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SPYMASTERS warned Tony Blair before the July 7 suicide bombings that Al-Qaeda was planning a “high priority” attack specifically aimed at the London Tube. A leaked four-page report by the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), which oversees all spying, is the first definitive evidence that the intelligence services expected terrorists to strike at the Underground. The disclosure will fuel critics’ suspicions that Blair decided to rule out a public inquiry into the bombings last week because it could expose intelligence failings at the highest level. The document, marked Top Secret and signed off by the heads of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ,...

London bombs De Menezes police could face criminal charges By Sam Knight and PA News The anti-terrorism officers who shot dead Jean Charles de Menezes on a Tube train at Stockwell Station in July could face criminal charges, the inquiry into the shooting said today. Nick Hardwick, the chairman of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), which is investigating the killing of Mr de Menezes said it was "likely" that the commission's report would be handed to the Crown Prosecution Service, which would decide whether to prosecute the officers. Mr de Menezes, a Brazilian electrician, was shot seven times in...

This month's riots in the immigrant ghettos outside Paris are only the latest manifestation of a continent in decline. Expressly, Europe has abandoned its culture. Thus, it has lost the means by which to assimilate Muslims who have shown no inclination to emulate those who seek American citizenship and accept the pluralistic values our country represents. Not surprisingly, many in Britain have trumpeted the French contretemps with more than a bit of schadenfreude, and it is tempting for this Anglophile to join the fray. But to ignore the fatal faults in one's friends is the antithesis of amity. Let there...

THE police officers who shot and killed a Brazilian man on the London Underground in the mistaken belief that he was a terrorist bomber are expected to escape prosecution. Quoting "sources close to the inquiry", the Sunday Times said senior Metropolitan Police officers and government officials are sure that prosecutors will accept the defence put forward by the two armed officers. Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, was shot and killed at Stockwell station in south London on July 22, a day after a failed attempt to repeat the July 7 suicide bombings in the British capital which left 56 dead....

Left-wingers lining up against mass immigration? Is this 2005 or 1905? David Aaronovitch THESE ARE THE strangest of times. Liberal interventionists lie down with neoconservatives, hardline Marxists make awkward love to religious fundamentalists, the Tory best hope is a Blairite and Ariel Sharon founds his own centre party. It reminds me of those TV home video shows, full of cheeky mice playing with tolerant cats. This is what globalisation really does, it changes the arguments. As on immigration, for example. Most of us are familiar with the traditional anti-immigration case, which — for or against — has dominated discussion of...

A leading Islamic organisation was today kicking off its nationwide awareness week in the capital in an effort to promote better understanding of the religion and its historical links with Britain. Mayor Ken Livingstone was launching Islam Awareness Week at a ceremony at City Hall with the message "One London". Guest speakers at the ceremony include author and leading historian Professor Nabil Matar and secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain Sir Iqbal Sacranie. Shafeeq Sadiq, national co-ordinator of Islam Awareness Week, said: "We need to remember the positive spirit that embraced the nation, and especially the capital, after London...

It is vitally important for those outside the United Kingdom to understand both the implications and the complexities of the defeat by Tony Blair’s government of the gravely important Anti-Terror Bill in Parliament today. What is crucial for the world to know is that 72 percent of the British public in various polls this week said they wanted the 90 day rule passed. Shockingly, Parliament – including many opposition Conservatives – defied the British people and voted against the Bill at a time when ordinary citizens are fearful of further Jihadist attacks and of a nationwide Intifada akin to the...

Two charged with UK bombing plot (Filed: 04/11/2005) Two men suspected of plotting terroists attacks on Britain have been charged with conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to cause an explosion. One of the men is accused of possessing a video showing how to make a car bomb, while the other allegedly had a recipe for rocket propellants and guidance on causing an explosion. A third man was charged with terrorism fundraising offences. All three, who were arrested under the Terrorism Act earlier this month, were remanded in custody at Bow Street Magistrates' Court. Waseem Mughal, 22, of Railway Street, Chatham,...

ALL four July 7 suicide bombers were tracked by security services a year before they attacked London. But the surveillance operation was ditched after intelligence officers decided there was nothing suspicious about their behaviour, sources said last night. The revelation comes as Tony Blair's plans to create a law against glorifying terrorism were torn apart by rebel MPs.

All terrorists, presumably, know the dangers that they run, accepting them as an occupational hazard; given Man’s psychological makeup—or at least the psychological makeup of certain young men—these dangers may act as an attraction, not a deterrent. But only a few terrorists use their own deaths as an integral means of terrorizing others. They seem to be a breed apart, with whom the rest of humanity can have little or nothing in common. Certainly they sow panic more effectively than other terrorists. Those who leave bombs in public places and then depart, despicable as they are, presumably still have attachments...

