Posted on 07/09/2005 4:13:36 PM PDT by Gucho
Last Updated: Saturday, 9 July, 2005, 22:47 GMT 23:47 UK
About 20,000 people have been evacuated from Birmingham city centre amid a security alert.
West Midlands Police asked people to leave Broad Street, the main entertainment hub and two other areas. Some city homes were also evacuated.
No vehicles are being allowed past the inner ring road into the city centre.
Police said a controlled explosion had been carried out earlier in the evening on a bus in Corporation Street, following a phone call from the public.
Officers now believe that the item destroyed had not posed a threat.
Police said the evacuation was a "proportionate response" to intelligence received, but were not giving specific details.
Birmingham resident Kenneth Kelsall told the BBC: "There is a lot of confusion, there appears to be no chance of anyone moving back into the city - but people are remaining quiet."
The BBC's Zoe Gough said there was confusion and people were trying to find out information but there was no panic.
'Gridlocked' streets
"Everybody is just being turned round and the main roads out of the city seem to be gridlocked, although traffic does seem to be moving," she said.
"I have seen some cars just pulled up and also people walking along with suitcases away from city centre as if they have been stranded there.
"People who have come here to have a good time have been trying to carry on with their evening, but the area being evacuated seems to be widening...
"The lot of roads are like ghost streets, when they normally would be packed with people. "
The assistant chief constable of West Midlands Police, Stuart Hyde, said he did not think the incident was connected to the bombs in London earlier this week.
"We are asking people who are there at the moment to go home, to have the evening off, this will help us considerably."
He said the decision to close such a large part of the city had not been taken lightly.
"We have made this decision after careful analysis and consideration and we are very, very grateful to the public for their understanding.
"We believe it is a proportionate response to the information.
"Finally I would ask members of the public to stay vigilant."
West Midlands Police announced they had received intelligence of a possible threat to the area at about 2015 BST.
Initially people were told to be on their guard, and that bars and restaurants were being searched. Motorists were also told not to come into the city centre.
However, about half an hour later, police said the city was to be evacuated.
BREAKING NEWS: BIRMINGHAM (ENGLAND) CITY CENTRE BEING EVACUATED
Posted the BBC link there, thanks.
7/10/2005 2:2:8
Source ::: Reuters
BAGHDAD: US Marines said yesterday they had launched a new counter-insurgency operation, the latest in a series of sweeps designed to root out militant bases in Iraq’s Euphrates valley.
Operation Scimitar involved about 500 US soldiers and 100 Iraqis, making it about half the scale of Operation Sword and Operation Spear in the past three weeks. The military said the Marines had detained 22 suspected militants since the raid was launched in secret in the village of Zaidon, 30km southeast of Fallujah on Thursday.
During Operation Spear, they called in air strikes and left much of the border town of Karabila in ruins after battles they said killed dozens of insurgents. Operation Sword was quieter, with no heavy resistance reported.
This month has seen a relative lull in car bombings — down to around one a day in Baghdad from twice that last month. But US commanders say the total number of insurgent attacks is fairly stable, at 50-60 a day, and that there has been a shift toward other forms of violence, including attacks on diplomats.
Offering condolences to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on the killing of Cairo’s envoy to Baghdad, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani proposed a regional conference on fighting the violence. The Baghdad government and its sponsors in Washington have been trying to stem an exodus of diplomats after other attacks on the Pakistani and Bahraini envoys.
The violence appears aimed at thwarting the government’s efforts to win greater recognition from cautious Muslim and Arab states. Referring to the killing of Egypt’s Ihab El Sherif, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said: “This cowardly act is an attempt to terrorise a brotherly Arab Muslim country.”
Egypt said it was cutting staff at its embassy. Iraqi comments on the ambassador drew a firm response from Cairo. Egypt has asked the Iraqi embassy in Cairo to explain an Iraqi suggestion that Sherif was in touch with Iraqi insurgents, the Egyptian foreign ministry said. A foreign ministry statement did not deny that such contacts took place but asked whether the purpose of Iraqi remarks was to “avoid responsibility ... and justify a tragedy”. Pakistan withdrew its ambassador after his motorcade was fired on, and Bahrain’s envoy was wounded by gunmen. Baghdad and Washington have called on Arab states not to let the attacks stop them from upgrading ties.
