7/7 ‘mastermind’ is seized in Iraq

The al-Qaeda leader who is thought to have devised the plan for the July 7 suicide bombings in London and an array of terrorist plots against Britain has been captured by the Americans.

Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, a former major in Saddam Hussein’s army, was apprehended as he tried to enter Iraq from Iran and was transferred this week to the “high-value detainee programme” at Guantanamo Bay.

Abd al-Hadi was taken into CIA custody last year, it emerged from US intelligence sources yesterday, in a move which suggests that he was interrogated for months in a “ghost prison” before being transferred to the internment camp in Cuba.

Abd al-Hadi, 45, was regarded as one of al-Qaeda’s most experienced, most intelligent and most ruthless commanders. Senior counter-terrorism sources told The Times that he was the man who, in 2003, identified Britain as the key battleground for exporting al-Qaeda’s holy war to Europe.

Abd al-Hadi recognised the potential for turning young Muslim radicals from Britain who wanted to become mujahidin in Afghanistan or Iraq into terrorists who could carry out attacks in their home country. He realised that their knowledge of Britain, possession of British passports and natural command of English made them ideal recruits. After al-Qaeda restructured its operations in Pakistan’s tribal areas he sought out young Britons for instruction at training camps. In late 2004 Abd al-Hadi met Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, from Leeds, at a militant camp in Pakistan and, in the words of a senior investigator, “retasked them” to become suicide bombers.

They were sent back to Britain where they led the terrorist cell that carried out the 7/7 bombings, killing 52 Tube and bus passengers.

Pakistani intelligence sources said that Abd al-Hadi was also in contact with Rachid Rauf, a Birmingham man now in prison in Pakistan and alleged to be a key figure in last summer’s alleged plot to blow up transatlantic airliners in mid-flight.

Abd al-Hadi has also been linked to a number of other foiled al-Qaeda plots to carry out attacks in Britain. But the Security Service, which has previously sent officials to question detainees at Guantanamo Bay, may not have the opportunity to question him directly.

The Government’s recently adopted position in favour of closing Guantanamo Bay is likely to act as a bar on agents travelling there. British Intelligence would have to rely on relaying questions it would like asked by American interrogators.

Security sources said they assessed Abd al-Hadi as a key operational commander, high up the chain in the al-Qaeda structure who was behind many key plots in the UK.

He had a close link with another arrested al-Qaeda figure and, the sources said, would have “a wealth of information”. He is thought to have been in contact with Osama bin Laden before his capture and might be able to provide information about his leader’s whereabouts.

Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said that Abd al-Hadi had been classified as a “high-value detainee” at Guantanamo, and joined 14 others, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the 9/11 mastermind, as the most senior terror suspects at the Cuba prison.

Mr Whitman refused to say when or where he was captured, or by whom. “Abd al-Hadi was trying to return to his native country, Iraq, to manage al-Qaeda's affairs and possibly focus on operations outside Iraq against Western targets,” Mr Whitman said.

He added that he was a key al-Qaeda paramilitary leader in Afghanistan in the late 1990s, and between 2002 and 2004 led efforts to attack US forces in Afghanistan with terrorist units based in Pakistan.

In a lecture this week Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, commander of Sctoland Yard’s Counter-Terrorism Command, said that the central al-Qaeda leadership was behind a spate of terror plots against Britain.

He said: “We have seen how al-Qaeda has been able to survive a prolonged multinational assault on its structures, personnel and logistics. It has certainly retained its ability to deliver centrally directed attacks here in the UK. In case after case, the hand of core al-Qaeda can be clearly seen.”

Sources said last night that few figures had been more important at the centre of the revived al-Qaeda. Abd al-Hadi is credited with forming its alliance with the insurgency in Iraq.

US officials said he was associated with leaders of other extremist groups allied with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, including the Taleban.

Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA’s bin Laden unit, told The Times that catching Abd al-Hadi was important but that it did not spell the end of al-Qaeda.

He said Abd al-Hadi had been an important figure in developing al-Qaeda’s strategy in the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan and also helped to redirect its terrorist strategy in Europe.

Mr Scheuer, a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation in Washington, said: “It is a blow for al-Qaeda, especially in Iraq, where it will have consequences.

“But al-Qaeda always plans for succession, and there will have been someone lined up to take his place. It is nonsense to think that al-Qaeda is dead.”

Thanks for the ping. Been away from FR for most of the day. Yea. This guy probably has provided an immense amount of valuable info, that will lead to a lot more goons being captured and or killed.
Plus it has to be a real blow to the Taliban and al Qaeda to read about this goon being captured. Now they can wait in fear, wondering when they will hear the whistling of an incoming laser guided 2000 lb L84.
Things continue to look like we are dismantling their ability to operate in any fashion other then a few gathering in some remote camps to pull off raids in A or I.
The other days reporting of the Saudi taking a bunch of them out was encouraging.
Other then the occasional successful suicide bomber attacks in A or I one a week or so, it seems like the terrorist groups in general continue to be put on the run. They live lives of hiding. And simply cannot make any great headway. Hope it continues of course in this direction. Perhaps more Americans and Europeans will slowly wake up and realize these goons must be constantly gone after so that they cannot form up a real effective means of creating catasthropic events such as 9/11.

