French investigative judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere has long been warning that the war against radicals is one which needs to be won quickly. Bruguiere compares the jihadists to the HIV-virus. Whenever anyone thinks it has been conquered, it just returns in a newer, more dangerous form.
SPIEGEL ONLINE - July 18, 2005, 04:04 PM URL: <http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,365677,00.html> http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,365677,00.html Terror The Second Front By Helene Zuber, Volkhard Windfuhr, Markus Verbeet, Alexander Smoltczyk, Matthias Matussek, Georg Mascolo and Klaus Brinkbaeumer Europe has become the prime target for al-Qaida. But how does one protect subway trains and buses from attacks? What can the police and intelligence services do to stop suicide bombers who are born and bred among us, have been members of the community and never stood out until the moment of the explosion? Who were these four men and why did they become so radical that they were willing to blow themselves up and kill innocent people? <http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,494323,00.jpg> REUTERS Who were these four men and why did they become so radical that they were willing to blow themselves up and kill innocent people? When words from politicians repeat themselves enough they start to sound hollow. At some point they are bound to fail. "We all share our complete resolution to defeat this terrorism," British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on the day the bombs hit. It was the rhetoric of mobilization against an external enemy. But can a war be won against young men from the heart of your own country who kill themselves along with their victims? On the following nights, when words didn't seem adequate, very serious people said that London residents should go shopping in defiance of terrorism. Underground trains traveled the Tube once again in defiance of al-Qaida. They did so because we Europeans won't allow ourselves to be intimidated by them, the Islamists. Last Thursday, another night when words failed, Londoners gathered at Trafalgar Square to mourn the victims of the four bombings of July 7. Speakers stood up to call London the "most magnificent city in the world," and the mayor, Ken Livingstone, said "those who came here to kill last Thursday had many goals, but one was that we should turn on each other, like animals trapped in a cage, and they failed, totally and utterly." Of course, none of this lovely rhetoric is quite true. London residents had to go shopping after the bombings so they could eat. The Underground had to run so people could get from point A to point B. They aren't heroes, they are no longer composed and they are no longer proud of their own composure. They are intimidated. Today, London isn't magnificent, it has been defeated. The terrorists have triumphed -- they didn't come from the outside, they were British citizens and Europeans. But it was also a defeat for al-Qaida in the sense that the number of people killed on July 7 was 54. It could have and should have been hundreds. But should that bring any consolation? Is it a victory? The four young men wanted to detonate four bombs on the capital city's public transportation system and they did it. They didn't just want to hide their bombs beneath the seats. Instead they wanted to die with their victims as Western Europe's first-ever suicide bombers and they did that. They told their families they were going to a seminar and then three of them drove a rental car from Leeds in West Yorkshire to Luton, where they met up with killer No. 4 and continued on by train to London. Together, they went through the train station at King's Cross like four Muslim cowboys -- probably even knowing that they were being filmed by CCTV cameras. And as if to mock the investigators, they were carrying a heap of passports and papers -- they wanted to become famous. They have. Who were the terrorists? He used to help his father at the fish n'chips eatery. <http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,494695,00.jpg> AFP/ Daily NEWS He used to help his father at the fish n'chips eatery. Shehzad Tanweer, 22, studied sports at the University of Leeds and he played cricket, a British pastime. In his bedroom, he displayed his trophies. A few months ago, he traveled to Pakistan to study Arabic and the Koran, but "he didn't like the people there," his uncle explained. On July 7, at 8:50 a.m., 90 meters into the Underground tunnel between the Liverpool Street and Aldgate stations, in the third Underground train car, between two and four kilograms of explosives detonated in Tanweer's backpack. Hasib Hussain, 18, grew up in the Holbeck neighborhood in south Leeds, where he bought candy at the corner store owned by Ajimal Singh and played soccer on the streets. