jacqui Smith were calm in their assessment of the situation when addressing Parliament. However, in her address, Smith made the dubious comment: "Terrorists are criminals whose victims come from all walks of life, communities and religious backgrounds." In the context of reality, the only terrorists who threaten the security of Western nations happen to be Muslim, and not members of other faiths. On July 2, it was revealed by Brown's spokesman that the Prime Minister had instructed Smith and other Cabinet ministers to not mention the words "Islam" or "Muslims" when discussing terrorism. Even when that terrorism is explicitly motivated by extremist Islam.

Such measures may avoid hurting the feelings of the majority of Muslims who do not support terrorism, yet do little to inspire confidence for the future. When Al Qaeda and other terrorists are motivated entirely by Islam, such sensitivity is an obstacle to tackling the root causes of Islamist terrorism. As I will explain in Part Two, such politically correct sensitivity is one of the main factors which now make Britain so vulnerable to Islamist terror attack. Britain's unrealistic approach to tackling extremism already poses a threat to US security.

Adrian Morgan

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Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at July 17, 2007 8:35 PM

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