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In the final part of our investigation into the Afghanistan war's
unanswered questions, the focus falls on Muslim groups in the UK
accused of promoting terrorism
Allies point the finger at Britain as al-Qaida's 'revolving door'
The British connection
Audrey Gillan, Richard Norton-Taylor, John Hooper in Berlin, Jon
Henley in Paris and Giles Tremlett in Madrid
Thursday February 14, 2002
The Guardian
Investigators in Britain are privately at loggerheads with their US
and continental European counterparts over claims that the UK was
used as a pivotal base for Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network in the
run-up to the September 11 terror attacks.
Documents compiled in Madrid, Milan, Paris and Hamburg and seen by the Guardian
indicate that most of the known attacks planned or executed by al-Qaida in the past
four years had links to Britain. Investigating magistrate
s, police and intelligence officers in those cities believe that Islamist spiritual
leaders based in Britain played a key role in the indoctrination and possibly even the
authorisation of terrorist operations. Given the u
nique nature of Bin Laden's movement, they may have played an even more crucial role
than al-Qaida's operational commanders.
But British security sources paint a very different picture, saying that the ties with
al-Qaida are tenuous. They are backed up by police, defence lawyers and terrorism
experts who all argue that there has been little act
ivity in terms of terror cells.
"They would say that, wouldn't they?" said one source, referring to his continental
colleagues. "There is a blame game going on which isn't very helpful."
The disagreement goes to the heart of the ethical and legal dilemmas facing the
British judicial system as it tries to assess the degree to which the country has been
used as a refuge for those engaged in terrorist activi
ty and what should be done to ensure it is not.
There have been dozens of arrests, but only five people have been charged, not a
single one on charges relating directly to September 11. In one terror round-up in
Leicester, 11 men were arrested, five were eventually fre
ed, four were transferred to immigration authorities, and only two were charged. On
Tuesday the highest profile detainee, Lotfi Raissi, was released on bail after the
district judge said the FBI lacked enough evidence to
press a case of terrorism.
Investigators in France, Spain, Germany and Italy are adamant that at least seven top
Bin Laden lieutenants operated out of Britain in recent years. They claim that the
Muslim clerics, such as Abu Qatada, allowed to openl
y preach jihad in the UK were in fact spinning a "revolving door" to radical Islam and
on to terrorism.
Italian officers point to a list of phone numbers found in the diary of an al-Qaida
associate and say that 18 out of 32 of the numbers belong to British-based suspects. A
Spanish judge says that one man made calls from th
e UK before September 11 which indicate that he knew of the impending attacks.
One source close to the French investigation told the Guardian that before the events
of September 11 "Britain acted - and, to some extent, may still act - as a kind of
filter for parts of al-Qaida. The main European cent
res for spiritual indoctrination were London and Leicester; any weak links were weeded
out there. The new recruit would then be sent to suffer in the camps in Afghanistan.
After passing both tests, the mojahid could take
his place in the sleeper networks in Europe".
A senior German intelligence officer summed up the mood when he said: "All the clues
lead to London. All the roads lead to London."
The evidence
So, what is this evidence upon which such sweeping and alarming claims are based?
Investigators in continental Europe point to a series of key characters whom they say
prove that Britain is the terrorists' revolving door:
� Abu Qatada
A Spanish judge, Baltasar Garzon, claims that Sheikh Abu Qatada, the London-based
Muslim cleric who ran the Four Feathers centre near Baker Street, is "the spiritual
leader of mojahedin [holy warriors] across Europe". He
claimed that Qatada, a Palestinian previously living in Acton in west London, whose
bank account has been frozen after the Treasury named him as being suspected of
funding terrorism, helped channel money from the Spanish
terrorists to a group in Jordan who planned a series of attacks in 1999.
Qatada was sentenced to death in absentia in Jordan and is accused by the US, Spain,
France and Algeria of being a key influence in the September 11 attacks. Videos of his
speeches were found in the Hamburg flat of Mohamm
ad Atta, the hijackers' ringleader.
In a bugged conversation Sami Essid, who goes on trial this month in Milan accused of
leading al-Qaida's network in Italy, talks about maintaining security within the
organisation and refers to "Sheikh Abu Qatada" as an e
xample to be followed. The Italian authorities say this implicates Qatada.
� Djamel Beghal
The French point to the confession of Djamel Beghal, a French Algerian who was
detained in Dubai and questioned after he was persuaded by a series of imams that
terrorism was anti-Islamic. Beghal, who is suspected of plot
ting to bomb the American embassy in Paris, told police he had been a follower of
Qatada and that he was a key figure in his radical conversion. Beghal moved from
France to Leicester where he worshipped at the Mosque of P
iety and travelled to London to listen to Qatada preach. Beghal is suspected of having
recruited Zacarias Moussaoui, the former South Bank University student suspected of
being part of the September 11 plot, and Richard R
eid, the alleged shoe bomber who tried to blow up a Paris-Miami flight, to camps in
Afghanistan.