Speaking to CNN, King Abdullah of Jordan said his country would not let militants influence Jordanian policy and would soon send an ambassador to Baghdad. “Sooner rather than later. We are not going to allow these limited extremists that are trying to destabilise the future of Iraq to have any effect. We’re in close coordination with the Iraqi government,” he said. “Our ambassador will be in Baghdad I hope in the very near future.”
Secular Shi’ite politicians called for autonomy in oil-rich southern Iraq similar to that enjoyed by Kurds in the north, a move that could deepen tensions over federalism amid raging violence.
Sat, Jul. 09, 2005
BRIAN BERGSTEIN - Associated Press
ARLINGTON, Va. - For years, the U.S. military has explored a new kind of firepower that is instantaneous, precise and virtually inexhaustible: beams of electromagnetic energy. "Directed-energy" pulses can be throttled up or down depending on the situation, much like the phasers on "Star Trek" could be set to kill or merely stun.
Such weapons are now nearing fruition. But logistical issues have delayed their battlefield debut - even as soldiers in Iraq encounter tense urban situations in which the nonlethal capabilities of directed energy could be put to the test.
"It's a great technology with enormous potential, but I think the environment's not strong for it," said James Jay Carafano, a senior fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation who blames the military and Congress for not spending enough on getting directed energy to the front. "The tragedy is that I think it's exactly the right time for this."
The hallmark of all directed-energy weapons is that the target - whether a human or a mechanical object - has no chance to avoid the shot because it moves at the speed of light. At some frequencies, it can penetrate walls.
Since the ammunition is merely light or radio waves, directed-energy weapons are limited only by the supply of electricity. And they don't involve chemicals or projectiles that can be inaccurate, accidentally cause injury or violate international treaties.
"When you're dealing with people whose full intent is to die, you can't give people a choice of whether to comply," said George Gibbs, a systems engineer for the Marine Expeditionary Rifle Squad Program who oversees directed-energy projects. "What I'm looking for is a way to shoot everybody, and they're all OK."
Almost as diverse as the electromagnetic spectrum itself, directed-energy weapons span a wide range of incarnations.
Among the simplest forms are inexpensive, handheld lasers that fill people's field of vision, inducing a temporary blindness to ensure they stop at a checkpoint, for example. Some of these already are used in Iraq.
Other radio-frequency weapons in development can sabotage the electronics of land mines, shoulder-fired missiles or automobiles - a prospect that interests police departments in addition to the military.
A separate branch of directed-energy research involves bigger, badder beams: lasers that could obliterate targets tens of miles away from ships or planes. Such a strike would be so surgical that, as some designers put it at a recent conference here, the military could plausibly deny responsibility.
The flexibility of directed-energy weapons could be vital as wide-scale, force-on-force conflict becomes increasingly rare, many experts say. But the technology has been slowed by such practical concerns as how to shrink beam-firing antennas and power supplies.
Military officials also say more needs to be done to assure the international community that directed-energy weapons set to stun rather than kill will not harm noncombatants.
Such issues recently led the Pentagon to delay its Project Sheriff, a plan to outfit vehicles in Iraq with a combination of lethal and nonlethal weaponry - including a highly touted microwave-energy blaster that makes targets feel as if their skin is on fire. Sheriff has been pushed at least to 2006.
"It was best to step back and make sure we understand where we can go with it," said David Law, science and technology chief for the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate.
The directed-energy component in the project is the Active Denial System, developed by Air Force researchers and built by Raytheon Co. It produces a millimeter-wavelength burst of energy that penetrates 1/64 of an inch into a person's skin, agitating water molecules to produce heat. The sensation is certain to get people to halt whatever they are doing.
Military investigators say decades of research have shown that the effect ends the moment a person is out of the beam, and no lasting damage is done as long as the stream does not exceed a certain duration. How long? That answer is classified, but it apparently is in the realm of seconds, not minutes. The range of the beam also is secret, though it is said to be further than small arms fire, so an attacker could be repelled before he could pull a trigger.
