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By Tom Martin Sunday Express; NEWS; Pg. 17 January 26, 2003
And as a probable conflict in the Gulf looms, there is also the nightmare of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein using horrific weapons of mass destruction against Western troops. But while UN inspectors are yet to uncover smoking-gun evidence of a deadly arsenal, there is no doubt his scientists can create carnage after being educated at the some of the UK's leading universities. Intelligence sources say that up to 30 people in Iraq's weapons programme were trained in Britain. They include Edinburgh Universityeducated physicist Faleh Hassan Hamza, who has been linked to nuclear development. The 55-year-old last week denied 3,000 research documents found at his home by inspectors were evidence of a secret programme to obtain a nuclear bomb. Another suspect scientist is Dr Rihab Rashida Taha, who was named in a Government dossier as the mastermind of Iraq's biological research. The mother, who studied for a PhD in plant toxins at the University of East Anglia, was dubbed Dr Germ after the Gulf War, when it emerged she had helped create 10billion doses of killer toxins. UN inspectors are also keen to question Dr Hazem Ali, a former veterinary student at Newcastle University, and Mahmoud Bilal, who studied chemical engineering at Strathclyde University in Glasgow. It is feared that, throughout the 1980s, the Iraqi regime was able to exploit lax security at British universities, with state-sponsored students trying to obtain a range of deadly materials including anthrax and bubonic plague. Professor Graham Pearson, former director general of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment at Porton Down, said recently: "They acquired cultures from America and we know there were attempts made to obtain them in Britain."
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Although the Foreign Office has since introduced a voluntary vetting scheme to stop germs and chemicals falling into the wrong hands, it is feared campuses remain an ideal training ground for terrorists and agents from rogue states.
Overseas students spend more than GBP 200million a year in fees and off-campus extras, providing a vital boost to cashstrapped institutions. One Scottish academic last night claimed corrupt regimes and terror groups could still take advantage of lax procedures. The professor, who asked not to be named, said: "Given the current problems with university funding, one suspects reference checks may not be as thorough as before. "There are presently no binding regulations preventing you from accepting a student from any particular country if there is no problem in them getting a visa." Fears that terror groups could infiltrate science-related courses have heightened since September 11. Following the attack, thousands of students in Britain were secretly checked by police. MI5 and Special Branch officers asked university heads for signs of "unusual or suspicious" projects and programmes. More than 40 universities with top-level scientific courses were put on alert, including Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and Dundee. The move came eight years after it emerged one of the masterminds behind the first attempt to destroy the World Trade Center had studied in Wales. Kuwaiti Ramzi Youssef, now serving a life sentence in the USA, used the skills learned at the West Glamorgan Institute of Higher Education - now known as the Swansea Institute - to build timing and firing mechanisms for the bomb that killed six people and injured more than 1,000. Last year, former University of Dundee student Shamsul Bahri Hussein was named as one of eight suspects wanted for the Bali bombing. He was said to be part of a militant Islamic group funded by Osama Bin Laden's al Qaeda network. Terrorism expert Professor David Capitanchik, of Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, yesterday warned it was still possible for terror groups to infiltrate scientific courses. He said: "We know anti-Western terrorists have taken degrees here in the past and it is quite conceivable that there are others here right now. "Of course, since September 11 the security services have been monitoring the situation at home more closely, as the recent anti-terrorism arrests show. Officials at the Home Office yesterday tried to play down the threat posed and insisted "several adequate arrangements were already in place". A spokeswoman said: "The security services will continue to co-operate with their international counterparts to ensure terrorists cannot enter Britain by posing as asylum seekers, business people or students." The Foreign Office said its vetting scheme was constantly under review. Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden studied English in Oxford when he was just 14, while infamous assassin Carlos "the Jackal", went to the London School of Economics. < |