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Hussain passed out flyers stating that "Justice has been done." As a student, he was disruptive and loutish. So much so, that his father sent him home to Pakistan in order to instill some discipline in him. After he returned to Leeds, Hasib prayed five times every day. On July 7, at 9:47 a.m., his bomb exploded in a bus at Tavistock Square. Hasib decided against the Underground and, by doing so, disrupted the desired simultaneous detonations of the four bombers to create the ultimate image of destruction (the suicide bombers were supposedly trying to create a symbolic cross by attacking four trains heading in different directions). When his mother reported him missing, the investigation really started to pick up. Lindsey Jamal, 19, born in Jamaica, loved wrestling and bodybuilding, he didn't drink, he didn't smoke, he liked to blare Arab music on the radio and he would take his baby for drives in his red Fiat Brava. He was a carpet-layer and first converted to the Muslim religion four years ago. He lived in Aylesbury, southwest of Luton, his wife was named Samantha and carried the Muslim name Muslima Sharima. At 8:50 a.m., in the Underground station between King's Cross and Russell Square, the bomb exploded in the first car. Lindsey Jamal was standing between people who were commuting to work. Mohammed Sidique Khan, 30, had a daughter, Maryam, who was 14 months old. He worked for a number of years as a teacher's assistant at an elementary school helping problem children. He was the son of a Pakistani, but he was born at St. James's Hospital in Leeds. Khan, called "Mr. K," was often in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and investigators believe he was the mastermind behind the attacks, the quartet's father figure. They believe he recruited the others at the Hamara Youth Access Point, a two-story building with graffiti-covered blinds. At 8:50 a.m., Khan's bomb exploded in an Underground train as it pulled into the Edgware Road Station. They were the "new terrorists who live amongst us in the middle of society," one investigator said. But what turned them into killers and suicide bombers? Terrorism's two-headed front Al-Qaida had already begun its killing even before the Iraq war. In Chechnya, Afghanistan and Bosnia, Muslim rage intensified -- first came Sept. 11 and then a declaration of war against the Americans. Today Iraq has become a magnet and training ground for Muslim terrorists. The US president has declared war against terrorism. But the obscurity of terror makes it near impossible to wage war against it. Just look at Iraq, where the number of terrorists continues to increase. Every image from Abu Ghraib and every rumor from Guantanamo helps to radicalize people who have long hated America and create new terrorists. Iraq is the first front and Europe the second. Young men like the four from Leeds and Aylesbury also likely live in Paris, Madrid, Rome and Berlin. And most of them do not feel at home in European culture. These young men feel like they're part of a group -- and it gives them strength while at the same time putting them under pressure. Each one is a young Osama and the heir to Mohammad Atta (the mastermind behind Sept. 11). The German daily, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, has described this phenomenon as "a perverted form of democratization." And these young men view the USA as an imperial and colonialist power, Europe as its ally, and they view their victims as crusaders who don't have the right to live. They grew up in Europe, they live in Europe. And here they see nothing but enemies. So was there a fifth man? Investigators came across Magdi el-Nashar, a 33-year-old Egyptian who just finished his doctorate in chemistry at the University of Leeds and left the country before the attacks. The telephone number of his landlord was found in Hasib Hussain's mobile phone. But that was the only initial connection that investigators could find between the Egyptian and the terror cell. Over the weekend, Egyptian Interior Minister Habib el-Adly said the suspicions about el-Nashar were "unfounded and are only a hasty deduction." As late as Friday, el-Nashar was still a major focus of the international investigation into the bombings. His house in Cairo, Salam Street No. 8 (Salam means peace in Arabic), is a dirty yellow apartment with aluminium grills covering the windows. All the families living here are Coptic Christians. But that's not unusual, since in this part of Maadi, a villa-filled eastern suburb of Cairo, Coptics and Muslims coexist together. The majority of residents are tradesmen, underpaid civil servants and professionals and owners of mom and pop shops. It's not the kind of place where you find declarations of Islamic hatred. Magdi el-Nashar says he's just on vacation in Cairo and that he had nothing to do with the attacks or al-Qaida. The few neighbors here who have any memory of the chemistry student, tell a lot and at the same time very little about him. "There was nothing about him that stood out," said Wasfi, a primary school teacher. After all, going to the Salam mosque on Fridays and growing a beard as he did, was