Free Republic

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Investigators probing the London terror bombings are focusing on an elusive British Muslim suspect who is connected to a previous plot to set up a terrorist training camp in rural southern Oregon, according to U.S. counterterrorism officials. Officials told both NBC News and CNN Wednesday that Haroon Rashid Aswat, believed to be a mastermind of the London bombings, is the same British-born Muslim of Indian descent who scouted a Bly, Oregon ranch to set up a terror camp. These officials said Aswat, a Pakistani national being sought for questioning as a person of interest by British authorities,...

BLY, Ore. — This hard-knocks hamlet seems an unlikely place to search for clues to the al-Qaida terrorist network. It sits on an arid plateau in Southern Oregon, about 50 miles east of Klamath Falls. With a population of about 250, it has a couple of cafes and small stores, an antique shop, and the razed foundation of an abandoned lumber mill. But in late 1999, federal authorities and other sources say, the area had something far more unusual: militant Muslims scouting a ranch outside of town as a possible training camp for jihad fighters. That aborted effort has now...

The Justice Department blocked efforts by its prosecutors in Seattle in 2002 to bring criminal charges against Haroon Aswat, according to federal law-enforcement officials who were involved in the case. British authorities suspect Aswat of taking part in the July 7 London bombings, which killed 56 and prompted an intense worldwide manhunt for him. But long before he surfaced as a suspect there, federal prosecutors in Seattle wanted to seek a grand-jury indictment for his involvement in a failed attempt to set up a terrorist-training camp in Bly, Ore., in late 1999. In early 2000, Aswat lived for a couple...