<moonbat> al Qaeda had to PREEMPTIVELY go into Iraq in 1992 under the TROP brand name "al Jihad wa'l Tajdeed" because they knew Bush would preemptively go into Iraq in the spring of 2003.</moonbat>

1992 : (THIS YEAR IS WHEN IRAQ BEGAN CONSIDERING OSAMA BIN LADEN TO BE THEIR INTELLIGENCE ASSET - See HARMONY DOCS, IRAQ / BIN LADEN) We know from these IIS documents that beginning in 1992 the former Iraqi regime regarded bin Laden as an Iraqi Intelligence asset. We know from IIS documents that the former Iraqi regime provided safe haven and financial support to an Iraqi who has admitted to mixing the chemicals for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. We know from IIS documents that Saddam Hussein agreed to Osama bin Laden's request to broadcast anti-Saudi propaganda on Iraqi state-run television. We know from IIS documents that a "trusted confidante" of bin Laden stayed for more than two weeks at a posh Baghdad hotel as the guest of the Iraqi Intelligence Service. --------Weekly Standard: The Mother of All Connections

NOVEMBER 1992 : ONE OF AL JEHAD WA'L TADJEED'S LEADERS VISITS IRAQ, READY TO STRIKE AGAINST "US INTERESTS AT ANY TIME") The documents describe Al-Jehad wa'l Tajdeed as "a secret Palestinian organization" founded after the first Persian Gulf War that "believes in armed struggle against U.S. and western interests." The leaders of the group, according to the Iraqi memo, were stationed in Jordan in 1993, and when one of those leaders visited Iraq in November 1992, he "showed the readiness of his organization to execute operations against U.S. interests at any time." (See More Saddam Connections to al Qaeda) Tefft believes the Tajdeed group likely included al-Zarqawi, whom Teft described as "our current [2004] terrorist nemesis" in Iraq, "a Palestinian on a Jordanian passport who was with al Qaeda and bin Laden in Afghanistan prior to this period (1993)." ------- "Exclusive: Saddam Possessed WMD, Had Extensive Terror Ties," by Scott Wheeler, CNSNews, October 4, 2004

DECEMBER 29, 1992 : (ADEN, YEMEN : BIN LADEN'S FIRST ATTACK AGAINST THE US - TWO HOTELS FREQUENTED BY AMERICANS?) Bin Laden's first attack against US-two hotels in Aden, Yemen ---------- "PRE-BUSH timeline/list of Iraq's Ties To Al Queda," by Sam Pender-author of Iraq's Smoking Gun and other books on the matter , 6/12/04 [from US News & Time 1997 to 2000]

FEBRUARY 1993 : (NY CITY : 1993 WTC BOMBING --- See IBRAHIM SULEIMAN, HIKMAT SHAKIR, MUSAB YASIN, ABDULRAHMAN YASIN, ZSM & KSM ) Shakir, the Iraqi-born facilitator, would be arrested six days after the September 11 attacks by authorities in Doha, Qatar. According to an October 7, 2002, article by Newsweek's Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman, "A search of Shakir's apartment in Doha, the country's capital, yielded a treasure trove, including telephone records linking him to suspects in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and Project Bojinka, a 1994 Manila plot to blow up civilian airliners over the Pacific Ocean." (Isikoff, it should be noted, has been a prominent skeptic of an Iraq-al Qaeda connection.) [The Iraqi Hikmat] Shakir had contact information for a lot of bad people. As noted, one was a Kuwaiti, Ibrahim Suleiman, whose fingerprints were found on the bombmaking manuals U.S. authorities allege were used in preparation for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Suleiman was convicted of perjury and deported to Jordan. Another was Musab Yasin, the brother of 1993 Trade Center bomber Abdul Rahman Yasin. Yet another was Zahid Sheikh Mohammed, brother of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the September 11 attacks, now in U.S. custody. Shakir also had an old number for Taba Investments, an al Qaeda front group. It was the number long used by Mahmdouh Mahmud Salim, the highest-ranking Iraqi member of al Qaeda. According to testimony from al Qaeda informants, Salim maintained a good relationship with Saddam's intelligence service. Despite all of this, the Qatari authorities released Shakir shortly after they arrested him [in late 2001]. ------ "Stephen Hayes:See No Evil, Hear No Evil," (What the 9/11 Commission narrative left out: Iraqis) , Stephen F. Hayes, The Weekly Standard, September 5 / September 12, 2005, Posted on 08/28/2005 1:49:07 PM PDT by RWR8189

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