perfectly normal. Hundreds of men of his age did and continue to do the same thing here. And the word "normal," is one that investigators are hearing all the time these days. Why become a terrorist? It is unnerving. Why, after all, would these "normal" men, one by one decide to join the jihad? Why do they want to become victims of their own crimes? Here, investigators agree that they are dealing with a completely new type of terrorist. Investigators have christened them "clean skins." They're men who either didn't visit terrorist training camps or went to ones that have not yet been identified. They didn't travel to Iraq for the war. They don't even have connections to known radicals. It's clear that previous methods used to find members of al-Qaida don't work anymore with this element, and the hunt for young jihadists has become more difficult. At a special meeting held last Wednesday, European Union interior and justice ministers again pledged that they would work together across borders to fight terrorism. But even if they did, that wouldn't be able to stop an attack like the one which happened in London. The pressure is now on for the London probe to bring quick answers. We need results, British Interior Minister Charles Clark's colleagues told him in Brussels. And they asked: Did the "clean skins" truly travel to London and create a bloodbath in the city without any connections to the radical network? Or was this strikingly ostentatious inconspicuousness just part of a plan, a deliberate camouflage so that the attacks would go undetected? French investigative judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere has long been warning that the war against radicals is one which needs to be won quickly. Bruguiere compares the jihadists to the HIV-virus. Whenever anyone thinks it has been conquered, it just returns in a newer, more dangerous form. Great Britain's threat is growing from within, and no one understands that better than Peter Clarke, head of the anti-terrorism unit at Scotland Yard. For years, he feared that terrorists would travel to Britain to stage attacks. Then he began to realize that they were already there. His greatest fear now isn't the return of men who have been to al-Qaida camps. It's Muslim extremists who live as British subjects. No country in Europe has handled radical Islamists with as much lenience as Britain. And many believed that this "Faustian pact," as one US official called it, would protect Britain from a bloody attack. After all, the argument went, London was too important to the Islamists for them to blow it up. Recently, Clark's investigators have been hitting the radical community with greater force. Just two days before the bombings, prosecutors brought radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri before a court in London. The Egyptian-born al-Masri, who was wounded in Afghanistan, has lived for years in Britain, where he gained notoriety as one of the country's most infamous hate preachers. Now he will have to explain himself to the judge. But the seeds of hate he planted long ago have had plenty of time to sprout across Britain. These types of developments go a long way to explain why people like former FBI investigator Matt Levitt say that Europe is becoming the decisive battleground in the so-called war against terror. "Europe is a preferred operational environment for al-Qaida right now because there is a radical undercurrent and a radicalized population in Europe that is available for their use." After the London attacks, Robert Leiken, the director of the Immigration and National Security Programs at The Nixon Center in Washington, wrote that there are two different types of candidates for becoming Muslim terrorists. First, there are "outsiders," e.g. refugees or students of the Mohammad Atta generation. Then there are the "insiders," or children of immigrants who came between the 1950s and 1970s and helped create Europe's economic miracle. Investigators believe Mohammed Sidique Khan was the ringleader. He was married with a 14-month-old daughter. <http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,494703,00.jpg> AFP/ Daily NEWS Investigators believe Mohammed Sidique Khan was the ringleader. He was married with a 14-month-old daughter. This is the way things look in Leeds. For centuries, the city had trouble finding enough people to man its textile factories. Today, practically all the factories are gone and many immigrants find themselves without much to do. Leeds lies in the north, about 270 kilometers from London. The city of 720,000 has an unemployment rate which is a good 4 percent lower than the national average, though it's been a full 12 years since the local soccer team, Leeds United, gave locals something to really cheer about. A quick trip out from the city center down Tempest Road and Leeds becomes easier to understand. The 800-meter strip in the Beeston district is but a small slice of today's Britain. It's also where Shehzad Tanweer, the cricket player and mass murderer, lived. Two-story