LONDON - The foiled car-bomb plot in London shows al Qaeda has imported the tactics of Iraqi and Indonesian militants to Britain, the UK prime minister's top terrorism adviser has said.
"Make no mistake, this weekend's bomb attacks signal a major escalation in the war being waged on us by Islamic terrorists," John Stevens, the former commissioner of the London police, wrote in an article to be published in the News of the World on Sunday. "Initially it was believed the main problem police faced was insulated groups of home-grown extremists. But now it is clear a loose but deadly network of interlinked operational cells has developed.
"The terror of July 7 (2005) was awful enough, but now al-Qaeda has imported the tactics of Baghdad and Bali to our streets. And it will get worse before it gets better."
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http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=340&objectid=10448951
Bomb plot ‘work of Middle East militants’
Sunday, 1 July, 2007
LONDON: The car bombs which threatened to cause carnage on the streets of London bear the hallmark of Al Qaeda-type groups, analysts said yesterday.
The failed attacks could have been timed to destabilise the new British government, but could also be fueled by anger at the knighthood for writer Salman Rushdie, or Tony Blair’s appointment as Middle East envoy, they said. “There is no doubt at all that this (plot) is Middle-Eastern contrived,” independent intelligence analyst Paul Beaver said.
“Look at the way in which the bombs have been configured. This is a signature of (Lebanese Shia militant) Hezbollah and (Islamist group) Hamas in Lebanon and Palestine, and Al Qaeda-like organisations in Iraq.”
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Sleeper Terror Cell on the Loose in U.K.
June 30, 2007
Counter-terrorism analysts estimate that the apparently coordinated attacks in Great Britain are the work of a sleeper cell that could include as many as 20 individuals. "You would need that many to pull off three different vehicle-borne explosions," said one former CIA official who requested his name not be used.
A massive manhunt is now underway across Great Britain for at least three suspects who officials say have been positively linked to the Friday attacks by surveillance photographs and forensic evidence, including fingerprints. "The Brits simply are not ahead of this cell and they know it," he said.
The two failed car bomb attacks in London Friday appear to be connected to today's attack on the Glasgow Airport terminal, although British officials have yet to declare so officially.
Adding to the intelligence failure, analysts said, is the fact that the driver of one of the failed car bombs had been arrested three years ago and released for lack of evidence.
The two men arrested in the wake of the Glasgow attack today are likely to face intense interrogations from British officials who are desperate to learn the names of other cell members. "The Brits may talk with a fancy accent, but when it comes to this kind of thing, the gloves will be off," the former CIA official said, citing the techniques used to go after the Irish Republican Army.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/06/sleeper-terror-.html
ISLAMABAD: A radical Pakistani mosque yesterday threatened forceful retaliation if the government launches an operation against it after President Pervez Musharraf said it housed suicide bombers. “We have read the statement by Musharraf and we want to warn him that in case of an operation against our mosque and the seminary we will put up a very forceful retaliation,” Abdul Rashid Ghazi, from Islamabad’s Red Mosque and Jamia Hafsa seminary, said.
The English-language Pakistani newspaper Dawn quoted military ruler Musharraf as saying many potential suicide bombers were inside the mosque, which is seen as a militant hub in the heart of the capital. Militants linked to extremist groups, including Al Qaeda, were hiding in the mosque with explosives and could cause havoc in the event of an armed operation against them, the president added.
“Let it be clear that action against Lal Masjid (the Red Mosque) and Jamia Hafsa Brigade was not withheld because of government weakness or cowardice,” Musharraf said in the report. The seminary’s students launched an anti-vice drive in January and have kidnapped police and civilians recently, including six Chinese women from what they alleged was a brothel in the capital. They eventually released the captives.
The president, a key US ally in the so called War on Terror, has faced mounting criticism home and abroad over the failure to crack down on the Red Mosque’s campaign to enforce Taliban-style Islamic Shariah laws.
Qaeda-linked militants hole up in Pakistan mosque: Musharraf; ‘Radicals ready to carry out suicide attacks’
June 30, 2007
ISLAMABAD (RTRS): Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said on Friday suicide bombers from an al-Qaeda-linked militant group are holed up in a mosque in the centre of the capital, Islamabad. Authorities have been locked in a tense standoff for months with clerics and students associated with Lal Masjid, the Red Mosque, who are pushing for imposition of Taleban-style social values in Islamabad. Clerics at the mosque had threatened suicide attacks if government used force against them.
Speaking to reporters, Musharraf said militants of Jaish-e-Mohammad, an al-Qaeda-linked group fighting Indian rule in the disputed Kashmir region, were hiding in the mosque. “They are indoctrinated people,” he told a workshop on journalism. “There are also people associated to Jaish-e-Mohammad. They have explosives. Many of them are ready to carry out suicide attacks,” he added.
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http://version2.arabtimesonline.com/client/pagesdetails.asp?nid=2201&ccid=11
Militants destroy 13 tankers in Pakistan
30 Jun, 2007
PESHAWAR: Pro-Taliban militants, in a Pakistani border town, blew up 13 oil tankers supplying fuel for international troops in Afghanistan, officials said on Friday. The explosion on Friday night targeted tankers parked in Landikotal, the main town of Khyber tribal district, 35 kilometres west of Peshawar, a security official said.
An improvised explosive device planted underneath a tanker went off, triggering a massive fire and gutting 13 tankers, the official said on condition of anonymity. We believe that pro-Taliban militants are behind the attack, he added. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. The attack was the latest in a series on trucks and tankers supplying fuel to us bases in eastern and southern Afghanistan.
Thank you Oorang.
The global jihad is evil.