Date: July 17, 2005 5:19:46 AM PDT
Subject: [Spy News] Still Waiting for the Follow-Up
4_200507170114
Michelle Pilecki: Still Waiting for the Follow-Up
Michelle Pilecki
Sun Jul 17, 2:14 AM ET
It's been more than a week since I pointed out how amply the major US media
covered the August 2004 outing of an al-Qaeda insider that Pakistani
intelligence had "flipped" into spying on the bad guys for our side. "Until
U.S. officials leaked the arrest of Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan to reporters,
Pakistan had been using him in a sting operation to track down al-Qaeda
operatives around the world," reported CNN at the time. The United States
apologized for the leaks, which put a premature end to "a big MI5 and police
surveillance operation in Britain."
After the bombing attacks on London's transit system last week, the
blogosphere bristled with questions about whether there was any connection.
Then ABC News reports on Friday that this al Qaeda plot was two years in the
making. Juan Cole at Informed Comment notes:
The British had been preparing a set of indictments and pursuing the
investigation, in part by using Khan. They were forced to move before they
were ready. Some suspects escaped on hearing Naeem Noor Khan's in the media.
Of those who were arrested, several had to be released for lack of evidence
against them. Muhammad Sadique Khan, one of the July 7 bombers, was
apparently connected to one of the suspects under surveillance in early
August, 2004.
Sadique Khan had earlier eluded a large British counter-terrorism sweep,
Operation Crevice, says Friday's Scotsman.
Cole also flagged a French news account (in English) from statements by
Nicolas Sarkozy, French interior minister:
[A]mongst the five who escaped from the operation was Mohammad [Sadique]
Khan, one of the alleged suicide bombers who struck on the London
Underground. This Briton of Pakistani descent has been on the list of
Scotland Yard's "targets" for the last 15 months, only with a different age
and a different first name - Kayoun instead of Sidique, but "it's the same
man" who gave the police the slip.
While the French newspaper Libération notes the denial from British Home
Secretary Charles Clarke, The Scotsman reports "British officials yesterday
publicly refused to confirm or deny the French report, but privately some
admit that there is evidence that Khan had been in contact with one of the
men arrested last year."
Not that I want to put on my tinfoil hat (it's so unbecoming), but why
aren't the US media pursuing this: to confirm, refute, or at least ask
questions? We already have one case of "senior administrative officials"
unmasking an undeniably undercover CIA operations officer, but we don't
have any idea of the extent of the damage to intel operations or to the
lives and safety of real people. Well, with the Khan case, we have a body
count, but not a clear idea of a connection.
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