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August 15, 2007

The First Crack in The US-UK 'Special Relationship'?

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

The First Crack in The US-UK 'Special Relationship'?

The unelected prime minister of Britain, Gordon Brown, assumed his office on June 27. Within three days, two car bombs were discovered in the West End of London, and a flaming Jeep Cherokee filled with gasoline and butane gas was driven into the entrance of Glasgow Airport. Brown and his newly-appointed Home Secretary made speeches after these terror plots, but were careful not to mention "Islamic terrorism" or "Muslim terrorism", despite the ideology of the perpetrators.

The new terminology removing any associations of Islam from discussion of Islamic terrorism came directly from Gordon Brown's command, denoting a shift from the policies of his predecessor and fellow Labour party member Tony Blair. The term "war on terror" was also dropped by Gordon Brown. Kowtowing to the minority Muslim population, Brown's official spokesman said: "There is clearly a need to strike a consensual tone in relation to all communities across the U.K. It is important that the country remains united." Perhaps for the sake of accuracy he should have employed the expression "It is important that the country maintains a pretense of being united."

Brown's revised strategy on terrorism - focusing on "consultation" with so-called community "leaders" and donating money to "citizenship schemes" - was naturally welcomed by the extremist Muslim Council of Britain. This group, co-founded by Kemal el-Helbawy of the Muslim Brotherhood, has senior members who support the ideology of Islamist ideologue Syed Ala Maududi. Though its leaders have refused to support events such as Holocaust Memorial Day and have never condemned Hamas attacks against Israel, the MCB acted as advisers for the Labour party government under Tony Blair. Their favored position was weakened after the MCB signed a letter in August 12, 2006 blaming UK foreign policy for home-grown terrorism.

In October last year, the government warned Muslim groups that if they were not active in fighting extremism, they would lose their state funding. There are rumors, so far not proven, that the MCB may once again become an advisory body of the UK government. Brown has promoted two individuals into his cabinet - Mark Malloch Brown (Foreign Office minister) and Douglas Alexander (International Development Secretary) - who appear to promote negotiations with international extremist groups and a weakening of the "special relationship" with the US.

The new Foreign Secretary, 42-year old David Miliband, promoted the integrity of the "special relationship" prior to Gordon Brown's visit to Camp David on July 30. Yet on Tuesday August 8 Miliband signaled a major departure from the policies of Tony Blair. In a letter to Condoleezza Rice, Miliband requested that the US sends five suspected terrorists, currently held in Guantanamo Bay, to Britain. None of these individuals has UK citizenship, and there are few in Britain who wish them to be living here.

On August 1, it was announced that one UK non-citizen, an Iraqi named Bisher al-Rawi, was back in Britain. He had been arrested in Gambia in November 2002 with Jamil al-Banna, a Jordanian with known links to suspected Al Qaeda member Abu Qatada. Shortly before their arrests, al-Banna had been approached by MI5, who had sought information on Qatada. The freeing of Bisher al-Rawi, who has been a resident of the UK (but not a citizen) for two decades, appears to be part of the US plan to reduce numbers at Guantanamo, with a view to eventual closure.

In the past, Britain has called for release of UK nationals, but the request by Miliband is the first time that Britain has asked for the release of individuals who are not citizens but refugees or "residents" in Britain. The five subjects of Miliband's request are Jamil al-Banna, Omar Deghayes, Shaker Abdur-Raheem Aamer, Binyam Mohammed al Habashi and Abdulnour Sameur. The Sunday Times quoted Sandra Hodgkinson, deputy assistant secretary of defence for detainee affair at the Pentagon. She warned that the suspects could try to rejoin terror operations. Unless Britain takes precautions, they could pose a threat to UK security, Hodgkinson warned.

Sandra Hodgkinson claims that one of the individuals had been an interpreter for Osama bin Laden, and had been funded by him while living in Afghanistan. Another had a "long-tern association" with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former head of Al Qaeda in Iraq. Another individual is said to be a "jihadi veteran" of the Bosnian conflict who has links to the terrorist Salaheddine Benyaich, who helped organize the suicide bombings of May 16, 2003, in which 33 innocent people died. So who are these individuals?

The Detainees That Britain Wants Back

Jamil el-Banna, who had been arrested at Banjul airport in Gambia on November 8, claims he had visited Africa to set up a peanut oil company. He has refugee status. He knew Abu Qatada when they were neighbours in Pakistan. His case has been supported by Amnesty International and by Brent East MP, Sarah Teather, who is chair of Britain's All Party Parliamentary Group on Guantanamo Bay. She has said: "This decision should have been taken years ago. Abandoning British residents to indefinite imprisonment in obscene conditions was a gross dereliction of duty by the Government. Guantanamo Bay is an insult to democracy and a violation of the principles the war on terror purports to defend. Many questions remain over the Government’s complicity in the abduction and imprisonment of Jamil." Al-Banna is the only one among the five to have been cleared for release by US authorities.

Shaker Abdur-Raheem Aamer (aka Shakir Abdurahim Mohamed Ami) is originally from Saudi Arabia but has lived in Battersea, south London, since 1996. Given indefinite leave to remain in Britain, he married and had three children. He had been captured in Afghanistan on January 15, 2002. He claims that he had gone to Afghanistan in August 2001 to carry out charity work. A fourth child was born after his arrest which he has not seen. Despite the attempts by his supporters to portray Aamer as a traumatized victim, according to files quoted by Sandra Hodgkinson, he received a stipend from bin Laden when he lived in Afghanistan. He also acted as an "interpreter" for bin Laden, it is alleged, and had "ties" to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Aamer is said to have links to Islamists who plotted an attack upon the UK parliament in 2005.