Although Active Denial works - after a $51 million, 11-year investment - it has proven to be a "model for how hard it is to field a directed-energy nonlethal weapon," Law said.
For example, the prototype system can be mounted on a Humvee but the vehicle has to stop in order to fire the beam. Using the vehicle's electrical power "is pushing its limits," he added.
Still, Raytheon is pressing ahead with smaller, portable, shorter-range spinoffs of Active Denial for embassies, ships or other sensitive spots.
One potential customer is the Department of Energy. Researchers at its Sandia National Laboratories are testing Active Denial as a way to repel intruders from nuclear facilities. But Sandia researchers say the beams won't be in place until 2008 at the earliest because so much testing remains.
In the meantime, Raytheon is trying to drum up business for an automated airport-defense project known as Vigilant Eagle that detects shoulder-fired missiles and fries their electronics with an electromagnetic wave. The system, which would cost $25 million per airport, has proven effective against a "real threat," said Michael Booen, a former Air Force colonel who heads Raytheon's directed-energy work. He refused to elaborate.
For Peter Bitar, the future of directed energy boils down to money.
Bitar heads Indiana-based Xtreme Alternative Defense Systems Ltd., which makes small blinding lasers used in Iraq. But his real project is a nonlethal energy device called the StunStrike.
Basically, it fires a bolt of lightning. It can be tuned to blow up explosives, possibly to stop vehicles and certainly to buzz people. The strike can be made to feel as gentle as "broom bristles" or cranked up to deliver a paralyzing jolt that "takes a few minutes to wear off."
Bitar, who is of Arab descent, believes StunStrike would be particularly intimidating in the Middle East because, he contends, people there are especially afraid of lightning.
At present, StunStrike is a 20-foot tower that can zap things up to 28 feet away. The next step is to shrink it so it could be wielded by troops and used in civilian locales like airplane cabins or building entrances.
Xtreme ADS also needs more tests to establish that StunStrike is safe to use on people.
But all that takes money - more than the $700,000 Bitar got from the Pentagon from 2003 until the contract recently ended.
Bitar is optimistic StunStrike will be perfected, either with revenue from the laser pointers or a partnership with a bigger defense contractor. In the meantime, though, he wishes soldiers in Iraq already had his lightning device on difficult missions like door-to-door searches.
"It's very frustrating when you know you've got a solution that's being ignored," he said. "The technology is the easy part."
July 9, 2005
LONDON (AP) - A government-prepared dossier says that al-Qaida is targeting middle-class Britons to join its ranks, a newspaper reported Sunday.
According to the Sunday Times, the dossier by the British Home Office and Foreign Office detailed how extremist recruiters were looking to Britain. It was drawn up in the aftermath of the March 2004 train bombings in Madrid, Spain.
Citing a copy of the secret briefing document, the paper reported that Britain could be harbouring thousands of extremists who may be linked to Thursday's bombings that killed 49 people and injured 700 more.
"Extremists are known to target schools and colleges where young people may be very inquisitive but less challenging and more susceptible to extremist reason/arguments," the memo says, according to the newspaper.
The dossier says the likely targets come in two categories: "well-educated undergraduates with degrees or professional qualifications in engineering or IT (information technology); or underachievers with few or no qualifications and often a criminal background."
The paper reported that the briefing document also said that most British-based terrorists range from foreign nationals who have become naturalized citizens, mostly from northern Africa or the Middle East, to second-and third-generation Britons whose parents and grandparents emigrated from Pakistan or disputed Kashmir.
The document also says that recruiters are using Britain's role in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq as a way to turn likely recruits toward terrorism.
The bombers are psychopaths without political worth
By Yahia Said
Sunday July 10, 2005
Many in London and round the world are looking for meaning behind the atrocities of 7 July. Why did they do this? What is their goal? What did we do to provoke them? Is there anything we could do to dissuade them from doing it again?
There is no political answer to these questions. The attacks are crimes against humanity perpetrated by psychopaths for whom murder is not a means to an end but rather the end itself.
