Posted on 07/09/2005 5:40:49 AM PDT by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
The investigation into the London bombings which left nearly 50 dead and hundreds injured Thursday appears to be focusing on a Moroccan national who has mysteriously gone missing from the British capital in recent days.
Scotland Yard and MI5 have urgently requested help from European agencies in tracking down a Moroccan national who has been living in Britain for 16 years and who is suspected of past terrorist activity in Europe and North Africa, the daily newspaper The Independent reported in Saturday editions.
Mohammed al-Gerbouzi, who has also been linked to terrorist attacks in Madrid and Casablanca, disappeared from his home in London recently.
French and German security officials have accused al-Gerbouzi of having links with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born leader of the Islamic insurgency in Iraq said to be connected to Al-Qaida, the newspaper reported.
(Excerpt) Read more at haaretz.com ...
Ping
And they allowed this guy in why?!
bump for later...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4882603-103690,00.html
Thursday March 18, 2004
Guardian
An alleged leader of a radical Islamist group from Morocco which has been connected to both last week's Madrid bombings and suicide attacks in Casablanca last May is living in Britain, according to intelligence sources.
Mohammed al-Gerbouzi has shaken off repeated requests from Moroccan authorities who want to extradite him to face charges related to the 44 deaths caused by the Casablanca bombings. He has been based in Britain for 16 years.
Mr al-Gerbouzi, now a British citizen, is widely reported to be one of the leaders of the Group of Islamic Combatants of Morocco, one of the main suspects in the Madrid bombings, according to the newspaper El País yesterday.
Whitehall sources said, however, that though they were aware the Moroccan authorities "take exception" to him, Britain has not been presented with sufficient evidence that he was involved in the Casablanca or Madrid bombings.
The Group of Islamic Combatants of Morocco is one of a number of amorphous Moroccan radical groups which experts say are closely related, with overlapping and constantly changing membership.
Two other groups, the Eternal Lions and the Moroccan Combatants, have also been named as suspects in the bombings and lists of names of their members are circulating around European police forces.
"Moroccan groups intersect and move and reform all the time. Members often use more than one name, so the effort to track them is virtually impossible," said Guido Olimpio, an Italian terrorism expert.
An initial extradition request for Mr al-Gerbouzi from Morocco is understood to pre-date the Casablanca attacks.
Pleas for him to be returned for questioning are thought to have been repeated after the Casablanca bombings, Moroccan sources told the Guardian yesterday. It was unclear whether the Moroccan government had approached Britain again following the Madrid blasts.
"Moroccan authorities have asked for al-Gerbouzi to be sent back. He has said he has no relation with any of the bombings," Professor Mohamed Darif, a Moroccan anti-terrorist expert, said.
No British police or security experts have been sent to Morocco since the Madrid bombings.
One police source suggested that Morocco, where thousands have been detained since the Casablanca bombings, uses a "scatter-gun" approach to extradition requests.
Some 24 militant Moroccan Islamists belonging to the Eternal Lions were reportedly being sought by Spanish police for their possible role in last week's Madrid train bombing.
The men are all believed to be part of a group who fled Morocco after the Casablanca bombings to Spain, France and elsewhere. Police suspect they may have linked up with supporters already resident in Madrid and set about planning the train bomb attacks.
Police in Spain and France began hunting down members of the Eternal Lions in midsummer after Moroccan authorities told them that a Frenchman, Robert Richard Antoine, alias Pierre Robert, admitted he helped them flee the country after the Casablanca bombings.
The connections between Jamal Zougam, a suspected bomber arrested in Madrid on Saturday, and some of the Eternal Lions caught in Morocco and elsewhere set the alarm bells ringing.
A Spanish judge has imposed a secrecy order on the Madrid investigation, apparently to avoid compromising the hunt for evidence and bombers who may still be at large.
In a further twist to the investigation, a group that said it had links to al-Qaida reportedly called a truce in its Spanish operations to see if the new government would withdraw its troops from Iraq.
In a statement sent to the Arabic language daily al-Hayat, based in London, the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, which claimed responsibility for the Madrid bombings, also urged its European units to stop all operations. The authenticity of such messages is difficult to confirm.
