More official lies and evasions on London bombings
repost | 13.05.2006 15:33 | Repression
Both reports issued this week on the July 7, 2005 London bombings, by the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) and Home Secretary John Reid, are whitewashes. They are designed to ensure that no one is held accountable for what is described as a security failure, which allowed terrorist bombers to kill 52 people and injure more than 700, whilst concealing the fundamental political issues raised by this tragic event.
The central thrust of the two reports, which concern the actions of the security services and the bombers themselves, is that the security forces acted correctly given the information available to them. The ISC states that its conclusions “should not overshadow the essential and excellent work the Agencies have undertaken against the terrorist threat in the UK.” It maintains that the actions of the bombers—Mohammed Siddique Khan, Shazad Tanweer, Hasib Hussein and Jermaine Lindsay—could not have been predicted, and that no one should be held to account. Only additional funding could have possibly changed matters.
These claims are absurd. The ISC report documents that Khan and Tanweer were known to the security forces for at least two years before July 7, 2005 and that MI5, Britain’s internal security agency, could have identified them prior to the attacks if it had investigated them more fully.
On two separate occasions MI5 had placed both under surveillance in connection with other individuals who were under investigation. The pair had also been observed in Pakistan, where it was “likely that they had some contact with al-Qaeda figures,” the report states. MI5 had Khan’s telephone number as a contact of a terror suspect and also the phone number of Lindsay.
Nonetheless, the report claims that it was “understandable” that the security services decided not to pursue a more detailed investigation because of “more pressing priorities.”
The ISC also states that it was “not unreasonable” to reduce the official threat level for the UK in May 2005 from “severe general” to “substantial,” and that this diminution was “unlikely” to have affected the chances of preventing the attacks less than two months later.
This assertion also does not stand up. The report itself quotes speeches in parliament by Prime Minister Tony Blair and then-Home Secretary Charles Clarke warning that the UK faced potentially major attacks. It also notes a security report in 2004 that stated, “Security Service investigations and successful disruptions in the UK revealed that British-born citizens were involved in plotting attacks on their home soil.”
In May 2005, the same security report that downgraded the security alert also stipulated, with reference to the March 2004 Madrid train bombings which killed almost 200 people, that the UK’s rail network was high on the list of possible terrorist targets.
The “severe general” alert had been maintained for almost two years before it was inexplicably lowered just weeks before the G8 summit in Scotland, which was in session when the bombings took place. The ISC barely acknowledges the extraordinary character of this decision under conditions in which the leaders of the world’s most powerful nations were gathering in Gleneagles, other than to assert that the summit had no bearing on the timing of the bombings.
Over the past decade massive security measures have been taken for every G8 summit, with their proceedings unfolding under near-siege conditions. The G8 has become a focus for political protests involving tens of thousands of people and has often been accompanied by violent exchanges with the police. The Gleneagles summit saw the mobilisation of thousands of police and the erection of an impenetrable security cordon around the area. To describe the downgrading of the security threat under these circumstances as “understandable” defies logic.
Terror as a pretext for attacks on democratic rights
A number of conclusions must be drawn from this presentation of events.
The failure of the security services to prevent the bombings underscores the fact that the “war on terror” and the abrogation of democratic rights that has accompanied it have nothing to do with protecting the British population. Even if one were to accept the ISC’s account, it demonstrates that neither the government nor the security services believed their own rhetoric concerning the scale of the terrorist threat facing Britain.
Since 2001, a raft of legislation has been passed giving the government, police and security forces unprecedented powers to place people under surveillance, tap their phones, and arrest and detain suspects for lengthy periods without charge.
Two wars have been conducted with the supposed aim of ending the danger of a link-up between terrorists and “rogue states,” and vast resources have been made available supposedly to destroy the Al Qaeda network. Yet the ISC now claims simultaneously that the security services are under-resourced, July 7 could not have been prevented, and it is all but impossible to stop future terrorist attacks.
The real purpose of the “war on terror” is to build up the powers of the state and create the necessary political climate to justify wars of colonial conquest abroad and the gutting of civil liberties at home. It should be noted that the two years in which Britain was on a high terror alert, when Blair was arguing that it was “monstrously premature to think the threat has passed,” culminated in the approval of the Prevention of Terror Bill in March 2005.
Yet two months after Blair secured passage of the bill, his government, notwithstanding the previous fear-mongering about an imminent threat, downgraded the terror alert in the midst of preparations for the G8 summit.
Under the bill, the government overturned the legal principle of presumption of innocence so as to give itself powers to impose house arrest, electronic tagging and travel restrictions on anyone deemed to be a potential threat to national security.
As the measures were railroaded through parliament in record time, the security services web site warned that “both British and foreign nationals belonging to Al Qaeda cells and associated networks are currently active throughout the UK, that they are supporting the activities of terrorist groups, and that in some cases they are engaged in planning, or attempting to carry out, terrorist attacks.”
But only weeks after the draconian legislation was on the statute books, the terror threat was deemed to have receded.
Were the bombings allowed to take place?
