After the verdict of the crevice trial announced on 30th April, which convicted five British Muslim defendants of plotting to carry out terrorist attacks in the UK, the spotlight has been on MI5’s handling of connections between the crevice plotters and the alleged 7/7 bombers, Mohamed Sidique Khan and Shahzad Tanweer.
In an official statement on its website, the security service claims that Khan and Tanweer were “never identified during the fertiliser plot investigation because they were not involved in the planned attacks. Rather, they appeared as petty fraudsters in loose contact with members of the plot. There was no indication that they were involved in planning any kind of terrorist attack in the UK."
Thanks to the investigations of a number of British journalists, we now know that MI5 has been somewhat economical with the truth. Richard Watson of BBC Newsnight, Vikram Dodd at the Guardian, and David Leppard at the Sunday Times, among others have obtained evidence from security sources showing that Scotland Yard and MI5 had indeed identified Khan, by name, at latest around six months prior to 7/7, via his car registration. This is also confirmed by a Crown Prosecution Service document that came up in the course of the crevice trial.
Other interesting tidbits also surfaced in that trial about what was known about Khan. Contradicting the notion that he was only believed to be a petty criminal, the Crown also wanted to produce evidence at the beginning of the trial about Khan’s attendance at an al-Qaeda training camp in Pakistan, as early as 2003. In the words of the trial judge, the evidence was supposed to prove “that the purpose of the training camp was to plan and cause explosions in the UK.” At this time, Khan was already under surveillance, and indeed MI5 knew that he was “fully versed in how to make bombs” by the time he returned to the UK in summer that year (Sunday Times 22.1.06)
Intelligence leaks also suggest that Khan was directly involved in the fertiliser bomb plot. MI5 surveillance tapes obtained by journalists showed him contributing to attack plans with the fertiliser bomb plotters, and that he was involved in “late-stage” discussions about the plot, while repeatedly expressing his own desire to participate in al-Qaeda terrorist activity. (Sunday Times 14.5.06)
In fact, contradicting the British official narrative entirely, French security officials are insisting that the 7/7 suspects had “belonged to the same network as the Britons of Pakistani origin who were partially arrested in Great Britain in March 2004” in Operation Crevice. Out of the total number of terrorist suspects “identified by the British only eight were arrested and five escaped”, according to a senior French police officer in Liberation (14.7.05). Among the five suspects at large, say the French, was Mohamed Sidique Khan.
Khan seemed to surface everywhere. He came up again when MI5 was investigating the unimaginable series of plots (the dirty bomb project, the limousine gas project, etc.) hatched by Dhiren Barot, also convicted of plotting terrorist attacks in the UK. The Luton cell under Barot was, according to security officials, also linked to Khan. (ABC News, 14.7.05)
Given this extensive track record of apparent terrorist activities and connections in multiple plots linked by authorities to al-Qaeda, the stated reasons for why Khan was dropped just don’t add up. All the evidence available to MI5, according to the aforesaid intelligence leaks, shows that the security services knew that Khan did indeed have direct knowledge of, and was involved in, terrorist activity in the UK.
But the new evidence that has come to light after the crevice trial additionally shows that Khan was indeed under ongoing MI5 surveillance. A British security source told this author that Khan was monitored all the way through to May 2005. Further, a document disclosed by prosecution lawyers to the defence before the commencement of the crevice trial cited MI5 surveillance recordings of Tanweer “discussing bombings and using the internet to make such a bomb,” as late as “two weeks before” 7th July 2005. (Guardian, 3.5.07)
So why didn’t the security services pick up any further information about the 7/7 plot, especially considering that not only Khan and Tanweer, but all four London bombers had been “watched by intelligence officers a year before” the attacks according to security sources cited in the Mirror (3.11.05)? Indeed, MI5’s insistence that Khan was only viewed as peripheral has also been torpedoed by its own officers. Last year, British security sources told BBC News (30.3.06) that:
“… the security services had been so concerned about him [Sidique Khan] they had planned to put him under a higher level of investigation. MI5 officers assigned to investigate the lead bomber in the 7 July attacks were diverted to another anti-terrorist operation sources have now told BBC News. [emphasis added]”
Why was an assessment that Khan needed to be prioritized, by officers on the ground monitoring him, rejected by senior officers? Did it have something to do with the possibility, mentioned by Charles Shoebridge, a 12-year veteran Metropolitan Police detective and Royal Military Academy graduate, who told BBC Newshour (June 2006):
“The fact that that has been so consistently overlooked it would appear by the security service MI5, to me suggests really only one of two options. Either, a) we’ve got a level of incompetence that would be unusual even for the security services. But b) possibly, and this is a possibility, that this man Khan may even have been working as an informant for the security service. It is difficult otherwise to see how it can be that they’ve so covered his tracks in the interim.”