Binyam Mohammed al Habashi is an Ethiopian who arrived in Britain in 1991, aged 15. His father had become an asylum seeker. He converted to Islam seven years after his arrival. He is suspected of undergoing explosives training in Afghanistan alongside shoe-bomber Richard Reid. He had been arrested in Karachi, Pakistan, in 2002. He is accused of trying to fly to the US where he was said to have intended to be part of a plot to blow up apartment blocks. He claims that he was sent from Pakistan to Morocco, where he was subjected to torture during an 18 month detention.

The Times wrote recently: "A United States military indictment alleges that Binyam Mohammed received firearms and explosives training alongside the shoebomber Richard Reid, was lectured by Osama bin Laden and was given a terrorist mission by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect of the 9/11 atrocities."

Abdelnour Sameur is a deserter from the Algerian army who arrived in 1999. Since April 2000 when his refugee status was accepted, he has "leave to remain" in Britain. He lived in South Harrow, in northwest London with his brother. Sameur has said that in the summer of 2001, a man he had encountered in the notorious Finsbury Park mosque had given him money to go to Afghanistan. Sameur said that he thought that in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime, he would find it easier to live as a Muslim. Sameur is said to have fought with the Muslim fighters in Bosnia. He was arrested in the Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan after he had been shot in the leg while trying to resist capture.

While in Afghanistan Sameur admitted having prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks, but later claimed he had made the confession under duress. Sameur said to US investigators at Guantanamo: "I just told them anything, whatever they wanted to hear, because I wanted them to treat my leg. I saw other people there whose legs had to be cut off. I did not want my leg to be cut off."

36-year old Omar Deghayes is a controversial figure, with a controversial brother who runs an extremist mosque - the Alquds mosque - in Brighton, Sussex. Libyan-born Omar Deghayes was arrested in Pakistan shortly after the fall of the Taliban. According to the US authorities, Omar Deghayes had gone to Afghanistan with the help of a senior Al Qaeda figure, had attended a terror training camp, and "had a good relationship with Osama bin Laden". He had arrived in Britain in 1986 with his mother, his sister Amani and brother Abubaker, after his trade unionist father had been shot by Gadaafi in Libya. It is alleged that Omar Deghayes is shown on a Chechen training video in the possession of the Spanish government, but his lawyers claim this is a case of mistaken identity. His sister denies that he has ever been to Chechnya. Omar Deghayes had settled with his family in Brighton, and had studied law at Wolverhampton and Huddersfield. He had dropped out of studies and gone to Afghanistan.

Some of the US evidence against Omar Deghayes appears to be corroborated by court reports. In May 2004 David Courtailler was sentenced by a French court to jail for "conspiring with criminals engaged in a terrorist enterprise". Courtailler had gone to Afghanistan and had links to Jamal Zougam, a key suspect in the Madrid train bombings of March 11, 2004, which killed 190 people. At Courtailler's trial, it was stated that Omar Deghayes had given him 1,000 pounds to travel to Afghanistan. In Courtailler's indictment, he had also been given a telephone number in Pakistan by his benefactor.

Courtailler had arrived in Brighton in 1997 while a recovering drug addict. He had converted to Islam at the Alquds mosque run by Omar Deghayes' brother Abubaker. The original imam at the mosque, Dr Abduljalil Sajid, had been ousted by Abubaker Deghayes and his followers. These had used threats and actual violence to take control of the mosque, backed up by court records. On four occasions between December 1996 and January 1997, Abubaker Deghayes had physically attacked Dr Sajid.

The statements from Sandra Hodgkinson of the Pentagon claim that one of the 5 individuals that Britain wants returned had links with Salaheddine Benyaich, who was a plotter of the May 2003 Casablanca bombings. Currently, Benyaich is serving an 18 year jail term in Morocco for his part in the bombings. Long before these attacks took place, Benyaich had used the stolen identity of a Brighton man to gain a UK passport. The individual whose identity was stolen was a 32-year old electrician named David Charles Burgess. In fact, the British government had issued the Moroccan terrorist with TWO passports. Benyaich had used these to travel around Europe. Courtailler had gone on a three month trip to Spain and North Africa in November 1998. In Tangiers, he had stayed at the family home of the Benyaich family. Was David Burgess' identity, so useful for Saleheddine Benyaich, stolen with assistance from the Deghayes-controlled Alquds mosque in Brighton?

Omar Deghayes claims that in March 2004 while in Camp Delta, he was so badly sprayed with pepper spray that he is now blind in one eye. In a diary, Omar Deghayes has shown Islamist contempt for his US captors, writing: "I am very frustrated with these cunning officers and worthless men of no word. In Arabia we look down on such people."

The warnings of Sandra Hodgkinson should be heeded. Some of these five individuals that Gordon Brown's government wishes to return to Britain may easily revert to their terror associations. Once in Britain, the Human Rights Act of 1986 will mean that - should they reactivate their terror links - they will be impossible to deport.

The ethos behind the move to have these individuals returned is almost certainly designed more to appease the Islamists in Britain than it is to please the general public. The shadow immigration minister, Damian Green of the Conservative party, has written to Jacqui Smith, Brown's new Home Secretary. He wrote: "Can you confirm, on the information you have, either that the individuals present no risk to British security or that the necessary measures have been taken to ensure that they will pose no threat on return to this country?"

So far, no answer has been forthcoming....

Adrian Morgan

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Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at August 15, 2007 4:25 PM

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