The deliberate exaggeration of the terrorist security threat for reactionary political purposes goes some way in explaining the decision to lower the terror alert and the woeful failure of the security services to investigate the four suspects. But there is another yet more sinister possibility. Given the record of MI5 and its external security counterpart MI6, and the central role provocations have historically played in Britain’s policy in Ireland and elsewhere, it cannot be excluded that the London bombings were allowed to take place.
The ISC report, in fact, offers only the vaguest of explanations for the failure to investigate the four bombers. It states that despite repeated appearances alongside key terror suspects, Khan and Tanweer were judged to be unimportant acquaintances of more dangerous plotters intent on targeting the UK. The ISC fails to identify these other terrorists.
The report states: “The judgment was made (correctly with hindsight) that they were peripheral to the main investigation and there was no intelligence to suggest they were interested in planning an attack against the UK.” The phrase “correctly with hindsight” is emblematic of the naked cover-up by the ISC.
The report offers an additional and astonishing justification for why the two bombers were not considered important figures: “Intelligence at the time suggested that their focus was training and insurgency operations in Pakistan and schemes to defraud financial institutions.”
And this means that they did not warrant further investigation?
The ISC report suggests that a great deal was known by the security forces about Khan and Tanweer’s earlier plans, which undermine its previous claims that they were insignificant figures. It should be noted that Pakistan viewed Khan as a serious terror threat and that, following July 7, he was identified by a number of detainees in Guantánamo.
Everything points to the fact that Khan and Tanweer had been placed under intense scrutiny. There is no plausible explanation for why it would have been lifted and why nothing was supposedly known about their movements in the months leading up to July 7.
The ISC is also forced to issue a blunt denial of reports in the media that the security services had been repeatedly warned of an imminent terrorist atrocity. “We have been assured by the Agencies that there was no prior warning of the attacks that took place from any source, including from foreign intelligence services,” it states.
The only actual warning that is dismissed as irrelevant is one from the Saudi Arabian intelligence. The ISC says that it has seen this information but the scenario it presents is not that which occurred on July 7.
It should be noted that previously the security agencies had denied receiving any warnings of potential terror attacks. Now the ISC acknowledges that such a warning was given, merely stating that the details turned out to be wrong.
Even this flies in the face of press reports regarding the warning from Riyadh. In August 2005, the Observer reported that the Saudis had passed information to London about a bomb plot. This was denied at the time, but in February 2006 the newspaper cited White House sources confirming that Saudi intelligence authorities had passed on specific reports of a bomb plot—and that it involved four Islamic militants, some of whom would be British citizens. The bombers could target the London Underground within the next six months, it said.
The Observer’s claims had earlier been confirmed by Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi ambassador to the UK.
The ISC report says nothing about reports that Israel’s Mossad had also warned of an imminent terror attack in London. Israel has never officially confirmed such a warning, but the US web site Strafor wrote on July 7, 2005 that “unconfirmed rumours in intelligence circles indicate that the Israeli government actually warned London of the attacks ‘a couple of days’ previous’” to the bombings.
Government policy responsible for increased terror threat
The events depicted by the ISC flatly contradict the other major lie repeated ad nauseam in the aftermath of July 7: that the London bombings had nothing to do with British foreign policy and that suggestions to the contrary amounted to an apology for terrorism.
The ISC cites a security report in May 2005 stating that “events in Iraq are continuing to act as motivation and a focus of a range of terrorist-related activity in the UK.”
Home Secretary Reid continues to reject any connection between Iraq and the bombings. However, his own report to parliament states that the four bombers were motivated by “fierce antagonism to perceived injustices by the West against Muslims.” He also notes that Khan had spoken out against 9/11, but that there was a “change in his attitude” within a year.
Similarly, having displayed no previous attachment to political Islam, Tanweer and Hussain had also become radicalised in 2002. Within a matter of three years, they had gone from being described as “popular” and even “highly regarded” individuals to suicide bombers.
The period identified by Reid as witnessing a dramatic change in the outlook of at least three of the bombers was one in which the US and Britain waged war against Afghanistan, followed by intensive preparations to invade Iraq.
The reports of both Reid and the ISC veer between suggestions of a link with Al Qaeda and claims that the London bombings were self-financed and home grown. Whichever claim is true, there is a clear casual link between the predatory actions of Washington and London and the July, 2005 London bombings.
The assertion that to point this out constitutes an apologia for terror is a slander that turns reality on its head. Millions who opposed the Iraq war warned of precisely such an outcome, and even the official account provides ample evidence that the Blair government is politically responsible for recklessly endangering the lives of British residents.
Immediately following the issuing of his report, Reid rejected demands for a public inquiry into July 7, cynically arguing that this would “divert” resources from the fight against future attacks.
Once again, a whitewash has been concocted to ensure that no one within the government or the security agencies will be held accountable. As with previous lies and evasions over Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and the death of whistleblower Doctor David Kelly, public outrage is fobbed off with an official investigation by a tame state body with a vested interest in concealing the truth. No real accounting is made.
