COUNTERING JIHADI TERRORISM IN UK
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO. 230 By B.Raman Paper no. 2235 5.05.2007 http://saag.org/%5Cpapers23%5Cpaper2235.html (To be read in continuation of my paper of October 29, 2000, titled "ISLAMIC JEHAD & THE US", which is available at http://www.saag.org/papers2/paper154.html and my paper of June 21, 2002, titled "THE TERRORIST METEORITES & THE PAKISTANISATION OF AL QAEDA" which is available at http://www.saag.org/papers5/paper480.html) The post-9/11 security and immigration control measures taken by the US have made it very difficult for the Arabs to operate again in US territory and do a repeat of 9/11. Al Qaeda is as determined as ever to repeat 9/11 in US territory. At the same time, it has realised that it might not be able to use Arab terrorists for this purpose since they are subjected to strict checks in the US. It has, therefore, been wanting to use non-Arabs for this purpose. Muslim migrants from Pakistan, who have settled down in the UK and North America, are its favourite choice. 2. The trend towards the Pakistanisation of Al Qaeda to which I had drawn attention on June 21, 2002, has since spread to the UK and is threatening to spread from there to the US and Canada. The presence of a large number of persons of Pakistani origin----Pakistani as well as local nationals---in the UK, the US and Canada has provided a fertile soil for Al Qaeda. It has already taken advantage of this to develop extensive roots in the UK. It is still to develop similar roots in the US and Canada, but there is a danger of this happening in the not too distant future if the local authorities in the two countries do not take precautions to protect their countries from the ideological ill-winds of the Al Qaeda inspired jihad blowing from the UK and to prevent jihadi foot-soldiers from the UK extending their operations to North America. 3. The role played by some members of the Pakistani diaspora in the UK in the London blasts of July, 2005, is well-known. So too the unsuccessful attempts of some other members of the diaspora in August last year to mount an audacious operation to blow up a number of US-bound planes through explosives fabricated on board the aircraft by mixing chemicals of ordinary day-to-day use. More details of the role of some members of the UK-based Pakistani diaspora have since become available from what has come to be known as the fertiliser bomb case which ended in conviction on April 30, 2007. 4. London's Old Bailey Court convicted that day five British Muslim males aged between 24 and 35 of conspiring to carry out Al-Qaeda-inspired bombings of targets across Britain that ranged from nightclubs to trains, football stadiums, a shopping centre, part of Britain's gas and electricity supplies, as well as the Parliament. They have been sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. 5. The group had procured about 600 kilos of ammonium nitrate for this purpose. Four of the five convicted jihadis---- Jawad Akbar, Omar Khyam,the leader of the group, Salahuddin Amin and Waheed Mahmood ---- are of Pakistani origin. The fifth , Anthony Garcia, was born Rahman Benouis in Algeria. All five had visited Pakistan and four had reportedly attended jihadi training camps there. Amin emigrated to Pakistan sometime after '9/11' and acted as a jihadi facilitator, according to the Deputy Assistant Metropolitan Police Commissioner Peter Clarke. A key piece of evidence linking them to Al Qaeda was the sighting on four occasions by officers from Britain's Security Service known popularly as MI5 of at least one of them in the company of the London suicide bombing ringleader Mohammed Sidique Khan and his alleged accomplice Shehzad Tanweer. 6. Two other persons of Pakistani origin from the US and Canada were also involved in this plot. Mohammad Junaid Babar, a US national of Pakistani origin, reportedly organised the training of the plotters in Pakistan. Momin Khawaja, a Canadian national, allegedly helped them in the procurement of detonators. The security agencies of the UK, the US and Canada got scent of the plot before it could be carried out and arrested the perpetrators in March,2004. The Pakistani-American has made a plea bargain with the Federal Bureau of Investrigation by helping in the investigation and prosecution. The Canadian is being tried separately before a Canadian court. It has been alleged that all the perpetrators were in contact with Abdul Hadi, stated to be a senior Iraqi member of Al Qaeda, who is presently in US custody. 7. A study of the details of the case leads to the following observations: * The perpetrators were radicalised and motivated to take to terrorism by Omar Bakri Mohammed , a radical cleric of al-Muhajiroun, who used to live in the UK and now lives in the Lebanon. * None of them was a product of the anti-Soviet Afghan jihad of the 1980s. The jihads in Chechnya, Bosnia and Iraq had a greater impact on their mind than that in Afghanistan. * Their anger was more the result of the British support to the US in Iraq and Afghanistan than the result of perceived instances of discrimination against the Muslims in the UK. * They were not recruited by Al Qaeda. To give vent to their anger, they volunteered their services to Al Qaeda. * They did not subscribe to Al Qaeda's pan-Islamic ideology of an Islamic Caliphate. Instead, they had planned their attacks, which were thwarted, as well-merited acts of reprisal terrorism against the UK for its support to the US' so-called war on terror, which was viewed by them as a war on Islam. * They wanted to carry out acts of jihadi terrorism in the British territory not for Islamising the UK, but for punishing it for its foreign policy, which was perceived by them as anti-Islam, and not for its domestic policy towards the Muslims. 8. This anger, which shows no signs of abating as a result of continuing violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, could facilitate Al Qaeda's plans for another 9/11 in US territory by using the radicalised members of the Pakistani diaspora in the UK. Since the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan is likely to continue in the short and medium term, this anger will encourage the emergence of more self-motivated jihadis, who look upon themselves as the Jundullah (soldiers of Alla) and volunteer their services to Al Qaeda. 9. Since the removal of this anger is going to take a long time, the counter jihadi terrorism strategy has to be based on a policy of containment of the anger and enforcement of strict physical security and immigration control measures to prevent this anger from leading to major acts of terrorism. A strategy of containment of anger demands avoidance of disproportionate use of force in Iraq and Afghanistan, which has been leading to large-scale civilian casualties. It also demands that the international community exercises pressure on President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan to effectively close down Al Qaeda and other jihadi terrorist infrastructure in Pakistani territory, which exploit this anger for their own purpose. 10. The perceived failure of the London Police and the MI-5 to prevent the London blasts despite their prior knowledge of the involvement of Mohammad Sidique Khan and Tanweer with this fertiliser bomb group has led to strong criticism of the MI-5 in the British Parliament and media. Demands for an enquiry have been rejected by the Government of Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair. The MI-5, in its web site, has responded to the criticism in detail. Its response is annexed. 11. There were two intelligence tasks involved here. The first task was neutralising an on-going plot to carry out acts of terrorism by identifying the paricipants and arresting them before they could carry it out.The second was identifying all the members of a wider network, which came to notice during the investigation and arresting them in order to prevent similar plots in future. The first task was performed competently by the MI 5. The relatives of some of those, who died in the London blasts, and the opposition parties have criticised the MI 5 for not performing the second, which, in their view, could have prevented the London blasts. 12. The MI 5 has strongly refuted this criticism. It has stated that it had to give greater priority to the neutralisation of an on-going plot and that constraints of manpower and financial resources would not have permitted it to give equal priority to the second. The relevant question is: did the MI 5 bring to the notice of the political leadership the indications of the existence of a wider network and ask for extra staff and funds to perform the second task? If it had done so and its request for extra staff and funds had been rejected by the Government, the political leadership has to be blamed for failing to prevent the London blasts. But, if the MI 5 had not taken any such action, it is guilty of deficient leadership, which enabled the jihadi terrorists to plan and carry out the London blasts. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 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