After reading the papers this morning, I was rather suspicious of the reported "Claim of responsibility" attributed to "the al-Qaeda Organization in Europe".

Google searches of various phrases quoted in The Guardian 'claim' came up with no results, and the closest to the original source I could find was
 http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000100&sid=aCEOpkSSfpuw&refer=germany

The article was apparently the source used by the Guardian, which also carried a huge article about Muslim comuninties now living in fear of reprisals. It politely invited readers to contact the author if they wish so I did, to ask for a link to the page carrying the claim.

Caroline Alexander, the journalist responsible replied almost immediately, but with a link to a page with nothing on it. I must admit that I find it difficult to believe that anyone who ghad gone to the trouble of planting four bombs in London would not bother to publish a claim of responsibility in English. I cannot believe the claim is genuine, and Muslim communities should have no fear of reprisals.

The text of our email correspondence is reproduced below. It begins with Caroline Alexander's explanation for why the link might have dissappeared:

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Hi there, they must have taken the statement down then, or maybe you don't have acess to the site, I had to get special access. It was in Arabic and I translated it. Al-Qaeda never writes in English for various reasons I guess which have to do with the Quran and Hadith. The translation I did for Bloomberg is complete, is that what you read? I just left a sentence at the beginning that said ``rejoice Muslims''

----- Original Message -----

From: Ambrose Blimfield
At: 7/ 8 12:45

Hiya, Caroline, thanks for getting back to me so quickly.

I don't get anything on that page with my browser, nothing at all. Not
even a load of question mark characters - I've attached a jpeg of the
screen grab.

Sorry to pester you, but you seem to be the only person who has read the
claim according to my Google search.

I was wondering if it just in Arabic when you saw it and you had to
translate it, or had it been written in English by its authors as well?
I would expect anyone claiming responsibility for taking English lives
would write in English and not just in Arabic.

Is there any chance you could email me the un-edited text of the claim?

Many thanks

Blimfield
.....................

CAROLINE ALEXANDER, BLOOMBERG/ NEWSROOM: wrote:


>>Hi Ambrose,
>> http://alsaha.fares.net/sahat? 128@90.v0cbsafJdbt.0@.1dd7c2ee
>>
>>----- Original Message -----
>>From: Ambrose Blimfield
>>At: 7/ 8 12:12
>>
>>Hi Caroline
>>
>>I was wondering if you could email me the link to the "al-Qaeda
>>Organization in Europe" where you found the claim of responsibility for
>>the London bombs. I can't seem to find it through Google.
>>
>>Many thanks
>>
>>Ambrose Blimfield.
>>
>>