The two reports are only the latest manifestation of how the democratic process has been eviscerated. Never before has a government been so impervious to popular control. Indeed, Blair has proclaimed his willingness to defy public sentiment as his greatest strength. And so it is, as far as the ruling elite is concerned.
A government intent on waging of wars of colonial conquest, decimating social services and slashing living standards on behalf of the major corporations must be prepared to do whatever is necessary, regardless of its consequences for the broad mass of the population.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/may2006/lond-m13.shtml
These claims are absurd. The ISC report documents that Khan and Tanweer were known to the security forces for at least two years before July 7, 2005 and that MI5, Britain’s internal security agency, could have identified them prior to the attacks if it had investigated them more fully.
On two separate occasions MI5 had placed both under surveillance in connection with other individuals who were under investigation. The pair had also been observed in Pakistan, where it was “likely that they had some contact with al-Qaeda figures,” the report states. MI5 had Khan’s telephone number as a contact of a terror suspect and also the phone number of Lindsay.
Nonetheless, the report claims that it was “understandable” that the security services decided not to pursue a more detailed investigation because of “more pressing priorities.”
The ISC also states that it was “not unreasonable” to reduce the official threat level for the UK in May 2005 from “severe general” to “substantial,” and that this diminution was “unlikely” to have affected the chances of preventing the attacks less than two months later.
This assertion also does not stand up. The report itself quotes speeches in parliament by Prime Minister Tony Blair and then-Home Secretary Charles Clarke warning that the UK faced potentially major attacks. It also notes a security report in 2004 that stated, “Security Service investigations and successful disruptions in the UK revealed that British-born citizens were involved in plotting attacks on their home soil.”
In May 2005, the same security report that downgraded the security alert also stipulated, with reference to the March 2004 Madrid train bombings which killed almost 200 people, that the UK’s rail network was high on the list of possible terrorist targets.
The “severe general” alert had been maintained for almost two years before it was inexplicably lowered just weeks before the G8 summit in Scotland, which was in session when the bombings took place. The ISC barely acknowledges the extraordinary character of this decision under conditions in which the leaders of the world’s most powerful nations were gathering in Gleneagles, other than to assert that the summit had no bearing on the timing of the bombings.
Over the past decade massive security measures have been taken for every G8 summit, with their proceedings unfolding under near-siege conditions. The G8 has become a focus for political protests involving tens of thousands of people and has often been accompanied by violent exchanges with the police. The Gleneagles summit saw the mobilisation of thousands of police and the erection of an impenetrable security cordon around the area. To describe the downgrading of the security threat under these circumstances as “understandable” defies logic.
Terror as a pretext for attacks on democratic rights
A number of conclusions must be drawn from this presentation of events.
The failure of the security services to prevent the bombings underscores the fact that the “war on terror” and the abrogation of democratic rights that has accompanied it have nothing to do with protecting the British population. Even if one were to accept the ISC’s account, it demonstrates that neither the government nor the security services believed their own rhetoric concerning the scale of the terrorist threat facing Britain.
Since 2001, a raft of legislation has been passed giving the government, police and security forces unprecedented powers to place people under surveillance, tap their phones, and arrest and detain suspects for lengthy periods without charge.
Two wars have been conducted with the supposed aim of ending the danger of a link-up between terrorists and “rogue states,” and vast resources have been made available supposedly to destroy the Al Qaeda network. Yet the ISC now claims simultaneously that the security services are under-resourced, July 7 could not have been prevented, and it is all but impossible to stop future terrorist attacks.
The real purpose of the “war on terror” is to build up the powers of the state and create the necessary political climate to justify wars of colonial conquest abroad and the gutting of civil liberties at home. It should be noted that the two years in which Britain was on a high terror alert, when Blair was arguing that it was “monstrously premature to think the threat has passed,” culminated in the approval of the Prevention of Terror Bill in March 2005.
Yet two months after Blair secured passage of the bill, his government, notwithstanding the previous fear-mongering about an imminent threat, downgraded the terror alert in the midst of preparations for the G8 summit.
Under the bill, the government overturned the legal principle of presumption of innocence so as to give itself powers to impose house arrest, electronic tagging and travel restrictions on anyone deemed to be a potential threat to national security.
As the measures were railroaded through parliament in record time, the security services web site warned that “both British and foreign nationals belonging to Al Qaeda cells and associated networks are currently active throughout the UK, that they are supporting the activities of terrorist groups, and that in some cases they are engaged in planning, or attempting to carry out, terrorist attacks.”
But only weeks after the draconian legislation was on the statute books, the terror threat was deemed to have receded.
Were the bombings allowed to take place?
The deliberate exaggeration of the terrorist security threat for reactionary political purposes goes some way in explaining the decision to lower the terror alert and the woeful failure of the security services to investigate the four suspects. But there is another yet more sinister possibility. Given the record of MI5 and its external security counterpart MI6, and the central role provocations have historically played in Britain’s policy in Ireland and elsewhere, it cannot be excluded that the London bombings were allowed to take place.
The ISC report, in fact, offers only the vaguest of explanations for the failure to investigate the four bombers. It states that despite repeated appearances alongside key terror suspects, Khan and Tanweer were judged to be unimportant acquaintances of more dangerous plotters intent on targeting the UK. The ISC fails to identify these other terrorists.