Indeed, the evidence in the public record suggests significant intelligence about the London bombings was obtained in advance, yet clearly it was not acted upon. In the year before 7/7, MI5 and MI6 had received just under a dozen credible warnings of an impending terrorist attack, many from foreign allied intelligence services, including vital clues as to date, target and even timing. The Americans flagged-up the London Underground as a prime target, the Saudis pinpointed July 2005 as the deadline for the attack, the Pakistanis pointed at UK-based extremist networks in which Khan participated, while the French and Spanish gave general warnings of an imminent strike. Many of these warnings emphasized the threat from cells allegedly linked to al-Muhajiroun. Yet MI5 continues to pretend that it received no warning whatsoever of the London bombings.
So why is MI5 being economical with the truth? The service’s increasing defensiveness, oversensitivity to criticism, and ritual denials of the evidence leaking from its own officers like water from a broken dam, bear witness to the validity of the questions that 7/7 survivors and families, journalists, investigators, opposition MPs and the public at large are asking. But we will never have the answers without an independent public inquiry.
In an official statement on its website, the security service claims that Khan and Tanweer were “never identified during the fertiliser plot investigation because they were not involved in the planned attacks. Rather, they appeared as petty fraudsters in loose contact with members of the plot. There was no indication that they were involved in planning any kind of terrorist attack in the UK."
Thanks to the investigations of a number of British journalists, we now know that MI5 has been somewhat economical with the truth. Richard Watson of BBC Newsnight, Vikram Dodd at the Guardian, and David Leppard at the Sunday Times, among others have obtained evidence from security sources showing that Scotland Yard and MI5 had indeed identified Khan, by name, at latest around six months prior to 7/7, via his car registration. This is also confirmed by a Crown Prosecution Service document that came up in the course of the crevice trial.
Other interesting tidbits also surfaced in that trial about what was known about Khan. Contradicting the notion that he was only believed to be a petty criminal, the Crown also wanted to produce evidence at the beginning of the trial about Khan’s attendance at an al-Qaeda training camp in Pakistan, as early as 2003. In the words of the trial judge, the evidence was supposed to prove “that the purpose of the training camp was to plan and cause explosions in the UK.” At this time, Khan was already under surveillance, and indeed MI5 knew that he was “fully versed in how to make bombs” by the time he returned to the UK in summer that year (Sunday Times 22.1.06)
Intelligence leaks also suggest that Khan was directly involved in the fertiliser bomb plot. MI5 surveillance tapes obtained by journalists showed him contributing to attack plans with the fertiliser bomb plotters, and that he was involved in “late-stage” discussions about the plot, while repeatedly expressing his own desire to participate in al-Qaeda terrorist activity. (Sunday Times 14.5.06)
In fact, contradicting the British official narrative entirely, French security officials are insisting that the 7/7 suspects had “belonged to the same network as the Britons of Pakistani origin who were partially arrested in Great Britain in March 2004” in Operation Crevice. Out of the total number of terrorist suspects “identified by the British only eight were arrested and five escaped”, according to a senior French police officer in Liberation (14.7.05). Among the five suspects at large, say the French, was Mohamed Sidique Khan.
Khan seemed to surface everywhere. He came up again when MI5 was investigating the unimaginable series of plots (the dirty bomb project, the limousine gas project, etc.) hatched by Dhiren Barot, also convicted of plotting terrorist attacks in the UK. The Luton cell under Barot was, according to security officials, also linked to Khan. (ABC News, 14.7.05)
Given this extensive track record of apparent terrorist activities and connections in multiple plots linked by authorities to al-Qaeda, the stated reasons for why Khan was dropped just don’t add up. All the evidence available to MI5, according to the aforesaid intelligence leaks, shows that the security services knew that Khan did indeed have direct knowledge of, and was involved in, terrorist activity in the UK.