Good eye! :) Thanks!
http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=14115106&method=full&siteid=106694&headline=uk-s-terror-fear--cleric-we-can-t-kick-out-name_page.html
UK'S TERROR FEAR: CLERIC WE CAN'T KICK OUT
Apr 4 2004
By Euan Stretch
THIS IS the Muslim cleric linked to the Madrid bombings...outside his UK home.
Mohammed al-Gerbouzi is accused of being a key leader of the Muslim terror group behind the Madrid atrocity which killed at least 191 people and wounded 1,500, as well as a dozen suicide bombings in Casablanca last May which left 33 dead
The Moroccan-born trader was jailed for 20 years in his absence for his part in the Casablanca bombings and is wanted on an international arrest warrant.
However last week the Sunday Mirror tracked down Gerbouzi to the flat he shares with wife Aziza, 43, and their six children in North London - just four miles from Downing Street.
Despite the accusations, Gerbouzi is a free man in the UK where he survives with the help of state handouts given to his wife.
Mrs Gerbouzi claims more than £1,000 a month in income support and housing benefit. Her husband worships at a West London Islamic centre, claims to run a clothing import business, and is regularly seen driving his children to school in his blue Nissan people carrier.
When confronted by a reporter, Gerbouzi denied any link to the terrorists blamed for the Madrid attacks - the Group of Islamic Combatants of Morocco (GICM) - or any other extremist groups.
He did however admit to being quizzed by MI5 and the Moroccan secret service and said he had been told that he had been given a jail term following the Casablanca attacks. And he bragged about how he had met hook-handed cleric Abu Hamza.
Speaking outside his first floor flat in Kilburn he said: "This is nonsense. I am not a terrorist. Show me where the proof is. I am not hiding from anyone. I don't know this group and I am not a member of any organisation inside or outside of Morocco. This is Britain, not the jungle. The British government and Scotland Yard know exactly where I live and can speak to me at any time.
"I have no knowledge of the bombings in Madrid or Casablanca. People say these things about me to cause trouble."
Security sources quoted in recent reports claim that Gerbouzi trained in terrorist camps in Afghanistan and was a student of al-Qaeda's European leader Abu Qatada - though he says the reports are untrue.
He is also alleged to have met Jamal Bougam - chief suspect in the Madrid bombings - but strongly denies this as well. The Moroccan government is currently seeking his extradition from the UK.
Reha Makhlouk, spokesman for Morocco's Ministry of the Interior, told the Sunday Mirror: "There is an international warrant out for Mr Gerbouzi's arrest. We want him badly."
The Moroccan government claim that repeated requests to British officials to extradite Gerbouzi over his alleged involvement in the Casablanca bombings have been ignored.
Though Gerbouzi denies any links to terror groups he admits he has been critical of the Moroccan government and blames the accusations on a row with a mystery official.
He added: "I have nothing to hide, otherwise why would I be here now talking to you."
Asked if he had a message for young Muslims tempted into terrorism, he replied: "Of course I would say, 'don't'."
Mrs Gerbouzi - who gives her name as el Guerbouzi - is registered as a resident with the Network Housing Association which owns her flat. She and her husband have six children aged between 19 and two.
Spanish police last week issued an international arrest warrant for fellow Moroccan and GICM chief Abdelkarim el Mejjati, who they say was the mastermind behind the Madrid bombings.
A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "We don't have any extradition treaty with Morocco and no evidence has been submitted before the courts to consider an arrest."
Gerbouzi is represented by controversial Muslim rights lawyer Miss Muddassar Arani.
The 40-year-old lawyer hit the headlines earlier this year when it emerged she had earned more than £200,000 in legal aid representing clients facing terror charges.
She is also fighting to halt the deportation of Abu Hamza.
"Morocco has repeatedly requested the British government extradite al-Gerbouzi, who was granted political asylum in the UK. Al-Gerbouzi was convicted of involvement in terrorist attacks in Casablanca which killed 44 people. After being tried in absentia, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison, the Independent reported."
What the F?
Alleged?
Snort.
They allowed this guy in for the same reason we allow these people in.....because we are a "compassionate and caring" people.
This mind-set is going to lead to the ruination of Western society, as the jihadist mind-set has no such value.
Until the Western society gets hit so hard that it's very continuation is brought front and center, we will keep fretting and complaining, but do nothing really significant to utterly destroy this global plague.