The report states: “The judgment was made (correctly with hindsight) that they were peripheral to the main investigation and there was no intelligence to suggest they were interested in planning an attack against the UK.” The phrase “correctly with hindsight” is emblematic of the naked cover-up by the ISC.
The report offers an additional and astonishing justification for why the two bombers were not considered important figures: “Intelligence at the time suggested that their focus was training and insurgency operations in Pakistan and schemes to defraud financial institutions.”
And this means that they did not warrant further investigation?
The ISC report suggests that a great deal was known by the security forces about Khan and Tanweer’s earlier plans, which undermine its previous claims that they were insignificant figures. It should be noted that Pakistan viewed Khan as a serious terror threat and that, following July 7, he was identified by a number of detainees in Guantánamo.
Everything points to the fact that Khan and Tanweer had been placed under intense scrutiny. There is no plausible explanation for why it would have been lifted and why nothing was supposedly known about their movements in the months leading up to July 7.
The ISC is also forced to issue a blunt denial of reports in the media that the security services had been repeatedly warned of an imminent terrorist atrocity. “We have been assured by the Agencies that there was no prior warning of the attacks that took place from any source, including from foreign intelligence services,” it states.
The only actual warning that is dismissed as irrelevant is one from the Saudi Arabian intelligence. The ISC says that it has seen this information but the scenario it presents is not that which occurred on July 7.
It should be noted that previously the security agencies had denied receiving any warnings of potential terror attacks. Now the ISC acknowledges that such a warning was given, merely stating that the details turned out to be wrong.
Even this flies in the face of press reports regarding the warning from Riyadh. In August 2005, the Observer reported that the Saudis had passed information to London about a bomb plot. This was denied at the time, but in February 2006 the newspaper cited White House sources confirming that Saudi intelligence authorities had passed on specific reports of a bomb plot—and that it involved four Islamic militants, some of whom would be British citizens. The bombers could target the London Underground within the next six months, it said.
The Observer’s claims had earlier been confirmed by Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi ambassador to the UK.
The ISC report says nothing about reports that Israel’s Mossad had also warned of an imminent terror attack in London. Israel has never officially confirmed such a warning, but the US web site Strafor wrote on July 7, 2005 that “unconfirmed rumours in intelligence circles indicate that the Israeli government actually warned London of the attacks ‘a couple of days’ previous’” to the bombings.
Government policy responsible for increased terror threat
The events depicted by the ISC flatly contradict the other major lie repeated ad nauseam in the aftermath of July 7: that the London bombings had nothing to do with British foreign policy and that suggestions to the contrary amounted to an apology for terrorism.
The ISC cites a security report in May 2005 stating that “events in Iraq are continuing to act as motivation and a focus of a range of terrorist-related activity in the UK.”
Home Secretary Reid continues to reject any connection between Iraq and the bombings. However, his own report to parliament states that the four bombers were motivated by “fierce antagonism to perceived injustices by the West against Muslims.” He also notes that Khan had spoken out against 9/11, but that there was a “change in his attitude” within a year.
Similarly, having displayed no previous attachment to political Islam, Tanweer and Hussain had also become radicalised in 2002. Within a matter of three years, they had gone from being described as “popular” and even “highly regarded” individuals to suicide bombers.
The period identified by Reid as witnessing a dramatic change in the outlook of at least three of the bombers was one in which the US and Britain waged war against Afghanistan, followed by intensive preparations to invade Iraq.
The reports of both Reid and the ISC veer between suggestions of a link with Al Qaeda and claims that the London bombings were self-financed and home grown. Whichever claim is true, there is a clear casual link between the predatory actions of Washington and London and the July, 2005 London bombings.
The assertion that to point this out constitutes an apologia for terror is a slander that turns reality on its head. Millions who opposed the Iraq war warned of precisely such an outcome, and even the official account provides ample evidence that the Blair government is politically responsible for recklessly endangering the lives of British residents.
Immediately following the issuing of his report, Reid rejected demands for a public inquiry into July 7, cynically arguing that this would “divert” resources from the fight against future attacks.
Once again, a whitewash has been concocted to ensure that no one within the government or the security agencies will be held accountable. As with previous lies and evasions over Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and the death of whistleblower Doctor David Kelly, public outrage is fobbed off with an official investigation by a tame state body with a vested interest in concealing the truth. No real accounting is made.
The two reports are only the latest manifestation of how the democratic process has been eviscerated. Never before has a government been so impervious to popular control. Indeed, Blair has proclaimed his willingness to defy public sentiment as his greatest strength. And so it is, as far as the ruling elite is concerned.
A government intent on waging of wars of colonial conquest, decimating social services and slashing living standards on behalf of the major corporations must be prepared to do whatever is necessary, regardless of its consequences for the broad mass of the population.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/may2006/lond-m13.shtml
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conspiracy confirmed by the Sunday Times
14.05.2006 20:34
David Leppard and Richard Woods
Bugging revealed earlier plot
MI5 is being accused of a cover-up for failing to disclose to a parliamentary watchdog that it bugged the leader of the July 7 suicide bombers discussing the building of a bomb months before the London attacks.
