Posted on 01/03/2004 6:08:54 PM PST by Pikamax
Hunt for UK terror cell
Hijack gang 'have British passports'
Peter Beaumont and Antony Barnett Sunday January 4, 2004 The Observer
Intelligence officials hunting Islamist terrorists suspected of planning attacks on British Airways flights believe they may be carrying legitimate American, UK or other European passports to try to beat airport security. According to US sources, last week's cancellation of the BA flights to Washington and Riyadh in Saudi Arabia was triggered by fear that terrorists with legitimate 'clean aliases' were planning attacks over the New Year holiday.
The alert comes amid compelling new evidence of determined efforts by jihadist groups to recruit suicide bombers in the UK and Europe both for operations against the American-led coalition in Iraq and against domestic targets.
Intercepts from a Western intelligence agency seen by The Observer reveal that jihadists regard London as a key financing and recruiting centre for their efforts.
Although Whitehall sources strongly denied suggestions that UK passport holders were suspected in the threat to British Airways, telephone intercepts seen by this newspaper make clear that Islamist terror cells are deliberately targeting 'well-educated' foreigners, Britons among them.
In one call, an unidentified jihadist tells a colleague: 'We need foreigners. We have Albanians, Swiss and English... all that is important is that they are of a high cultural level ... businessmen, professors, engineers, doctors and teachers.'
The focus on well-educated, capable and highly committed 'foreigners' was a hallmark of the al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, which ran a strict selection policy for its students.
Heightened tension over airline security was underscored by the crash yesterday of an Egyptian charter jet flying from the resort of Sharm-el-Sheikh to Paris with the loss of all 148 lives on board.
Although terrorism was ruled out as a cause of the crash in favour of mechanical failure, yesterday's crash into the Red Sea shocked the airline industry at a time of unprecedented fears over safety.
Analysts believe that al-Qaeda and other allied jihadist terrorist networks have stepped up efforts in the last 12 months to recruit US, UK and other foreign nationals who can more easily penetrate the heightened security environment that has been in place since the attacks on the US on 11 September 2001.
Intelligence sources believe that since the war in Iraq, dormant networks that once recruited and fed fighters into Afghanistan have been reactivated and reorganised for a new global jihad aimed at the US and its allies; this includes cells in the UK.
According to the same sources, the recruiting networks have shown the ability to adapt quickly to operations targeted against them, moving recruitment and other activities away from mosques, where they know they are being watched, to other areas of operation. The disclosure comes after UK and US transport and security officials had grounded British Airways flight 223 to Washington's Dulles International Airport on Thursday and Friday of last week after an intelligence tip-off that it was the target of an attack over the New Year holiday period. Wednesday's flight had been intercepted by US fighter jets an hour from its destination.
In recent months mounting evidence has emerged that the recruitment effort has been focused on disaffected members of communities that have been granted asylum in the UK and elsewhere, some of whom have been recruited for suicide operations in Iraq, including a number of British-based Islamist radicals.
The Observer revealed last November that a martial arts expert from Sheffield was used in a suicide mission inside Iraq.
In April, two British students staged a suicide attack in Tel Aviv, again using their British passports to reach their target in Israel.
The disclosure comes as more details emerged of the US intelligence tip-off that triggered the most serious airline crisis since 11 September, which saw over 15 flights to the US intercepted, turned back or cancelled over fears of an imminent attack.
According to sources, the security crisis came to a head with a single piece of initially uncorroborated US intelligence warning of an attack on BA flight 223 within a tight time frame over the New Year holiday period.
It was that intelligence, cross-checked and 'confirmed' by the UK intelligence officials, that led to the cancellation of the same flight last Thursday and Friday and the cancellation of flights to Riyadh, the Saudi capital.
BA flight 223 finally took off from London's Heathrow airport bound for Washington yesterday after its cancellation two days in a row.
The Boeing 747 aircraft, carrying 225 passengers, left more than three hours late amid intense security. The delay was caused by individual checks and searches of all 268 passengers, who were personally escorted onto the plane one at a time.
With continuing uncertainty over flight security, there were further official warnings yesterday of future cancellations .
'The decision to operate Monday's flight to Riyadh will be kept under review,' said a British Airways spokesman.
Airlines have cancelled seven flights since Wednesday, with Mexico City and London the points of origin and Los Angeles, Washington Dulles International Airport and Riyadh, the Saudi Arabian capital, the destinations. Dulles was the take-off airport for the hijacked flight that destroyed part of the Pentagon in the 9/11 attacks.
I thought Al-Quaida took any illiterate Pakistani into their training camps, directly from the madrassas.
Gee and no terrorist have been employed as mechanics at any airport around the world. /sarc
All it would take would be a snipped wire here or there.
crash yesterday of an Egyptian charter jet flying from the resort of Sharm-el-Sheikh to Paris with the loss of all 148 lives on board. Although terrorism was ruled out as a cause of the crash
Pretty quick to do that, weren't they ?
In recent months mounting evidence has emerged that the recruitment effort has been focused on disaffected members of communities that have been granted asylum in the UK and elsewhere, some of whom have been recruited for suicide operations in Iraq, including a number of British-based Islamist radicals.
Well DUH ! And not only do they still let them in, EU crap won't allow known inciters to be speedily deported.
It may have already happened
No. Bin Laden was very well educated as was his number 2- an Egyptian doctor. Most of the hijackers on 9/11 were well educated people from good backgrounds. Al Qaeda is actually a pretty small operation that takes advantage of a much larger terrorist network for recruits, movement, lodging etc. But Bin Laden has always been interested in people who could blend in with western society.
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