But the new evidence that has come to light after the crevice trial additionally shows that Khan was indeed under ongoing MI5 surveillance. A British security source told this author that Khan was monitored all the way through to May 2005. Further, a document disclosed by prosecution lawyers to the defence before the commencement of the crevice trial cited MI5 surveillance recordings of Tanweer “discussing bombings and using the internet to make such a bomb,” as late as “two weeks before” 7th July 2005. (Guardian, 3.5.07)
So why didn’t the security services pick up any further information about the 7/7 plot, especially considering that not only Khan and Tanweer, but all four London bombers had been “watched by intelligence officers a year before” the attacks according to security sources cited in the Mirror (3.11.05)? Indeed, MI5’s insistence that Khan was only viewed as peripheral has also been torpedoed by its own officers. Last year, British security sources told BBC News (30.3.06) that:
“… the security services had been so concerned about him [Sidique Khan] they had planned to put him under a higher level of investigation. MI5 officers assigned to investigate the lead bomber in the 7 July attacks were diverted to another anti-terrorist operation sources have now told BBC News. [emphasis added]”
Why was an assessment that Khan needed to be prioritized, by officers on the ground monitoring him, rejected by senior officers? Did it have something to do with the possibility, mentioned by Charles Shoebridge, a 12-year veteran Metropolitan Police detective and Royal Military Academy graduate, who told BBC Newshour (June 2006):
“The fact that that has been so consistently overlooked it would appear by the security service MI5, to me suggests really only one of two options. Either, a) we’ve got a level of incompetence that would be unusual even for the security services. But b) possibly, and this is a possibility, that this man Khan may even have been working as an informant for the security service. It is difficult otherwise to see how it can be that they’ve so covered his tracks in the interim.”
Indeed, the evidence in the public record suggests significant intelligence about the London bombings was obtained in advance, yet clearly it was not acted upon. In the year before 7/7, MI5 and MI6 had received just under a dozen credible warnings of an impending terrorist attack, many from foreign allied intelligence services, including vital clues as to date, target and even timing. The Americans flagged-up the London Underground as a prime target, the Saudis pinpointed July 2005 as the deadline for the attack, the Pakistanis pointed at UK-based extremist networks in which Khan participated, while the French and Spanish gave general warnings of an imminent strike. Many of these warnings emphasized the threat from cells allegedly linked to al-Muhajiroun. Yet MI5 continues to pretend that it received no warning whatsoever of the London bombings.
So why is MI5 being economical with the truth? The service’s increasing defensiveness, oversensitivity to criticism, and ritual denials of the evidence leaking from its own officers like water from a broken dam, bear witness to the validity of the questions that 7/7 survivors and families, journalists, investigators, opposition MPs and the public at large are asking. But we will never have the answers without an independent public inquiry.
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I'll tell you some more dodgy stuff
12.05.2007 14:51
The Israel Opportunity Conference, meant to attact investors to the Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange, is held at the Green Eastern Hotel on Liverpool street, a few yards away from where one of the bombs explodes.
I would think that the Israeli Opportunity Conference is an event organized by the Edmond de Rothschild Israel Opportunities Fund due to the similarity of the names.
Due to the attendance of a large number of international jewish investors and also of Benihamin Netanyahu, there is absolutely no doubt that the mossad is massively present in London on that day.
But there is little MI5/6 personnel, if any at all, to supervise this event as well as the mossad activity, as all this people has been massively sent in Gleneagle, Scotland, for the G8 summit, to repress and record anti-globalization protesters as we know well enough.
2) On 7/7, a privately financed terror drill is held in the London subway under the supervision of Peter Power, an ex from Scotland Yard who has reconverted in terror response management business.
A stunned Power stated in the audiovisual medias that what actually happened was nearly exactly the scenario meant to be played in the drill, including the places where it happened.
Powell also stated that the drill involved 1000 people, a claim he subsequently retracted, and that it revolved around a property occupied by jewish businessmen, which I have little doubt is the above quoted Israel Opportunity Conference 2005 held at the Green Eastern Hotel.
Besides the unbelievable "coincidence", one can only wonder again why the government authorizes a private terror drill of that magnitude to be held on a day when London is depleted from it's security and intelligence forces who should normally be involved in such an event I think, at least as observers.
3) On 7/7, when the bomb explodes, Rudolf Giuliani, the 9/11 hero, is also only a few yards away from one of the bombs as he is also at the Green Eastern Hotel on that morning.
He will say in an interview that it cannot be anything else than hand of God who lead him to be physically so close to the two terror attacks. (Indeed he was in building 7 on 9/11 when the planes struck, a few yards from the WTC)
Whether he attends the Israel Opportunity Conference as an investor or is professionally involved in the drill (one of his business specialities being precisely terror response management) is unknown.