MI5 had secret tape recordings of Mohammad Sidique Khan, the gang leader, talking about how to build the device and then leave the country because there would be a lot of police activity.
However, despite the recordings, MI5 allowed him to escape the net. Transcripts of the tapes were never shown to the parliamentary intelligence and security committee (ISC), which investigated the attacks.
The disclosures prompted allegations of a “whitewash” from politicians and victims of the attacks this weekend.
Last week the committee, whose members are appointed by Tony Blair and report to him, cleared MI5 of blame after it failed to thwart the attacks, which killed 52 innocent people and injured more than 700. It concluded that MI5 had no reason to suspect Khan of plotting attacks in Britain. He was regarded as “peripheral” to higher priorities.
The new evidence shows MI5 monitored Khan when he met suspects allegedly planning another, separate attack; that he had knowledge of the “late-stage discussions” of this plot; and that he was recorded having discussions with them about making a bomb and leaving the country. He was also recorded talking about his plans to wage jihad — holy war — and go to Al-Qaeda terrorist camps abroad.
Yesterday David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said: “If this is true, it completely undermines the basis on which the ISC did its report.”
Patrick Mercer, the Tory spokesman on homeland security, said: “Unless there is a proper independent inquiry, there is a danger of the committee’s report being interpreted as a whitewash.”
A committee member, who asked not to be named, admitted that it had not seen transcripts of MI5’s recordings of Khan. Instead, it had taken evidence from senior security officials and accepted their judgment that there was no reason to regard Khan as a serious threat.
The MP said that if the transcripts showed Khan had been involved in discussions about bomb-making and another possible attack, the committee had been seriously misled. “If that is the case, it amounts to a scandal,” said the source. “I would be outraged.”
Rachel North, a survivor of the bomb at King’s Cross, was shocked by the disclosure: “I am shaking with anger.
In the absence of an independent inquiry answering the public’s questions, I had hoped that those who heard the evidence behind closed doors on our behalf would find out the answers for us.
“They did not find out nor tell us the whole truth, and I feel badly, desperately let down.”
The disclosures will increase pressure for a public inquiry into the atrocity, with greater powers to demand evidence and interrogate witnesses.
The government also failed to address concerns about what MI5 knew when they were raised in unreported exchanges in the Commons last week. Davis referred to the existence of the tape recordings when he addressed John Reid, the home secretary.
“It seems that MI5 taped Mohammad Sidique Khan talking about his wish to fight in the jihad and saying his goodbyes to his family — a clear indication that he was intending a suicide mission . . . he was known to have attended late-stage discussions on planning another major terror attack. Again, I ask the home secretary whether that is true.”
Reid said the questions were “legitimate” but failed to answer them.
ravon
This was MIHOP not LIHOP
14.05.2006 21:07
LIHOP libels the Muslims and ramps up the racial hatred and division
1. The one piece of evidence printed within the narrative is the solitary CCTV image of the day of the four together outside Luton station. Remember this is the ONLY image of the 4 together. There is otherwise a strange clipped image of Hassib Hussain on his own at Luton and a dubious one of him supposedly in Boots at Kings Cross
Back to the image of the four - this appears to be faked, - one of the bars at the back of 'Siddique Khan' goes in front of his left arm the other bar merges into his face, making him unidentifiable, as are two of the other alleged bombers. Hasib is the only one who is vaguely identifiable
See
Increase article up to 200 or 400% to study photo
2. The narrative still contends that the 'bombers' caught the 07.40 train arriving at Kings Cross at 08.23.
This is IMPOSSIBLE. The 07.40 was cancelled, as confirmed twice by letter by Thameslink themselves
The only train that arrived at Kings Cross at 08.23 was the 0724, actually departing at 07.25 from Luton
The timestamp on the Luton image is 07.21.54
this would leave them 3 minutes to get from here to the platform from which the 07.24 departs
This was tested by supporters of nineeleven.co.uk and of financialoutrage.com, who found it took 3 minutes 35 seconds to get to the platform, WITHOUT buying the tickets, and without carrying rucksacksful of highly unstable TATP on their backs. See
3. The first train after the 7.24 that they could have caught would have been the 07.30, which actually arrived at Kings Cross at 08.39, some 3 minutes after the report says they were seen on CCTV,"hugging and euphoric" at 08.36
The Horizon "7/7" documentary and Milan Rai's book on the subject has them catching the 07.48 which arrives at 08.42
Either one would leave them between 8 and 11 minutes to transfer from the Thameslink to the mainline Underground and be on the trains by 08.50, other than Hasib, as stated in the report
The official advice is that this transfer takes a minimum of TWENTY MINUTES See
And this is without carrying 10kg of highly unstable TATP on your back
4. TATP
"General warnings
Acetone Peroxides are very unstable chemicals. If handled at all, they should be treated with great care and only synthesized in minute quantities. This refers to triacetone triperoxide (TATP), sometimes refered to as tricycloacetone peroxide (TCAP). The reaction must be done under 50 °F (10 °C) to yield triacetone triperoxide.