Mohammed al-Gerbouzi
http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/3-25-2004-52177.asp
Terror Suspect Claims He Has Been Smeared
Accused of involvement in bombings, a London trader says his only crime was to criticise the Moroccan authorities.
By Guardian Newspapers, 3/25/2004
A man accused of leading a radical Islamist group which has been linked with the Madrid and Casablanca bombings came forward yesterday to distance himself from the atrocities and say he was the victim of a smear campaign.
In an interview with the Guardian, Mohammed al-Gerbouzi confirmed that he was suspected of being involved in a radical organisation known as the Group of Islamic Combatants of Morocco. He admitted that he had been questioned several times by the Moroccan secret services and MI5, and said he believed he had been given a 20-year jail sentence in his absence in Morocco in connection with last year's suicide attacks in Casablanca.
Mr Gerbouzi was born in Morocco but has lived in London since 1974. He accepts that his visits to Pakistan and Turkey had raised suspicion, and described himself as an outspoken critic of the Moroccan government.
But he dismissed supposed links to radical groups as "complete nonsense".
"The British and Moroccan authorities know where I live and have my telephone numbers. I'm not hiding away in a forest. If they have proof they must come forward and present it."
Since the Casablanca attacks in last May, which killed 44 people, Mr Gerbouzi's name has been linked to the GIC, one of a number of amorphous Moroccan radical groups.
Some media reports have said that he trained in terrorist camps in Afghanistan, that he visited Turkey shortly before the Casablanca attacks, and that he may have given the order for the suicide bombings to go ahead.
He is also said to have been a student of Abu Qatada, the influential radical preacher suspected of being a key al-Qaida leader in Europe, and of meeting Abu Dahdah, the Syrian cleric arrested in Spain after the September 11 attacks.
After the Madrid bombings and the arrests of a number of Moroccans, Mr Gerbouzi's name surfaced again.
A father-of-six who lives in a flat in north London, he told the Guardian that he had followed his father, a hotelier, to Britain from Larache, a coastal town not far from Tangiers, in 1974, and became a British citizen in the mid-nineties.
He said that he had discovered he was a marked man in the late eighties when he went to the Moroccan embassy in London to apply for documents for his family.
A friendly official tipped him off that there was a file which painted him as an opponent of the Moroccan government.
Mr Gerbouzi, 44, who describes himself as a trader, admitted that he had spoken out about the regimeand in recent years he has organised demonstrations outside the embassy.
Soon after learning about the file, he says, he had a row with a Moroccan official in London. he claimed that the man told him he would get even with him when he next visited Morocco.
He said: "I used to go to Morocco every summer. From that time I didn't go. I was scared. Morocco was finished for me."
Mr Gerbouzi, who has four brothers and three sisters, all living in Britain, claims his reputation grew from then. He says his family were harassed when they travelled to Morocco.
One of his brothers, who asked not to be named, told the Guardian that when he visited Morocco two years ago he was whisked to a hotel by eight secret servicemen.
He said: "Most of the questions were about my brother. They wanted me to bring him to Morocco. I asked them: 'Why don't you go to London and talk to him yourselves?' It was very intimidating."
Four months before the attacks in Casablanca Mr Gerbouzi was approached by two men in Shepherd's Bush. One was from the Moroccan secret service; the other, who introduced himself as "Steve", purported to be from MI5.
The three men talked in a nearby internet cafe. According to Mr Gerbouzi the Moroccan agent said: "Many people are talking about you." He said they were saying he had visited Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Mr Gerbouzi accepts that he has visited Pakistan - to help deliver aid. He denies having been in Afghanistan.
The agent began putting the names of radical Islamist groups to Mr Gerbouzi and asked him about people detained in Guantánamo Bay. The man also allegedly suggested that had he facilitated the passage of Islamist terrorists through London.
"I said to him: 'You have come from Morocco and are just putting all these names to me. Where is the evidence, the proof?'"
Mr Gerbouzi said he met the man and a second MI5 officer next day in a hotel in Paddington. Several weeks later he was in Golborne Road, west London, an area with a large Moroccan community, when he encountered the Moroccan agent again.
This time it was put to him that he had visited the Sudan, which he says he had not.
Shortly before the Casablanca attack, Mr Gerbouzi was in Turkey. He said: "I have been accused of raising £40m for al-Qaida, and while there gave the green light for the attack on Casablanca.