brick houses with small, fenced-in yards line both sides of the sloping street. Everything is new. Everything is the same. The city has spent more than a million pounds to give the neighborhood a "facelift." Sponsors have hung their names from the flowerpots that hang on the streetlights. What once looked like a run-down working-class neighborhood looks today more like a modern suburban housing development. "South Leeds Fisheries" stands at the top of the hill at Tempest Road Number 1. The small fish n' chips joint belonging to the father of one of the bombers, Shehzad Tanweer, used to be a lively place that was open till 5 a.m. Sometimes, Shehzad would help his father run the place. Fish n' chips went for £2.50, chicken n' chips for £1.50. But not today. Today, black curtains are drawn and the store is shut tight. After work, Shehzad would walk down the hill, passing houses along the street until he came to his own. Today, the same street buzzes with questions about who Shehzad really was. "A murderer in our midst" wrote the local paper. Only a few steps from Tempest Road lies the row of shops where the murderers plotted their deeds. On the right, there's "B & H Electronics"; to the left "All Nations Food". In between stands the Hamara youth center. The name "Youth Access Center" is printed on the sign over the grey blinds. Today the center is closed to everyone -- with the exception of a man in white protective clothes searching for clues. "It's been closed for weeks," said a neighbor. Before that though, Khan, the oldest of the bombers, used to stop by regularly to play football. But, clearly, that's not all he did there. Neighhbors also saw Shehzad at the center. Recently, Sir Iqbal Sacranie, of the Muslim Council of Britain came by to say that no one can put all the blame on Muslims or on the mosques. "The evil that exists among us can only be combated with the help of the police," he said. Terror an everyday danger This neighborhood, the block of Leeds surrounding Tempest Road, feels about as international and as multicultural as Great Britain itself today. Everything seems so normal. But when murderers can come from streets as normal as these, terror suddenly feels like an everyday danger. The first letter accepting responsibility for the bombings contained a new threat. "The heroic mujahedeens today conducted an attack in London." Further down, it read, "We continue to warn the governments of Denmark and Italy and all other crusader governments" that they will suffer the same fate unless they pull their troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq. The letter was signed by a previously unknown group that calls itself the "Secret Organization of al-Qaida in Europe." Investigators still harbor some doubts about the letter's authenticity, but most tend to believe it is real. If it is, then it represents the first time that a specifically European al-Qaida cell has outed itself. Italy, explicitly named in the letter, has about 3,000 troops in southern Iraq. In his first press conference since the attacks, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi still seemed proud and somewhat flattered to be one of the three B's involved in renouncing the war on terror. Standing next to Blair and US President George W. Bush made him appear important, and that is something he always likes. But now Italy really does seem to be a target. "Rome is the cross. The Occident is the cross. And the Romans are the heads of the cross," Londoner Abu Qatada said when he was arrested. Authorities suspect he is al-Qaida's front man in Europe. Italians up security. But will it help? Last week, Italy's Christian Democratic Interior Minister, Guisseppe Pisnau presented proposals for new anti-terrorism legislation. Among other things, it includes quicker deportations as well as strict telephone and Internet surveillance. It also would allow police to hold suspects in custody without filing charges for 24 hours -- rather than the current 12 -- and allow mosques to be better infiltrated by agents. By far the newest piece of the proposal is the idea of rewarding those who turn in extremists with residency permits. "Terrorism is knocking on Italy's door," Pisnau said. Security at train and subway stations and at the most important airports has already been increased. In Rome's hospitals, at least 200 beds are to be ready at all times. And at least 70 suspected Islamic terrorists are now being threatened with deportation, although no new evidence against them has turned up. The Vatican, which unleashed the crusades, is in particular danger. The new pope, unlike his predecessor, has not yet attempted to open a dialogue with the Islamic community. A missile attack on the pope's splendid apartment? A bomb explosion in the middle of the Angelus Domini prayers? A kamikaze car that crashes through the door of Saint Anna's church? Since 9/11 and Istanbul and Madrid and London, everything is possible. Spain has already survived an attack. But, naturally no one knows if a second one is