TATP is widely considered to be too unstable to synthesize safely in standard laboratory facilities, though small quantities (under 1 gram) are occasionally synthesized for research purposes, and for testing and calibration of detection equipment. " See
Yet ok to be mixed in large quatities in a Leeds bathroom and to be lugged around in rucksacks in Leeds, Luton and London
5. Newsnight May 11th has featured Shahid Malik saying that the family of Khan still do not believe that he did it
Ian Barrett, who has known Khan since schooldays - and was the most quoted person in the radio 4 'Biography of a Bomber' He was the one who said it wasn't Khan's voice on the video,
6. No mention in the report of Haroon Rashid Aswat, erstwhile lieutenant to Abu Hamza, and indentified by intelligence expert John Loftus on Fox News as an MI6 agent. This guy allegedly had made phone calls to the 7/7 men, and Loftus posits a connection to 21/7. His arrest in Zambia was after 21/7, although he was on wanted lists all over the place
He had been in the US, in and out of the UK, Pakistan,South Africa and Zambia, video clip here
transcri, rampspt here
Yet no mention
7. The accounts of Bruce Lait and Guardians Mark Honigsbaum on the appearance of the carriage floors being blown upwards as if there were a bomb under the train
8. And of course Peter Power and his Visor consultants exercise with its explosions going off at precisely the same railway stations at precisely the same times they did occur, and Netenyahu and the Israeli embassy warnings before the bombs exploded
This and much else here is covered in the little film at
dh
Profile of a "bomber"
14.05.2006 21:20
Sarah Trickett, wife of the Labour MP John Trickett, recalled:
"He was great with the children and they all loved him … He did so much for them, helping and supporting them and running extra clubs and activities."
Khan wrote of this professional skills:
"I'm energetic, I [look for a] way of bettering things … Can build up trust and rapport with disillusion, understanding and empathy .. I feel patience and understanding comes through experience and maturity … I constantly analyse society and speak to people regarding current issues. I consider my ability to empathise with others and listen to their problems as well as offer viable solutions to be one of my strong assists."
A graduate from Leeds Metropolitan University, Khan lived with his Indian-Muslim wife Hasina Patel whom he met there and their 14-month daughter Maryam.
His wife’s mother, Farida Patel, was a pillar of the community and had attended a Buckingham Palace tea-party attended by the Queen, to receive an award for bilingual education, and she was one of the first Asian women to be invited there. All the locals knew Farida and Hasina from their work in Dewsbury schools.
His wife Hasina is said to have held anti-Taleban, pro-feminist views, and she worked in education as a “neighbourhood enrichment officer”. The Patels were known as being opponents of Muslim extremism and supporters of women’s rights. Neighbours told the media:
“They seemed like a really happy family. Hasina was from an Indian family and there are not often mixed Pakistani and Indian marriages but they didn’t mind.” They added that the family were devout, quiet and respectable. Hasina was pregnant with a second child.
At the Hillside Primary School in Beeston where he worked, Khan’s task was to liaise with children’s previous schools on their special needs and to assess their learning skills. On their first day at school, children would rely on Khan, who was their official “buddy”. He was given the privileged position of sitting, with the head teacher, through interviews with new families to the area. Many were single mothers, fresh immigrants, refugees or victims of domestic violence.
Khan had been a teaching assistant at this School in Leeds since 2002. "He was a good man, quiet," said one parent, speaking outside the school. "When I told my daughter she said 'no, he can't do something like that'. I had to go and buy the paper and show her."
Another parent, Sharon Stevens, told the Press Association how he had been a "big supporter" of pupils and parents. During its last Ofsted inspection in 2002, the school's learning assistants had been singled out for special praise in dealing with a transient pupil population from a socially deprived area. Khan spoke about his work to the Times Educational Supplement at the time. "A lot of [the pupils] have said this is the best school they have been to," he said (Hillside school was profiled in the TES in 2002). Khan always wore Western clothes to the school.
Each weekday morning at 8, Khan used to visit the home of Deborah Quick to pick up her two daughters, Harley and Robyn, and take them to Hillside Primary School. The two girls were members of what Mr. Khan called his "breakfast club," an early morning service to help parents on welfare get their kids to school in time for an 8:30 breakfast and 9 a.m. start. Conscientious and cheery, Mr. Khan was "brilliant," recalls the girls' mother. As word spread of his kindness, other parents in Beeston, a deprived and drug-blighted district of this northern English town, asked Mr. Khan to pick up their children, too. Unable to fit them all into his small, navy blue Vauxhall Corsa, Mr. Khan started walking them to school. He continued to take Ms. Quick's daughters, then 6 and 4, to school until early 2005. (Mrs Quick’s boyfriend recalled that Mr. Khan had urged him to take up kickboxing as a way to curb his "negative energies," and seems to have been a bit irritated by this memory; but maybe that was a psychologically insightful comment by Khan, expressing his philosophy, of helping people to fulfil their lives.)