"In fact I have family in Istanbul, I stayed there for two weeks and traded in clothes. That's what I do."
Mr Gerbouzi said he was "shocked" when his name was linked to the Casablanca attacks and subsequently to the Madrid bombings.
He said he had not been spoken to by security agents or the police since the Spanish attacks, and had not been officially informed that he had been sentenced to 20 years in connection with the bomb in Casablanca.
And contrary to reports in some British papers, he said, he did not go into hiding after the Madrid killings. "I continued to take my children to school and attend the mosque. I'm here talking to you. I have nothing to hide."
Thanks for the background article!
"a Moroccan national who has been living in Britain for 16 years and who is suspected of past terrorist activity in Europe and North Africa"
Makes NO sense. Maybe the Brits will realize it now.
Why was he allowed to remain alive? One at a time by a small caliber in the back of the head and the arrogant cretins may begin to squirm in those filthy sheets.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3110182,00.html
Brits launch hunt for Moroccan suspect
Reports say search for Mohammed al-Gerbouzi, who has also been linked to terrorist attacks in Madrid and Casablanca, begins after he disappears from his London home
By Ynetnews and News Agencies
LONDON - The investigation into the London terror attack may be examining a North African connection to the blasts after Scotland Yard and MI5 urgently requested European agencies to help track a London-based Moroccan, The Independent reported Saturday.
The search for Mohammed al-Gerbouzi, who has also been linked to terrorist attacks in Madrid and Casablanca, began after he disappeared from his home in London, the report said.
Al-Gerbouzi, who has granted asylum in Britain, was sentenced to 20 years in absentia by a court in Morocco for his alleged involvement in bombings in Casablanca that killed 44 people in 2003.
The North African, a British resident for 16 years, has been accused by French and German security services of connections with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born leader of the insurgent group in
Iraq connected to al-Qaida, which murdered British hostage Ken Bigley.
He is also an associate of Abu Qatada, one of the detainees released from Belmarsh in March this year. Mr. Qatada was described by a British judge as a "truly dangerous" individual and by a Spanish judge as "Osama bin Laden's ambassador in Europe."
Links to Madrid bombings
The Moroccan government has made several attempts to have 45-year-old al-Gerbouzi, who they claim is the head of an organization called the Group of Islamic Combatants, sent back to Morocco. Evidence later presented before a Moroccan court claimed he helped the Casablanca bombers obtain false passports and money.
The British government has denied the Moroccan request because there is no extradition treaty between the two countries. The Home Office has also said the Moroccan authorities failed to produce adequate evidence to justify an arrest.
Morocco has presented further evidence to Scotland Yard. But al-Gerbouzi had, by then, disappeared from his council flat in Kilburn, northwest London. He said he had been questioned by MI5 agents but denied any connections with terrorism.
In March last year, Spanish detectives investigating the bombing of commuter trains that killed 191 people, said that one of the suspects, Moroccan called Jamal Zougham, 31, made telephone calls to a landline and mobile telephone line in London belonging to al-Gerbouzi.
Senior police sources in Brussels and Paris said they received requests on Thursday night from Scotland Yard and MI5 for all possible information about the recent movements and contacts of al-Gerbouzi. A spokeswoman for Europol, the European police information exchange agency, refused to confirm or deny a request has been made, adding merely: "We are providing information and intelligence to the UK authorities."
As British security agencies pick up the pieces following the devastating bombings in London, the crucial question remains how they were caught so unaware.
'50 Israelis have not made contact'
Scotland Yard Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said the London blasts bore " all the hallmarks of al Qa'ida." But he admitted that crucial information about those responsible is missing, adding that they "are either at large in the UK or abroad or they are dead. I don't know which one of those it is."
This clueless liberal was saying that The Patriot Act was bad while we should have something like the UK's MI5
I suspect they have no clue of that the MI5 can do.
.
...and this is...
...England's new KING ARTHUR:
911 Lifesaving Hero RICK RESCORLA
http://www.RickRescorla.com
http://www.strategyzoneonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24361
.
His name was all over the internet last night.
I suppose the lesson to learn here is that terrorists really don't care where they hit, terrorists kill people. It's who they are; it's what they do. England was not targeted because of its involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan; it was targeted because the Militant Islam could......welcome Infidels to the Real World.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.