There is nothing redeeming about these crimes. In London, Madrid, Baghdad and elsewhere we have witnessed cowardly, copycat plots aimed at inflicting death and pain on the most vulnerable of targets - ordinary people going about their daily lives.
As a British police officer noted on Friday, the only challenge the attackers ever faced was getting the explosive.
The perpetrators may delude themselves about the higher purpose of their acts, but this is what psychopathic murderers often do. Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, which had more than their fair share of such crimes, bear witness to the hollowness of such pretensions. Muslims and Christians, Kurds and Arabs, Shias and Sunnis, doctors, imams, policemen and children are cut down by a murderous machine that seems to have run out of control. The al-Qaeda terrorists do not even bother to attack foreign military targets any more and now focus almost exclusively on Iraqis.
To try to divine a political goal, let alone a rational agenda, behind such attacks would only dignify these criminals and feed into their illusions. In this context, it was sad to hear US President George Bush recently recite at length the ravings of the cave-bound mentor of one of these gangs as if they were a rival political programme.
The best political reaction to the atrocities is to ignore them. Politicians should take inspiration from the reserve with which Londoners chose to confront this tragedy. Their determination to resume normal life, something I have seen in Baghdad over and over again, is the best response to the terrorists. Lashing out like the US did after 11 September, or creating the impression of yielding as Spain did after 11 March, would accord criminals a political significance they do not deserve.
This does not mean that one should sit passively waiting for the next atrocity. Despite the stellar performance of the security and emergency services in London, it is obvious that more needs to be done to protect the innocent and thwart these crimes before they happen. Clearly, no effort should be spared to apprehend and neutralise the perpetrators.
The attacks should have no bearing on the way one thinks and acts about Islam, the Middle East or Iraq. This is not to say that nothing should change about British and generally Western policy on these issues, but the criminals cannot be given the privilege of dictating or even influencing the agenda.
We need to build relations of trust among communities, including Arabs and Muslims, both in Europe and across the Mediterranean. This was true even before the attacks. Now there is a need to redouble efforts to reach a just solution in the Holy Land.
In Iraq it is high time to draw a road map that would end the presence of foreign troops and allow Iraqis to unite in confronting the terrorists and rebuilding their country.
Long before last week's atrocities it was clear that foreign troops are not part of the solution. Their presence and conduct are preventing many Iraqi nationalists from joining the fight against the terrorists and is stigmatising those who are. They are creating a schism between the few who feel protected by them and the many who do not.
Foreign troops are an alien body, an irritant, which needs to be removed for Iraqi society to start healing.
Over the past couple of days I received many calls from Baghdad. People who themselves face death every day were worried about us and wanted to make sure we were OK.
At the end of the day it is this sense of solidarity between Baghdadis and Londoners and their determination to take control of their lives that will defeat the terrorists.
· Yahia Said is a research fellow at the London School of Economics specialising in Iraq
July 09, 2005
By LAURA WIDES
LOS ANGELES - The U.S. military has agreed to release an aspiring American filmmaker who had been detained in Iraq since May, when potential bomb parts were found in a taxi he was riding in, his lawyer said Saturday.
Cyrus Kar's family had filed a lawsuit accusing the federal government of violating the 44-year-old's civil rights when it continued to hold him after the FBI cleared him of suspicion.
A hearing had been scheduled Monday, but the family's attorney, Mark Rosenbaum, said Saturday that the military had agreed to release Kar and his Iranian cameraman, Farshid Faraji, from a military jail in Baghdad.
He said State Department officials informed him Saturday that Kar would be released.
"They didn't explain either why he's been detained after he passed a lie detector test and cleared by the FBI, nor did they explain why he was to be released," said Rosenbaum, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.
Kar's aunt, Parvin Modarress of Los Angeles, said an official at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad also called her to say Kar would be released and needed her to wire money.
"We are all so happy and excited," she said. "We are praying to hear from Cyrus."
A spokeswoman for the military in Baghdad and a spokesman for the State Department in Washington said Saturday they had no information about developments in the case.
Kar was born in Iran but immigrated to the United States as a child. He served in the U.S. Navy and worked in the computer industry before becoming interested in documentary filmmaking.