Few men were more popular on the streets of Beeston than Khan, the 30-year-old family man, recognised by his sensible sweaters and neat, coiffeured hairstyle. Khan became involved in the community-run Hamara Healthy Living Centre in Beeston, and worked at its youth outreach project, the Hamara Youth Access Point on Tempest Road, a £1 million Government-funded scheme opened two years ago by Mr Benn, its patron, and his father Tony, the former Labour minister, in 2003. Hamara is an Urdu term, which means "ours".
Khan was given two EU grants of £4,000 to open boys-only gyms for Asian youths in the area, grants designated as supporting community groups in deprived areas. In July 2004 he visited Parliament as the guest of a local Hemsworth Labour MP Jon Trickett. There he was praised for his teaching work.
At this visit to Parliament, the group met the International Development secretary, Hilary Benn. Mr. Khan won respect as a social worker committed to ridding the streets of drugs, being involved in a 2001 government study on fighting drug use. He was invited to the home of Hillside Primary's head teacher, Sarah Balfour, whose husband, Jon Trickett, is a member of parliament. On a trip to London in July last year, Mr. Khan and his students had a tour of parliament from Mr. Trickett
Khan used to work for the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), helping promote British firms overseas. He also helped Leeds police deal with confrontations between rival gangs of youths. Leeds education authority's personnel file on Khan, obtained by The Independent under the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act, shows details of his work for the DTI's export arm in Yorkshire in the mid-1990s, when Britain was seeking more trade links with Asia. Khan left to study at Leeds Metropolitan University in September 1996, and took a 2:2 in business management, his file reveals. He clearly believed his vocation lay in steering disenchanted youths away from crime. He took paid youth and community work from Leeds council while finishing his degree.
He worked together with Shahzad Tanweer in getting youngsters off drugs, and they built up ‘the Mullah Crew’ a group of Asian youths to do this. It could involve forcible ‘cold turkey’ chill-outs for several days, for the drug addicts. This would be accompanied by outdoor activities like climbing up the North Yorkshire moors and canoeing in Wales. On June 4th, 2005, Tanweer, Khan and a bunch of other youths from Beeston had a fine day out, Whitewater rafting in the Snowdonia region of Wales. It was unusual for groups of young Asian men to participate in the sport, but, thanks to Khan being in charge of the group, relaying the instructions and translating for those who could not speak English, it went O.K. One can see Khan making the ‘peace’ V-sign to the photographer, and Tanweer with a broad grin at the bottom of the picture. The press had some difficulty in attributing a fiendish, sinister meaning to this outing, mere weeks before July 7th, but … they managed.
He and Tanweer used to meet at the small corner-shop the Iqra Islamic Learning bookshop (a registered charity) in Beeston where Khan was a volunteer worker. The police raided this and closed it down, and its manager Naveed aged 29 was subjected to 12 days of mental torture in solitary confinement at Paddington Green. The shop sold Korans and tried to give locals somewhere to meet and get them off drugs (heroin was quite an epidemic locally, with 10-year olds on it) – and, as regards its selling ‘anti-western videos,’ I was told that these were probably 9/11 truth videos (by a nearby shop-owner, who knew the people).
On his school job application, he described one of his practical experiences in conflict resolution: once, when a "potentially dangerous" confrontation arose, "I have an excellent rapport with the youth [community] so ... I targeted the ringleaders and spoke to them, calming them down and offering sympathy as well as empathy. We then approached the teachers and as a large group casually walked together up Beeston Hill which [defused] the situation." Associates of Khan have confirmed his role as an interlocutor between police and youths.
Lack of religious views: On his religious views, its hard to find comments beyond a neighbour’s remark: "He didn't seem to be an extremist. He was not one to talk about religion. He was generally a very nice bloke." Afzal Choudhry, a community worker who took part in the summer sessions (During summer holidays he ran workshops for kids), praises him for being "always ready to get involved." Mr. Khan, he says, was not particularly religious when they first met around 1997. Mr. Khan sometimes got "what we call the Friday feeling" and would go to mosque for Friday prayers, but he otherwise didn't pray much, says Mr. Choudhry. "The other Pakistani lads would have to go mosque because their families would say 'You're going to mosque.' But Sid didn't go," says Ian. "He didn't seem interested in Islam and I don't ever remember him mentioning religion." Khan was, by all accounts, an exceptionally well-integrated person. His anglicised name "Sid" was just one symbol of his willingness to take on a British identity. "If it wasn't for the colour of his skin, he would have been [seen as exclusively] English," says Ian. "I just thought of him as a Beeston lad - and that's what he was - a Beeston lad, born and bred." But, this may have changed with his marriage and he did make the pilgrimage to Mecca with his wife Hasina, returning in February 2005.
Khan’s anger: “You could not carry out a civilized conversation with him on Iraq," recalled Arshad Chaudhry, head of the Leeds Muslim Forum, an umbrella group of local Islamic leaders. Khan was a mild and gentle man, and yet we may be glad to hear of this righteous indignation, whereby he expressed his forthright views concerning the war.
