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The great disappearing act
In the latest of his online terrorism dispatches, The Observer's Chief Reporter reveals another embarassing failure for the security services. The Americans believe that Abu Al-Haili helped to arrange Osama bin Laden's escape from Tora Bora. So why did British security services allow him to slip the net in Tooting, South London?
Jason Burke
Sunday August 11, 2002
American politicians and security officials spent last week squirming as a series of leaks exposes their failings in the run up to September 11th. But their British counterparts have little reason to be smug. In fact they could be accused of a worrying inability to locate key figures who have been linked to Al-Qaeda in Britain. That Abu Qutada, a 17 stone bearded cleric, was able disappear in broad daylight from his house in Acton in a people-carrier along with five family members is well known. But it now appears that British security services have mislaid more than one overweight Islamist.
According to well-placed sources within the Islamist community in the UK Abu Zubair al-Haili - who the Americans believe helped Osama bin Laden escape the American assault on Afghanistan - was living in the UK until shortly before the September 11th attacks. Indeed British security service sources admit that they knew that al-Haili, who weighs more than 18 stone and known as 'The Bear', was living in Tooting, south London. Despite this, they failed to arrest him. And nor did they stop him from sending recruits to the Taliban and al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan.
This is unlikely to contribute much to fraying transatlantic relations. According to the Americans Al-Haili, who was captured in Morocco two months ago, was a high-ranking al-Qaeda figure. They say that he was the deputy of Abu Zubaydah, al-Qaeda's chief of operations, who is the one of the most senior of bin Laden's aides to have been arrested so far. Islamist sources, however, dispute the bin Laden link and say, though 'The Bear' had spent time with the bin Laden in Afghanistan during the war against the Soviets and came from the same part of Saudi Arabia, the two men were not in fact close.
Either way al-Haili was known as a experienced and successful military commander who had built a reputation as a commander in the Afghan jihad and in Bosnia. It is clear that he spent time in Britain and was known to the authorities. One source within the British Islamist community told The Observer that he had met al-Haili in a restaurant in south London in April 2001, shortly after his questioning by MI5 and an associate recounted how Al-Haili was arrested at Edinburgh airport in March last year after trying to board a plane with a false passport. He was questioned by an Arabic-speaking member of the British security services and then released. He left Britain soon afterwards and, with his family, went on to Pakistan.
American investigators believe that Al-Haili arranged the escape of bin Laden and his key lieutenants from the Tora Bora cave complex in eastern Afghanista in mid-November last year. How he escaped from Britain is another question that they might like to investigate.
· Jason Burke, The Observer's Chief Reporter, was writing extensively about Al-Qaeda and Afghanistan long before September 11th. You can read a selection of his reporting on the terrorism crisis, including his fortnightly online terrorism dispatch in Observer Worldview's best of Jason Burke page.