With help from independent producer Philippe Diaz, Kar began working on a documentary about the ancient Persian king Cyrus the Great. He interviewed experts and shot of footage at archaeological sites in Afghanistan and Iran, according to his family and Diaz.
On May 17, officials and relatives say, Kar was in a taxi that was stopped at a checkpoint where Iraqi security forces allegedly seized several dozen washing machine timers, which can be used in terrorist bombs.
Kar's relatives say the FBI told them weeks ago that he had been cleared and that the taxi driver was transporting the parts to a friend.
FBI spokeswoman Cathy Viray declined to comment on the case.
According to the Pentagon, five U.S. citizens have been suspected of insurgent activities in Iraq, spokesman Bryan Whitman said last week. He declined to identify them, citing a Pentagon policy that prohibits the identification of detainees, but said they include Iraqi-Americans and a Jordanian-American.
A service of the Associated Press(AP)
Reports: Turkey land mine blasts kill 3
Associated Press
Sat, Jul. 09, 2005
ANKARA, Turkey - A land mine believed to have been planted by Kurdish rebels killed three soldiers in southeastern Turkey, and two other land mines injured seven people in separate explosions, reports and officials said Saturday.
The soldiers were killed when a military vehicle on patrol struck a land mine near the town of Semdinli, in Hakkari province, where the borders of Turkey, Iran and Iraq converge, Gov. Erdogan Gurbuz said. At least eight soldiers were injured, he said. It was not clear when the mine exploded.
On Saturday, two soldiers were injured after stepping on a land mine near the town of Cukurca, in Hakkari, while five civilians riding in a truck were injured when they also hit a mine in nearby Sirnak province, Anatolia said.
More than 37,000 people have died in the conflict between the autonomy-seeking Kurdish rebels and the military since 1984.
Recently, there has been a surge in violence between the rebels and Turkey's military in the mainly Kurdish region, and at least 30 soldiers and 24 rebels have been killed since May.
In recent weeks, rebels have set off explosives almost daily on train tracks or roads used by the military in the southeastern region.
Last week, Kurdish rebels derailed two trains by detonating remote-controlled bombs in the southeastern province of Bingol, killing six security guards. A freight train was also derailed in the nearby province of Erzincan five days later, but there were no casualties.
http://www.timesleader.com/mld/timesleader/news/breaking_news/12096587.htm
By Carol Giacomo
July 9, 2005
BEIJING (Reuters) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice meets senior Chinese officials on Sunday after North Korea agreed to return to stalled six-party talks on its nuclear weapons program after a break of more than a year.
Rice and Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing are to make a joint statement on the talks after a meeting on Sunday.
A U.S. official said North Korea, once branded by Washington as part of an "axis of evil" along with Iran and pre-war Iraq, had promised it would attend with the goal of making progress at the talks -- which involve the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.
The U.S. official said Pyongyang was promised no new U.S. inducements to return to the bargaining table but it appeared both sides had softened or dropped some earlier demands.
On Sunday, Rice is also expected to meet Chinese President Hu Jintao, Premier Wen Jiabao and State Councillor Tang Jiaxuan, Xinhua news agency said.
In Washington, the White House said it welcomed North Korea's agreement to return to the discussions.
"We are pleased that North Korea is coming back to the talks with a commitment to a denuclearised peninsula," said spokeswoman Dana Perino. "We look forward to making progress in the six-party talks toward that goal."
The KCNA news agency said Pyongyang decided to reopen the talks after North Korea's vice-minister of foreign affairs, Kim Kye-gwan, met U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs Christopher Hill in Beijing on Saturday.
"Both sides agreed to open the fourth round of the six-party talks in the week which begins on July 25, 2005," KCNA said.
The United States confirmed the timing and said Pyongyang promised it would attend with the goal of making progress. Three previous rounds have been inconclusive.
Reviving the talks has become more urgent because of concerns Pyongyang has expanded its nuclear capabilities to eight or more weapons, up from one or two weapons when President Bush came to office.
Since the last round of talks in Beijing in June 2004, Pyongyang had demanded that any new round have an expanded focus on broader disarmament issues, not just the North's nuclear programs.