Posthumous character – assassination
Khan had a life to look forward to. He appears as a model citizen, who inspired others and never showed the wish to cause harm. Allegations that Khan had visited an extremist ‘jihadi’ training camp in Pakistan derive from Mohammed Junaid Babar, now apparently awaiting sentence for a US prison. He pleaded guilty in June 2004 to providing material support to Al-Qaeda.
This ‘Junaid’ was secretly arrested in April 2004, then gave a secret, sealed testimony in June 2005, and then on August 10 the US government suddenly released censored parts of his "testimony".
Junaid was originally a Pakistani citizen but became a "naturalized" American one a few years ago. His identity looks like a creation by some intelligence agency: His family is incommunicado and no one has even verified his identity, much less his statements. This possibly fictional entity appears as the source of information putting Khan in ‘terrorist’ Jihad camps in Pakistan.
Spook-planted tales soon proliferated, alleging that Khan had aided all sorts of terror-groups: ‘So this guy is travelling to Israel, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Malaysia and now the Philippines - all while married with a young child and earning a teacher's salary’.
Some months after Khan’s death, the radio program ‘Koran and Country, Biography of a Bomber’ appeared about him (Radio 4, 18 November 2005 by Nasreen Suleaman) Sinister claims were there made about how he became ‘radicalised’. According to Suleaman, the process of radicalisation happened when Khan and friends would gather to play the slapstick-type game 'paintball' in the woods, which Suleaman alleged was 'for some, a guerilla-warfare like activity': these claims were made by only one witness, who remained anonymous and whose voice had been modulated to prevent recognition.
But, another interviewee in the same programme is perhaps more deserving of our attention, one Ian Barrett, who had known Khan since middle-school, and who was the most-quoted witness. Mr Barrett confidently stated of the posthumously-released ‘Al-qaeda’ video that the person in it did not look or sound like the Khan he knew:
‘It wasn’t his natural, speaking rhythm ... that weren’t him on that video.’
Nor could Barrett remember Khan mentioning religion once. He recalled how Khan loved America after his visit there, and had declared that he wanted to go and live there. His schoolteacher friends recalled his good sense of humour and how everyone liked him, but also, that after returning from Mecca he had become more introvert and his manner seemed to have altered.
One old friend, Rob Cardiss, bumped into Khan in Leeds in June 2005, after not having seen him for ages, and Khan struck up a conversation. It was all about having kids, nappy changing, and being a parent, and Khan shook his hands and made full eye contact. Mr Cardiss could not at all square this with what then happened, just a few weeks later
Khan did visit London via Luton on 28 June, with his pals Tanweer and Jamal, and was recorded on CCTV cameras at Luton and King’s Cross. He was last seen on the evening of Wednesday 6th July in Leeds by his neighbour Mr. Zaman, entering a red Mercedes.
No evidence that would stand up in a court of law puts Khan anywhere near London on July 7th. On 13th July, fifty police raided what had been his house, with Farida and Hasina present, and this traumatised them so much that they fled into hiding and no longer live in what was their family home.
Hordes of journalists descended on Beeston but encountered a sullen wall of silence, from locals who simply would not believe what was alleged of Khan.
The BBC claimed that he had been secretly filmed and recorded by British intelligence agencies in 2004, so we may presume that the film shown posthumously on 3rd September, 2005, would have been of Khan speaking in 2004 - with his speech adjusted.
Locals who knew him seem not to have believed that it was him speaking on that video. For an example of how effective these technologies are, listen to George Bush give a speech he never made (MP3).
Summarising, in the thirty years of his life, Khan
helped to promote Leeds business by improving exports
liased with Parliament
worked to get youths off drugs
demonstrated the art of conflict-resolution
helped educate the poor and underprivileged
had the school he worked at singled out for excellence
helped single mothers by getting their young kids to school
gave local people hope by seeing their community regenerate.
The July 7th Story
Turning away from the real events of Khan’s life, we now reach a nightmare dream-sequence, which clearly could never have happened: but which has been made to seem that way. It would not stand up for a moment in a court of law, indeed one may doubt whether anyone would have the nerve to assert it in such a court.
On the 12th of July, the Metropolitan police announced that they had found ‘documents’ whereby they were able to identify Khan, both at Edgware Road and at Aldgate tube station, two sites of the July 7th bombs. The documents had his name on them.
The next day, Peter Clarke, head of the Anti-Terrorist Branch, confirmed that ‘property’ of Khan had been found at both stations, whereas no forensic evidence had yet been found linking him to the blast (i.e., they had identified him solely from this ‘property’).
The police have never clarified how Khan might have been in two different places at once. The government narrative also states that property belonging to Khan was also found at the site of the bus explosion in Tavistock Square, bringing the total number of locations in which property belonging to Khan was apparently found to three.
Relatives of Khan were advised that his remains were stored in fifty separate packages, if they wanted to collect them. If the police had done all this scraping off of walls etc, how could paper or plastic ID have remained intact? This sounds like the story of the intact hijacker passport fluttering down from the raging inferno of 9/11. In reply, the relatives sensibly requested that an independent coroner be allowed to check these ‘remains’.
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