What is certain is that the first item related to the bombings to appear on Scotland Yard's website is an interview by him in which he gives the ideological tone. He is also broadcasted nearly immediately to the US public.
What is also certain is that he was hired the previous afternoon by the British Government to give a speech to the Local Government Association Conference in Harrogate.
Harrogate, of course, is just a few miles away from where three of the alleged bombers were living.
Certainly yet another amazing "coincidence".
It is not known whether Mr Giuliani was travelling on his own or with some of the many former NYPD and FBI operatives he employs.
4) The absence of video evidence is also stunning.
Indeed the bombers have allegedly spent considerable time in King's Cross which was/is equipped with high tech CCTV Loronix systems purchased from and certainly maintained by Verint, an Israeli owned company, and where your are simultaneously recorded by several cameras wherever you are located.
Basically according to rough calculation, there should be at least one hour of footage of them, either together or separately wandering in King's Cross, that should have automatically ended on Hard Drives or DVDs.
Of all that, one single frame has been published by Scotland Yard when they did a public appeal to witness regarding the whereabouts of the fourth bomber :
"We would ask the public to think if this photograph triggers off anything they may remember. Were they in that area? Do they recognise themselves by clothing in that picture? Does the photograph prompt any other recollection?"
Unbelievable, they do such a call and show one single pic only.
Why not showing many more so that more people can possibly recognize themselves and remember something ?
Why not also use all that footage to educate the public as to the body langage and ways of suicide bombers ?
Maybe just because they haven't got any such footage and that this one like the other pics they showed of the bombers in the subway are from another day.
The pic is truncated in the above BBC paper. The original pic published by Scotland Yard is slightly bigger and include a time stamp of 9:00.
The evacuation alarm begun to ring at 8:57 in King's Cross. It would be hard to convince anyone that this pic is taken three minutes into such an event so much the people on it do not seem to be animated by any sense of emergency or even particular attention.
5) There is a man who spent several months in coma and he claims he saw Sidique Khan in front of him pulling a chord from his rucksack just before everything exploded.
Besides this statement, all the rest he says can easily be demonstrated, I believe, being the fantasy of someone who suffered a severe shock and reconstitutes events wiped of his memory from imagination (and maybe also from intense and skillfull counselling as far as seing Siddique Khan goes).
styx
Similar security traing op
12.05.2007 16:14
Button
“Simon Wessely” and “Terrorism”
12.05.2007 19:41
See:
He’s the same bloke who says there is no physical gulf war illness, and insists other complex disorders such as myalgic encephalomyelitis and multiple chemical sensitivities are ‘all in the mind’. He’s know to many for being an apologist for corporate industry and an advisor to the MoD, DoD and Nato. You may have seen him on TV the afternoon of September 11th 2001 being interviewed by (BBC?) news.
As the governments epidemiologist he will almost certainly be advising them on the social and psychological consequences terrorism.
This link
'NATO-Russia Advanced Research Workshop on Social and Psychological Consequences of Chemical, Biological, and Radiological Terrorism', Simon Wessely, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (March 25-27, 2002)
I once heard that Peter Power spoke highly of him and I wouldn’t be surprised if it were true. He’s that type of guy, he pops up in all sorts of curious places..
Wessely is the son of Jewish refugees and has some paradoxical (albeit eminently respected) opinions on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and other contentious issues.
He used to be a regular nobody but then in 1987 he wrote a paper which I think was called ‘Mrs Thatcher and Dementia’, and he rose to prominence almost overnight. I have never been able to find a copy of that paper but I’m told it had something to do with Pinochet.
DUed
Homepage:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/05/369924.html?c=on#c173231
‘Invasion of the Entryists’ (2003)
12.05.2007 20:44
Tuesday December 9, 2003
”One of strangest aspects of modern politics is the dominance of former left-wingers who have swung to the right. The "neo-cons" pretty well run the White House and the Pentagon, the Labour party and key departments of the British government. But there is a group which has travelled even further, from the most distant fringes of the left to the extremities of the pro-corporate libertarian right..."
“..members of this group have colonised a crucial section of the British establishment…”
“The organisation began in the late 1970s…”
“In 1988, it set up a magazine called Living Marxism, later LM…”
“..in 2000…LM closed, and was resurrected as the web magazine Spiked…”
Spiked
Homepage:
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/874/
The state
13.05.2007 15:45
Notaprisondoctor