BRITISH forces had thwarted attempts to carry out more terror attacks since the July 7 London bombings and a botched bid to repeat them on July 21, the capital's police chief said in remarks published today. "The security service and the Met have prevented other attacks in the last few weeks," Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said in an article in The Sun newspaper. "The sky is dark. Intelligence exists to suggest that other groups will attempt to attack Britain in the coming months," he said. Sir Ian said it could take weeks or months to understand material that...

SUICIDE bomber Mohammed Sidique Khan was trailed by anti-terrorist forces a year before he carried out his murderous mission, it emerged today. The suspected ringleader of the four London suicide bombers, who was living in Thornhill Lees, featured in a surveillance operation carried out by the intelligence services last year. Khan, 30, was secretly filmed and recorded speaking to a UK-based terrorist suspect, who cannot be named for legal reasons, the BBC claimed - attributing the report to a "well placed source". A joint investigation by BBC Radio 4's File on Four programme and BBC2's Newsnight also suggested that Sidique...

LAHORE, Pakistan, Oct 27 (Reuters) - The remains of one of the four suicide bombers blamed for the deadly July 7 attacks in London were quietly buried on Thursday in a Pakistani village of his ancestors, relatives said. The mother of Shehzad Tanweer brought the remains of her son on a flight on Wednesday from London to Lahore, capital of the central province of Punjab, according to an Interior Ministry official. They were then driven to Chhotian Kota village, where the remains were to be buried at a local Islamic saint's shrine. Tanweer was one of three British Muslims of...

THE alleged ringleader of the July 7 London bombers was tracked by intelligence services last year, the BBC reported today. Mohammed Sidique Khan, 30, was secretly filmed and recorded speaking to a British-based terror suspect, a source told the British Broadcasting Corporation. The investigation suggested that he was in contact with activists from Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden's global terror network for five years before the blasts which killed 52 commuters and the four bombers themselves. He featured in a surveillance operation by intelligence services, the investigation, aired on radio and television today, said. The terror suspect he was talking to...

SCOTLAND YARD has arrested 10 Islamist terror suspects who were thought to be plotting multiple car bombings against targets in Britain in a "follow-up" to the July 7 attacks on London. The 10 men were detained in co-ordinated dawn raids in London, Derby and Wolverhampton yesterday. They are believed to have been part of a terrorist cell led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the notorious chief of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. As well as planning bomb attacks in this country, the suspects may have been preparing to send Islamic extremists from Britain to fight the coalition forces in Iraq, security officials said....

My naive husband was brainwashed at mosques, says bomber's widow By Richard Alleyne (Filed: 24/09/2005) The widow of one of the July 7 suicide bombers believes that her "innocent and naive" husband was brainwashed into carrying out the attacks by extremists at the mosques where he worshipped. Samantha Lewthwaite, 21, described Jermaine Lindsay as a peace-loving father who was always deeply upset when innocent people suffered in war zones. But she said that just months before the attacks he became distant and moody and would spend days away from the family home after visiting mosques in London, Luton and the...

LONDON, (AFP) - A man who fled to Italy after allegedly trying to set off one of four bombs in a botched attack in London on July 21 was to appear in court in the British capital charged with attempted murder. Hussain Osman, a 27-year-old Briton of Ethiopian origin, landed in London on Thursday aboard a private plane from Rome after losing his two-month legal battle against extradition from Italy. Three alleged co-conspirators -- suspected of trying to repeat the bombings on three London subway trains and a bus that killed 56 people on July 7, including the bombers --...

On September 8, US and Iraqi forces arrested 200 suspected insurgents at Al Tafar near the Syrian border. Officials said most of the detainees were foreign fighters from Jordan, Sudan Syria, and Lebanon.

CARDIFF, Wales - British foreign policy played a role in motivating the July 7 London bombings, the singer formerly known as Cat Stevens said Tuesday. Yusuf Islam, who had a string of pop hits in the 1960s and '70s, said an al-Qaida video claiming responsibility for the attacks and linking them to Britain's role in the Middle East showed foreign policy "was not the only factor but it was a major contributory." "At the same time we have to look at how the teaching of Islam has been distorted," he added. Speaking at the opening of Cardiff University's Centre for...

CAIRO -- Al-Qaida deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri said in a statement broadcast Monday that his terror network carried out the July 7 London bombings, marking the group's first direct claim of responsibility for the attacks that killed 52 people. "The blessed London attack was one which al-Qaida was honored to launch against the British Crusader's arrogance and against the American Crusader aggression on the Islamic nation for 100 years," al-Zawahri said in the tape aired on Qatar-based al-Jazeera TV. "In their final testament, the heroic brothers in the London attacks ... provided great lessons to the Islamic nation and Muslims...