But the U.S. official said Pyongyang had reaffirmed the narrower focus, adding: "That's encouraging."
He acknowledged that whether the North is really prepared to negotiate away its nuclear weapons remained a big question.
North Korea in June signaled it would return to the talks this month if Washington showed respect, including apologising for Rice describing the North as an "outpost of tyranny."
The United States dismissed that as a stalling tactic but had toned down its rhetoric and reiterated that it recognized the North as a sovereign state and had no intention to invade.
Bush Salutes British Resolve
July 9, 2005
By DARLENE SUPERVILLE, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - President Bush paid tribute to the British people on Saturday, two days after deadly bombings struck London's transit system, and reiterated his pledge that the "cause of freedom will prevail" against terrorists who are trying to shake the will of the free world.
Hailing the British, survivors of the Nazi blitz, as resilient, Bush said they and Americans stood together to defeat the "murderous ideologies" of the 20th century and will do so again in the 21st.
"The terrorists cannot shake our will," the president said in his weekly radio address. "America and its allies will act decisively, because we know that the future of civilization is at stake in this struggle, and we know that the cause of freedom will prevail."
Bush was in Scotland for the annual meeting of leaders of the Group of Eight industrialized nations when bombs exploded throughout London's subway system and on a double-decker bus during the morning rush-hour Thursday, killing dozens and wounding hundreds more. A little-known group claiming links to the al-Qaida terrorist network claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Bush went to the British Embassy after returning from the summit Friday to sign a book of condolence.
In his radio address, Bush noted that the bombings took place as G-8 leaders were discussing how to fight poverty and HIV/ AIDS, clean the environment and improve the lives of the world's people.
"The contrast could not be more vivid between the intentions and the hearts of those who care deeply about human rights and human liberty, and the evil intentions and acts of those who rejoice in the death and suffering of the innocent," he said.
Bush recalled the terrorist attacks in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, and subsequent deadly acts of terrorism in Bali, Casablanca, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Turkey, Madrid, Iraq and elsewhere.
In noting the global war being waged against terrorism, the president promised to stay on the offense, "fighting the terrorists abroad so we do not have to face them at home."
"We will continue to deny the terrorists a safe haven and the support of rogue states. And at the same time, we will spread the universal values of hope and freedom that will overwhelm their ideology of tyranny and hate," he said. "The free world did not seek this conflict, yet we will win it."
Bush travels to Quantico, Va., on Monday to deliver a speech on the war against terror and the strategy for winning it to men and women in the FBI Academy there.
The address was scheduled before the London bombings, but White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the deadly attacks "give even more significance" to the president's remarks.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050710/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_4
July 10, 2005
Robert Winnett and David Leppard
Read the document: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
AL-QAEDA is secretly recruiting affluent, middle-class Muslims in British universities and colleges to carry out terrorist attacks in this country, leaked Whitehall documents reveal.
A network of “extremist recruiters” is circulating on campuses targeting people with “technical and professional qualifications”, particularly engineering and IT degrees.
Yesterday it emerged that last week’s London bombings were a sophisticated attack with all the devices detonating on the Underground within 50 seconds of each other. The police believe those behind the outrage may be home-grown British terrorists with no criminal backgrounds and possessing technical expertise.
A joint Home Office and Foreign Office dossier — Young Muslims and Extremism — prepared for the prime minister last year, said Britain might now be harbouring thousands of Al-Qaeda sympathisers.
Lord Stevens, the former Metropolitan police chief, revealed separately last night that up to 3,000 British-born or British-based people had passed through Osama Bin Laden’s training camps.
The Whitehall dossier, ordered by Tony Blair following last year’s train bombings in Madrid, says: “Extremists are known to target schools and colleges where young people may be very inquisitive but less challenging and more susceptible to extremist reasoning/ arguments.”
The confidential assessment, covering more than 100 pages of letters, papers and other documents, forms the basis of the government’s counter-terrorism strategy, codenamed Operation Contest.
It paints a chilling picture of the scale of the task in tackling terrorism. Drawing on information from MI5, it concludes: “Intelligence indicates that the number of British Muslims actively engaged in terrorist activity, whether at home or abroad or supporting such activity, is extremely small and estimated at less than 1%.”
