Western Resistance

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October 29, 2007

UK: Did Saudis Warn Of 7/7 Islamist Terror Attacks?

Currently, news sources are buzzing with stories of the arrival of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah to Britain. David Miliband - Britain's Foreign Secretary, had cancelled his planned meeting with his Saudi counterpart Saud al-Faisal, news which is said to have "marred" the visit. Apparently Miliband was said to have recently been in America, witnessing the birth of Jacob, his second and newly-adopted son. Miliband is said to be taking time off to spend with his wife Louise and the new addition to their family.

Saud al-Faisal apparently withdrew an invitation to meet Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office minister, Kim Howells, as Howells was considered to be too junior for the Saudi's status. Howells is not a good judge of Islamist intent - when the Waziristan Accord of September 5, 2006 offered a truce between Pakistan's Taliban and the government, Howells had praised the event and dared to suggest it could become a model for Afghanistan. Within days of the accord being signed, and money given to the Pakistan Taliban, targeted killing began in the region of North-West Frontier Province. The accord was widely regarded as assisting the Taliban to gain more of a stranglehold on this region of Pakistan where Taliban and Al Qaeda have bases.

Despite the Saudi foreign minister not wishing to meet Howells, the Foreign and Commonwealth Minister nonetheless made a speech before the visit. He praised Britsh and Saudi links, and made no mention of the human rights abuses, lack of religious freedom or the denial of women their right to vote or drive. He said that despite shared differences, Britain and Saudi Arabia should unite around their "shared values". This exercise in Orwellian Newspeak did not state what these shared values are. From my position, a democracy has nothing in common with a barbaric autocracy which promotes 7th century values, and publicly beheads criminals and heretics.

Howells claimed that the UK and Saudi Arabia respected each other's religious and political traditions. This is a patent lie. I know of no-one in Britain (apart from radical Islamists and self-hating leftists) who respects Saudi Arabia's refusal to allow Bibles to be brought into the country, or who respects its policies of jailing Christian workers who engage in Christian acts of worship. Such actions show how little Saudi Arabia has respect for any religious traditions other than its own primitive and archaic interpretations of Islam.

Western Resistance is not an organ of mainstream media - the story of protests against the visit by the so-called "liberalizing" despot will be carried elsewhere. But what is important to us is the claim made by the Saudi king upon his arrival that his country's intelligence service warned Britain in advance of the London bombings of 7/7 (July 7, 2005, in which 52 innocent people died). As reported in the Guardian, the Telegraph, Reuters, CNN and Voice of America, the Saudi king has claimed that "We have sent information to Great Britain before the terrorist attacks in Britain but unfortunately no action was taken and it may have been able to maybe avert the tragedy."

Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) had found in 2006 that there was "no evidence" that Saudis had passed on this information. MI5 on April 30, 2007 published on its website the statement: "No prior warning of the attacks was received from any source. The Saudis provided information about possible planning for an attack in the UK which was materially different from the attacks that took place in London on 7 July."

So what was said by the Saudis? The information about a possible advance warning about the possibility of a terrorist attack came from an article in the Observer newspaper on Sunday, August 7, 2005, in a report by Martin Bright, Antony Barnett and Mohammed Alkhereiji.

Appearing to contradict the statement by MI5, Saudi intelligence were investigating whether calls had been made to Mohammed Sidique Khan, the leader of the four man cell which carried out the 7/7 attacks.

The Saudi intelligence findings had shown that Kareem al-Majati, a senior Al Qaeda leader in Saudi Arabia, had made mobile phone calls to Britain earlier in 2005. Majati was then believed to have masterminded the suicide attacks in Casablanca, Morocco, on May 16, 2003, in which 12 bombers and 32 civilians died. Majati was killed in a shootout in Saudi Arabia in April 2005.

Majati's recorded phone conversations had mentioned an upcoming terror attack in Britain. Additionally, his lieutenant Younes al-Hayar (killed in a shoot-out on July 3, 2005) had also been traced making mobile phone calls to Britain.

A Saudi security official said: "It was clear to us that there was a terror group planning an attack in the UK. We passed all this information on to both MI5 and MI6 at the time. We are now investigating whether these calls were directly to the London bombers. It is our conclusion that either these were linked or that a completely different terror network is still at large in Britain."

If MI5 are to be believed, the phone calls related to a different cell and a different plot. Why, then, did King Abdullah suggest that if his country's intelligence had been followed and not "ignored" that the 7/7 attacks could have been averted? It seems unlikely that he was poorly-briefed prior to such a high-level investigation, but it is not improbable.

It is possible that the phone calls could have involved associates of Salaheddine Benyaich alias Abou Mouhgen who was arrested in 2003 in Morocco, who is also considered to be the ringleader of the Casablanca attacks. This individual is now 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. The British government had issued the Moroccan terrorist with TWO passports. Benyaich had used these to travel around Europe. Even though he was in jail when the phone calls were made, it appears that local Islamists with connections to the local Al Quds mosque may have helped Benyaich to obtain the "identity" of the Brighton electrician. Were these associates the individuals who had been contacted by Kareem al-Majati and Younes al-Hayar in 2005?

What is certain is that King Abdullah's claim has already drawn media attention, and threatens to overshadow other aspects of his visit. Abdullah's official visit begins tomorrow.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at October 29, 2007 9:04 PM

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Posted by: Leon at October 30, 2007 12:33 PM

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