When London used terrorists...

[Michel Collon <michel.collon at skynet.be>]

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"Bad terrrorists" : active against UK or US.
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MC

London bombs:
former UK cabinet minister Meacher
says MI6 is trying to cover its tracks
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1566916,00.html>http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1566916,00.html
<<http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1566916,00.html>http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1566916,00.html>

Michael Meacher was the UK's environment minister from 1997 to 2003.

In 2003, he wrote in the Guardian that the war on terrorism is bogus and
that the 9/11 attacks gave the US an ideal pretext to use force to secure
its global domination.
<http://politics.guardian.co.uk/attacks/comment/0,1320,1036772,00.html>http://politics.guardian.co.uk/attacks/comment/0,1320,1036772,00.html
<<http://politics.guardian.co.uk/attacks/comment/0,1320,1036772,00.html>http://politics.guardian.co.uk/attacks/comment/0,1320,1036772,00.html>

Now, in the 10 September 2005 Guardian, he is suggesting that the
intelligence agencies may thwart the London bombings investigation.

Meacher looks at the links between the security services and certain
'Moslem' groups who may be linked to the London bombs.

The US used Pakistanis from Britain to fight in Bosnia, in order to weaken
the Serb government's hold on Yugoslavia.

Meacher writes:

'According to a recent report by the Delhi-based Observer Research
Foundation, a contingent was also sent by the Pakistani government, then
led by Benazir Bhutto, at the request of the Clinton administration. This
contingent was formed from the Harkat-ul- Ansar (HUA) terrorist group and
trained by the ISI. The report estimates that about 200 Pakistani Muslims
living in the UK went to Pakistan, trained in HUA camps and joined the
HUA's contingent in Bosnia. Most significantly, this was "with the full
knowledge and complicity of the British and American intelligence agencies".

'As the 2002 Dutch government report on Bosnia makes clear, the US provided
a green light to groups on the state department list of terrorist
organisations, including the Lebanese-based Hizbullah, to operate in Bosnia
- an episode that calls into question the credibility of the subsequent
"war on terror".

'For nearly a decade the US helped Islamist insurgents linked to Chechnya,
Iran and Saudi Arabia destabilise the former Yugoslavia. The insurgents
were also allowed to move further east to Kosovo. By the end of the
fighting in Bosnia there were tens of thousands of Islamist insurgents in
Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo; many then moved west to Austria, Germany and
Switzerland.

'Less well known is evidence of the British government's relationship with
a wider Islamist terrorist network. During an interview on Fox TV this
summer, the former US federal prosecutor John Loftus reported that British
intelligence had used the al-Muhajiroun group in London to recruit Islamist
militants with British passports for the war against the Serbs in Kosovo.
Since July Scotland Yard has been interested in an alleged member of
al-Muhajiroun, Haroon Rashid Aswat, who some sources have suggested could
have been behind the London bombings.

'According to Loftus, Aswat was detained in Pakistan after leaving Britain,
but was released after 24 hours. He was subsequently returned to Britain
from Zambia, but has been detained solely for extradition to the US, not
for questioning about the London bombings. Loftus claimed that Aswat is a
British-backed double agent, pursued by the police but protected by MI6.

'One British Muslim of Pakistani origin radicalised by the civil war in
Yugoslavia was LSE-educated Omar Saeed Sheikh. He is now in jail in
Pakistan under sentence of death for the killing of the US journalist
Daniel Pearl in 2002 - although many (including Pearl's widow and the US
authorities) doubt that he committed the murder. However, reports from
Pakistan suggest that Sheikh continues to be active from jail, keeping in
touch with friends and followers in Britain.

Sheikh was recruited as a student by Jaish-e-Muhammad (Army of Muhammad),
which operates a network in Britain. It has actively recruited Britons from
universities and colleges since the early 1990s, and has boasted of its
numerous British Muslim volunteers.

'Investigations in Pakistan have suggested that on his visits there Shehzad
Tanweer, one of the London suicide bombers, contacted members of two
outlawed local groups and trained at two camps in Karachi and near Lahore.
Indeed the network of groups now being uncovered in Pakistan may point to
senior al-Qaida operatives having played a part in selecting members of the
bombers' cell. The Observer Research Foundation has argued that there are
even "grounds to suspect that the [London] blasts were orchestrated by Omar
Sheikh from his jail in Pakistan".

'Why then is Omar Sheikh not being dealt with when he is already under
sentence of death? Astonishingly his appeal to a higher court against the
sentence was adjourned in July for the 32nd time and has since been
adjourned indefinitely. This is all the more remarkable when this is the
same Omar Sheikh who, at the behest of General Mahmood Ahmed, head of the
ISI, wired $100,000 to Mohammed Atta, the leading 9/11 hijacker, before the
New York attacks, as confirmed by Dennis Lormel, director of FBI's
financial crimes unit.

'Yet neither Ahmed nor Omar appears to have been sought for questioning by
the US about 9/11. Indeed, the official 9/11 Commission Report of July 2004
sought to downplay the role of Pakistan with the comment: "To date, the US
government has not been able to determine the origin of the money used for
the 9/11 attacks. Ultimately the question is of little practical
significance" - a statement of breathtaking disingenuousness.

'All this highlights the resistance to getting at the truth about the 9/11
attacks and to an effective crackdown on the forces fomenting terrorist
bombings in the west, including Britain. The extraordinary US forbearance
towards Omar Sheikh, its restraint towards the father of Pakistan's atomic
bomb, Dr AQ Khan, selling nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea,
the huge US military assistance to Pakistan and the US decision last year
to designate Pakistan as a major non-Nato ally in south Asia all betoken a
deeper strategic set of goals as the real priority in its relationship with
Pakistan. These might be surmised as Pakistan providing sizeable military
contingents for Iraq to replace US troops, or Pakistani troops replacing
Nato forces in Afghanistan. Or it could involve the use of Pakistani
military bases for US intervention in Iran, or strengthening Pakistan as a
base in relation to India and China.

'Whether the hunt for those behind the London bombers can prevail against
these powerful political forces remains to be seen. Indeed it may depend on
whether Scotland Yard, in its attempts to uncover the truth, can prevail
over MI6, which is trying to cover its tracks and in practice has every
opportunity to operate beyond the law under the cover of national security.'

~~

Michael Meacher is the Labour MP for Oldham West and Royton; he was
environment minister from 1997 to 2003.