Suspect 'confesses to London attacks'

From: Agence France-Presse ^ | July 30, 2005 | From: Agence France-Presse

[Eurotwit]

THE man believed to be the fourth would-be bomber in the failed July 21 attacks said he and his accomplices wanted their attack to spread fear in London, in an apparent confession reported by Italian newspapers today.

"We wanted to make an attack, but only as a demonstration," several newspapers quoted 27-year-old Osman Hussain as saying, without citing a source. Italy's best-selling newspaper, the Corriere della Sera, expressed fears that the presence of one of the presumed London bombers could be linked to an planned attack here. "Was he here just as part of his escape or to prepare a new attack?" it asked.

Rome daily Il Messaggero headlined: "The suicide bomber was among us," and reported that police believe Hussain could have been in Rome to prepare a terrorist attack."

Italian police moved in to arrest Hussain yesterday after tracking his mobile phone through France and Italy before his arrival in Rome by train on Thursday.

British police had provided their Italian counterparts with the phone number, which was initially tracked to the Waterloo Station area of London on Monday but then went silent. The signal was picked up again in Paris on Wednesday, and then again in Milan and Bologna on Thursday.

Advertisement: Police in Rome meanwhile mounted round-the-clock surveillance on Hussain's brother, a Somali national who owns a phone and internet centre near Rome's Termini Station. He eventually led them to the flat in the eastern Rome suburb where Hussain was arrested yesterday after paying a visit to a small mosque. Among a number of people detained for questioning late yesterday was a Tunisian official at the mosque, Mohamed ben Mohamed.

"I came to Rome because I didn't know where else to go and because I had friends here and could find a place to stay. I would have stayed here for a while and then gone elsewhere. I don't know of any plan to attack Italy," La Repubblica quoted the suspect as telling police.

Citing a police source, Turin newspaper La Stampa said Hussain protested he knew little of the organisational background to the July 21 attacks on the London transport system and that he had been handed a rucksack to take on the Underground.

Several newspapers reported that Hussain's fluent Italian surprised interrogators. They said he had previously spent five years in Rome, having fled to Italy on a false passport, either from Somalia or a neighbouring country, as a teenager. In the meantime, he has become a British citizen.

[MizSterious]

I don't think they've begun to round up the ones responsible for the bombings.

[MizSterious]

Yes, and not just ads on the radio, either. I'm seeing them on almost all the talking head shows lying explaining about the "fatwa" against terrorism. As Jay Leno remarked last night: Thank goodness they're nipping it in the bud before anyone gets hurt!

[MizSterious]

One report said he was well aware of the tracking possibilities, but he actually thought that because they never published his name, they didn't know who he was. Dumber than a sack of rocks, he is.

[Brit_Guy]

Round one to technology. All that civil liberty concern about us in the UK having CCTV everywhere and the security services being able to access our cell phone providers systems has to be balanced by the FACT that these men were ultimatley brought down by these measures before they got their bomb wires the right way round.

If you've got a cell phone in Europe, you better not be a wanted man!

[twntaipan]

There is still a hidden controller/handler in England.

And given that the article points out that a Tunisian official was taken in for questioning in Rome, the Tunisian embassy might play a role in this operation--enquiring minds want to know!

[jeffers]

"There is still a hidden controller/handler in England."

Maybe. Typically, the bomb master flies in to check the work, then flies out a day or two before the attack(s). The chemist caught in Egypt may have filled this role. The guy tased on Thursday apparantly talked, giving the addresses for the arrests on Friday. If true, then under a strict cellular structure, he must be the onsite supervisor, given that no-one at the bottom level should know anyone else at that level's personal information.

Not conclusive, but strong enough to offer possibilities for alternative structural arrangements not easily dismissed.

"And given that the article points out that a Tunisian official was taken in for questioning in Rome, the
Tunisian embassy might play a role in this operation--enquiring minds want to know!"

Brother, internet node, embassy official, these point to AQ's support operations, which are, according to AQ doctrine anyway, kept strictly separate from AQ's operational branch.

Most likely avenues for progress in rolling up additional levels of hierarchy, from this bunch, look to lie with taser boy, and if the London cell was following AQ doctrine, will probably point overseas.

[Sacajaweau]

How they tracked him by phone may in fact be false information. They needed his number first to even begin tracking him....and that came from elsewhere.

My guess is that they actually had agents on him early on and wanted to see where he went along his route to his relatives.

Wasn't this the dude with the NY shirt? They had a picture of him AFTER he shedded the shirt. They were on him. Think about it.

[oldbrowser]

Southack this tracks with your theory they weren't suicide bombers....but were dupes.

Some of these people have criminal histories that would suggest that they were not jihadists but paid assassins.

[blam]

"If you've got a cell phone in Europe, you better not be a wanted man!"

I'm thinking 'Carnivore' or something like it.

[Eurotwit]

According to Norwegian media, citing the La Stampa piece claims that he has admitted that he wanted to blow himself up.

I guess we will find out, but Southack, you would have to agree that the witness accounts of the guy lying down before "exploding" his bomb tends to indicate that he knew what was going on.

Cheers.

[Southack]

"If you've got a cell phone in Europe, you better not be a wanted man!"

Al Qaeda is so weak that they have to depend upon Western technology. They ride Western trains, rent Western cars, use Western phones, internet, mail, etc.

In earlier times, they would have depended upon Chairman Mao's defense of "swimming with the fish in the sea" to avoid detection. That's not such a safe option any longer.

The closest that Al Qaeda has to its own "infrastructure" is its system of moving small cash payments through trusted intermediaries...outside of that, some radical mosques, and the madrassas, they have no infrastructure that they can call their own. They must depend upon their enemies' infrastructures then, a fundamental (pun intended) strategic weakness.

This is not to say that they can't inflict pain, but it does show that they can *not* by definition possess the resources to overwhelm the West.

Which is to say that they've picked a very foolish fight.

[Southack]

During late 2002 and early 2003, a number of tourists were kidnapped in the Sahara desert areas of southeastern Algeria, several of whom crossed into Algeria from Tunisia.

... al-Qaida terrorists used a truck bomb to attack a synagogue on the Tunisian island of Djerba on April 11, 2002, and many Western tourists were killed.

[Southack]

"I guess we will find out, but Southack, you would have to agree that the witness accounts of the guy lying down before "exploding" his bomb tends to indicate that he knew what was going on."

Absolutely. Presuming that's real and not just disinformation, yes, he knew.

I'm unconvinced that they all knew, however, because it makes no sense to leave 16 unexploded bombs in their car on 7/7 or for all 5 July 21 "suicide" bombers to surrender before death.

There is also the issue of timing. If you aren't using an automatic timer or a remote detonation signal (e.g. cell phone, proximity to a radio transmitter, altitude trigger, etc.), then it takes an increased level of human discipline (depending upon how many are involved) to get all of the volunteer suicide bombers to kick off at the same time.

Keep in mind that both the 7/7 and 7/21 attacks detonated simultaneously. That hints of an automatic timer or a remote detonation signal.