coming. Between September and November 2004, investigators in Barcelona arrested 11 Pakistanis. They are now being prosecuted by a federal court under charges that they operated an al-Qaida cell in Spain. Investigators believe they planned attacks in the Catalan metropolis and were connected with the bombers responsible for the March 11 attacks in Madrid. The alleged leader of the group, Mohamed Afzaal, is said to have received orders from one of the top al-Qaida bosses in Dubai at the beginning of 2004. His instructions were to organize groups in Spain, Denmark or Norway to both finance al-Qaida activities and also plan attacks. Video cameras: friends or foe? While it is possible to prevent an attack like the one that occurred in London once, perhaps even five times, it is impossible to rule them out completely. How can one protect short and long distance travelers from people willing to get on board with bombs and blow themselves up? Still, investigators and politicians in Italy, Spain, Denmark and Germany are discussing the pros and cons of video surveillance. As London proves, though, video cameras don't prevent anything. They can, however, help accelerate the investigation. In Germany, the constitution has established rules regarding video surveillance. In 1983, the constitutional court defined the right of "informational self determination" by limiting the widespread use of cameras. Following the ruling, video surveillance was set up in almost all train stations, many hospitals, museums, airports and large shopping centers -- as in London. The difference, however, is that in Germany, because of the Federal Data Protection Act, the videos are either monitored by a person or they are quickly erased. Cries for tougher rules are a natural reaction to any attack. But in the northern port city of Hamburg, a new law allows police to survey large trouble areas with video cameras. German state governments have passed similar laws in Lower Saxony, Bavaria, and Hesse. And in Saxony, filmed data can be stored for two months. In this case, it is not a lack of pictures and images that is a problem - it's the overabundance of them. The cameras posted at Hamburg's subway and bus stops alone generate 40,000 hours of video footage a day. If nothing unusual occurs, the recordings are erased after 24 hours. Of course, the next day, there's another 40,000 hours of footage. A new sort of terrorism The bombers in London had very different goals than political terrorists of the past. Before, bombers attacked institutions, politicians, managers or even the military. This time, the bombers attacked the way of the world. Their net was so wide and their goal so abstract that they didn't care if they killed Christians or Muslims, men or women, old people or children. The most important thing was to kill -- and to kill as many people as possible. The most eloquent answer was the one London gave -- to stop the world and to stand silent. The queen was silent. The city was silent. For 120 seconds, all traffic in London's center stopped last Thursday and thousands of people gathered in front of King's Cross station. Close to 100,000 people stopped in front of boutiques, on sidewalks, in Hyde Park, on bridges, and in front of museums. Near the barricaded crime scene at Edgware Road, a group of women formed a line holding hands. England was quietas was Berlin, Brussels, and all of Europe on that Thursday. Even the golf tournament in Scotland halted. And then, when the moment ended, traffic began once again. A Greek bus driver driving on line 30, just in front of the scene of the crime shouted, "You won't break us." And that night, on Trafalgar Square, thousands gathered in the sunlight. A huge harmony festival broke out underneath the statue of Britain's great naval hero, Lord Nelson. People from all parts of the Commonwealth held hands. It was a sort of reciprocal funeral in which residents reclaimed their right to live normal lives. This was also the first day that the nation, as a whole, could look the terrorists in the eye. For it was on this day that their photos appeared together in the newspaper for the first time. But seeing their faces didn't help much. There wasn't much of the diabolic in them. None of them had the cold-blooded stare of Mohammed Atta, the architect of 9/11. Their faces were just faces. One a bit friendlier, the other a tad sillier. All looked harmless. All too quickly, these faces melt into a collective mask. A recent headline in the Evening Standard announced that terrorist-inspired "evil hangs like fog," blocking the sun. These are just words. Words up against the silent agents on what has become terrorism's second front. Usually they offer no explanations for their deeds, but once in a while, one of them does speak out. That was the case with Mohammed Bouyeri, the confessed killer of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, currently on trial in Amsterdam. Unfortunately, his statements offer little solace. 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