Posted on 12/29/2001 3:51:37 PM PST by Pokey78
NEW fears that Britain has become a breeding ground for terrorists were raised yesterday by Pakistan officials who said they were holding a British subject suspected of having links with Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network. The man, identified as James Alexander McLintock, was detained at the Afghanistan frontier in a remote region of the Northwest Frontier province, close to a terrorist camp where several of the September 11 hijackers trained. The man was said to have given a Muslim name to border guards and to speak Arabic as well as English. He claimed to be working for a non-governmental organisation and carried a British passport, which officials believe is genuine. McLintock is said to be white and originally from Scotland. Osama Bin Laden’s call for jihad warriors to join his fight against the West attracted recruits from America, Australia and France as well as from Britain. Last weekend Richard Reid, a south London man who travelled to Pakistan and was said to have been seen in an Afghanistan camp, boarded an aircraft with explosives concealed in his shoe. In November, John Walker, 20, a white 20-year-old from a middle-class Californian family, captured world attention when he was caught with Taliban forces at Mazar-i-Sharif. The Foreign Office said it was unaware that a British citizen was in detention in Pakistan and was trying to contact authorities there through consular officials in Islamabad. MI5 is also investigating the case as part of a wider probe into Britons who may have travelled to Afghanistan for terrorist training and returned home to carry out new terrorist acts. Several Britons are thought to have received terrorist training, according to information gathered from Al-Qaeda camps near Jalalabad and Kandahar. British and American special forces stripped the camps of documents when the Arab fighters fled, and intelligence officials have been sifting through them, looking for the names of westerners who may have been planted as sleepers in European or American cities. Senior Pakistani officials said McLintock was detained about 10 days ago. Imtiaz Gilani, information minister for the Northwest Frontier province, said he gave the name Yakub, but his British passport identified him as McLintock. “He is being questioned closely and we have not ruled out a link between this man and other Al- Qaeda suspects,” he said. “Al- Qaeda people were arrested at the same place, escaping to Pakistan a few weeks ago.” Javed Iqbal, the region's home secretary, said Mclintock was “being interrogated”, though he would not disclose where he was being held. “He was detained at a border point in North Waziristan and he is still in jail,” he said. “We are not happy with his story and we are still establishing his motives and his purpose. Even if he has committed no other offence, it is a serious matter to cross at a no-entry point. He may be tried or deported.” More than 140 suspected Al-Qaeda members have been arrested in recent weeks in the province. North Waziristan is a mountainous and inhospitable area. It has semi-autonomous status and is closed to foreigners without permission. To the north is Tora Bora, where Al-Qaeda fighters were defeated by Northern Alliance forces and US air attacks. To the east is the Khalden camp, identified by the FBI and the CIA as the centre where terrorist attacks on America were plotted. Surrounded by mud walls and hidden in the mountains, the camp trained dozens of alleged terrorists, including Zacarias Moussaoui, the Brixton man charged earlier this month in connection with the terrorist hijackings. Ahmed Ressam, convicted in America of a plot to bomb Los Angeles airport, also trained at the camp. A man travelling on a fake British passport was arrested yesterday by authorities in the Lithuanian port city of Klaipeda. The man, whose luggage contained a large amount of literature about Afghanistan and September 11, said he had a special interest in religious conflicts and had bought the fake passport after losing his real one. Police last night said they did not think he was a terrorist.
As an Irish-American, I look forward with no pleasure to hearing of the first Irish nationalist who joined this cause. I'm afraid there probably are some. If they can promote Celtic paganism, I'm sure some of them are capable of joining Islam. The Islamofascists are basically motivated by hate, and I know from sad experience that some Irish are consumed by hatred of the English.
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