This equates to fewer than 16,000 potential terrorists and supporters out of a Muslim population of almost 1.6m.
The dossier also estimates that 10,000 have attended extremist conferences. The security services believe that the number who are prepared to commit terrorist attacks may run into hundreds.
Most of the Al-Qaeda recruits tend to be loners “attracted to university clubs based on ethnicity or religion” because of “disillusionment with their current existence”. British-based terrorists are made up of different ethnic groups, according to the documents.
“They range from foreign nationals now naturalised and resident in the UK, arriving mainly from north Africa and the Middle East, to second and third generation British citizens whose forebears mainly originate from Pakistan or Kashmir.
“In addition . . . a significant number come from liberal, non-religious Muslim backgrounds or (are) only converted to Islam in adulthood. These converts include white British nationals and those of West Indian extraction.”
The Iraq war is identified by the dossier as a key cause of young Britons turning to terrorism. The analysis says: “It seems that a particularly strong cause of disillusionment among Muslims, including young Muslims, is a perceived ‘double standard’ in the foreign policy of western governments, in particular Britain and the US.
“The perception is that passive ‘oppression’, as demonstrated in British foreign policy, eg non-action on Kashmir and Chechnya, has given way to ‘active oppression’. The war on terror, and in Iraq and Afghanistan, are all seen by a section of British Muslims as having been acts against Islam.”
In an interview yesterday, Blair denied that the London terrorist attacks were a direct result of British involvement in the Iraq war. He said Russia had suffered terrorism with the Beslan school massacre despite its opposition to the war, and terrorists were planning further attacks on Spain even after the pro-war government was voted out.
“September 11 happened before Iraq, before Afghanistan, before any of these issues and that was the worst terrorist atrocity of all,” he said.
However, the analysis prepared for Blair identified Iraq as a “recruiting sergeant” for extremism.
The Sunday Times has learnt that Britain is negotiating with Australia to hand over military command of southern Iraq to release British troops for redeployment in Afghanistan.
The plan behind Operation Contest has been to win over Muslim “hearts and minds” with policy initiatives including anti-religious discrimination laws. A meeting of Contest officials this week is expected to consider a radical overhaul of the strategy following the London attacks.
Stevens said last night at least eight attacks aimed at civilian targets on the British mainland had been foiled in the past five years and that none had been planned by the same gang.
The former Scotland Yard chief, who retired earlier this year, said that on one weekend more than 1,000 undercover officers had been deployed, monitoring a group of suspected terrorists.
He said that he believed last week’s attackers were almost certainly British-born, “brought up here and totally aware of British life and values”.
“There’s a sufficient number of people in this country willing to be Islamic terrorists that they don’t have to be drafted in from abroad,” he said.
July 09, 2005
FORWARD OPERATING BASE DAGGER, Tikrit, Iraq - Being a police officer in Iraq is different than most other places because the country is a war zone. The police have to deal with roadside bombs, car bombs, terrorist attacks and the new changes in government and the way things have been done in the past.
It’s the job of 1st Brigade Combat Team’s Iraqi Police Services (IPS) to help the Iraqi Police in Salah Ad Din Province handle those challenges. The Soldiers hire, train and give the police supplies necessary to carry out their mission.
The first step for Iraqi police in the Salah Ad Din province is to take part in police training, said Capt. David Zickafoose, the 1st Brigade Combat Team officer in charge of police training. An interview and background check is done by 1st BCT IPS before the cadets are hired. Then they are sent to the Jordan Police Academy, or the Baghdad Police Academy for their initial training.
After they graduate from the academy, they go to the Cohort Training school at Forward Operating Base Danger, Tikrit, Iraq. The cohort training is taught by international police liaison officers who work with the Iraqis and help new officers deal with the challenging environment in which they will have to work.
Zickafoose is trying to change the way Iraqis traditionally think of police.
"They are used to seeing traffic police or special police and nothing else," said Zickafoose.
There have been positive changes in the past few months since Zickafoose and his team took over. "There is more of a human aspect now. When I first got here, I could only see what was going wrong and now I can see some things that are going right."
One of the challenges the police face are tribal conflicts.
"Some of the police belong to different tribes which have been known to fight each other," said Zickafoose. "The police may not want to arrest, or be strict on someone breaking the law in their tribe, or they may be too harsh on someone from a different tribe."
There aren’t any high profile departments within the police organization such as narcotics, or SWAT.
"It’s my goal to have the police trained well enough to be able to do basic law enforcement such as simple investigations and traffic control," said Zickafoose.
The Iraqi police in the Salah Ad Din province also receive supplies from the IPS so they can do their job and protect the Iraqi citizens.
"If we weren’t doing what we do, the Iraqi Police wouldn’t be able to perform their mission," said Staff Sgt. Joshua Metzger, noncommissioned officer in charge of recruiting new police officers. "We get them the supplies and personnel so they can go out and patrol."
Coalition Forces are slowly turning control over to the police, allowing them to secure their province. Task Force Liberty Soldiers have already released some checkpoints to the Iraqi police. The police perform a number of duties to include security patrols throughout the province and missions with Coalition Forces.
There are around 9,800 police in the Salah Ad Din province and personnel involved with hiring the police said they don’t plan to hire many more.
"The main focus will be training and working on the quality of officers instead of hiring a lot of new police," said Metzger. "We want to weed out the bad ones and help the good ones become better."
By Spc. James Green, 1st BCT Public Affairs
By Jason Chudy - Stars and Stripes Mideast edition
Saturday, July 9, 2005
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — American forces operating in southern Afghanistan have an extra set of “battle” buddies if things ever get really tough.
The 3rd Platoon from Company B, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 173rd Airborne Brigade is serving as the Regional Command South quick reaction force, ready within 15 minutes to fly and join other soldiers in a heavy firefight, provide security for a downed aircraft, or even attempt to capture a “high-value” enemy target.
Soldiers from the Vicenza, Italy-based “Battle” company are in the third week of their monthlong QRF duty.
The duty is rotated between units and not only provides forces with a little extra firepower when needed, but also allows the soldiers a little extra time off.
“This gives us some training and rest and recreation time,” said the platoon leader, 1st Lt. Josh Hyland, a 31-year-old former enlisted soldier.
During their month away from the field, in the relative comfort of aluminum barracks and flush toilets, the soldiers are always on call, carrying portable radios when they leave the platoon area.
“The guys are happy to be in Kandahar and use the phone to call mom or do laundry,” said Staff Sgt. Shayne Charlesworth, weapons squad leader.
Soldiers spend most of their mornings training.
“We do about four hours of training per day,” said Hyland, a Missoula, Mont., native.
They mainly cover basic soldiering skills, such as practicing convoy tactics or holding weapons training, which is what they did on Thursday.
Sitting in a large tent, surrounded by soldiers taking apart and reassembling various weapons, Hyland said that they also do about 90 minutes of physical training each day.
“In the platoon, we mandated 45 minutes of cardio[vascular training] and 45 minutes of strength training,” he said. “Everyone’s back in pretty decent shape.”
And despite the flatness of the Kandahar base, the soldiers know they’ll again be back in the mountains.
“We still do some humping [walking with equipment],” Hyland said. “You’ve got to keep your legs strong.”
Since taking over QRF duties last month, they have been called out once, providing security for a downed Apache helicopter.
“We were out there in the mountains, probably at 4,000 feet,” said Pfc. Anthony Grazziani, 21, of Los Angeles. “We secured the crash site and made sure … [enemy fighters or local civilians] didn’t come by.”
The soldiers spent most of the day under the baking sun — Hyland said one soldier measured the temperature at 124 degrees — as work crews prepared pieces of the helicopter to be removed by an aircraft. Then, as the final pieces were lifted off, platoon members blew up what little remained.
They returned that evening to hot chow, showers and air-conditioned trailers.
Despite the benefits of being in Kandahar, soldiers say that being on QRF carries mixed feelings.
“Nobody wants to be out of the fight,” said the 26-year-old Charlesworth. “The good thing about QRF is that if our buddies need help, we’re sent in.”
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