� Kamel Daoudi
Following Beghal's confession, police across Europe closed in on a small unit of men
they believe were planning some kind of "spectacular". One, Kamel Daoudi, who had been
living in Beghal's flat in Paris, was found in Be
ghal's other flat in Leicester. He is said to be the unit's computer expert.
� Abu Abdallah
Daoudi told French police that he met an al-Qaida guerrilla in Leicester called Abu
Abdallah. Abdallah's identity remains uncertain but French investigators believe he
may be among the 11 men arrested in Leicester last mo
nth.
� Baghdad Meziane and Brahim Benmerzouga
Arrested in Leicester in January. They are accused of belonging to al-Qaida and
conspiring to raise money to fund terrorism. Meziane is also accused of "directing the
activities of al-Qaida".
� Abu Doha
Five months before the attacks on America, Italy's special operations police produced
a report which identified two al-Qaida networks in Europe. Both were run by Islamist
extremists based in Britain -"one made up principa
lly of Algerians and led by Abu Doha; the second made up predominantly of Tunisians
and led by the Tunisian Seifallah Ben Hassine".
Doha is currently in detention in Belmarsh high-security prison in south-east London
fighting extradition to the US on charges that he was part of an al-Qaida cell
plotting to blow up Los Angeles airport on millennium eve
. The whereabouts of Ben Hassine are unknown.
French police sources say they have uncovered further links to Britain with the
"priceless" evidence of the recently arrested Yacine Akhnouche, a French Algerian
detained on suspicion of close links with a cell in Frankfu
rt which planned an attack on the Strasbourg Christmas market. He has told police that
while in al- Qaida training camps in Afghanistan he met Zacarias Moussaoui, the
so-called "20th hijacker" in the September 11 attacks,
as well as Richard Reid and Abu Doha, who he says was the "recruiting sergeant" of
Bin Laden's European operation.
Spain points to four more British-based Bin Laden lieutenants, identifying them by
their pseudonyms in an indictment. Spanish police taped a series of cryptic phone
calls from a caller in Britain using the codename "Shaku
r". One of these, according to Judge Garzon, shows that Shakur knew of the upcoming
September 11 attacks. "In our classes, we have entered the field of aviation, and we
have even cut the bird's throat," he said on August
27.
The British riposte
Security sources say the evidence produced by the continental Europeans is in many
ways as flimsy as that brought by the US against Lotfi Raissi, the Algerian who was
released on bail this week. He was originally accused
of training at least four of the hijackers involved in September 11. They say that
Qatada's role has been overstated, that he is a spiritual leader and a rabble rouser
but that there is no evidence of his direct involveme
nt in terrorism.
Qatada fled his home in Acton the day before parliament passed the new anti-ter rorist
legislation and security sources refuse to say whether he would have been interned.
His disappearance has raised questions about his r
ole (recently, the French daily Le Figaro claimed that Qatada was an MI5 agent,
something the security services vigorously deny).
British sources claim that the French, Germans, Spanish and Italians are trying to
point the finger at Britain in order to distract attention from the presence of
terrorist suspects in their own countries and shield thems
elves from US criticism. Many of the claims about Britain, they imply, are made by
ambitious magistrates out to advance their political as well as legal careers.
One senior police source says it is important to differentiate between political
dissent and extremist political violence when looking at the British picture. In a
stinging criticism of the quality of investigations on th
e continent, he claims that his counterparts in cities such as Berlin and Paris often
fail to appreciate the difference.
British investigators also stress that al-Qaida is not a structured terrorist group,
like Eta or the IRA. "It is not even a cell. Individuals are loosely connected with
al-Qaida and other networks," said an intelligence s
ource.
Sources admit that some of the recently arrested suspects had some links with
extremist networks calling for a jiha. But they emphasise that their role was
essentially one of supporting them by fund-raising, mostly throug
h credit card fraud.
Lawyers such as Gareth Peirce, who represents a number of the men currently interned
or facing extradition on terror-related charges, are certain that al-Qaida, as it is
being portrayed by the CIA, does not actually exist
in the UK, and that it has become a handy media shorthand for all that is "evil".
They say that men are being imprisoned without charge simply because they are
political dissenters.
Akhtar Raja, a lawyer representing Khaled al-Fawwaz, currently fighting extradition to
the US in connection with the east African embassy bomb attacks, says he has been
studying the "so-called" al-Qaida organisation for a
number of years.
"It's very, very difficult to take little pockets of Muslims around the world who
individually comprise small numbers but may well espouse violence - and they are few
and far between - and make them a tangible target from
the CIA's point of view. They are not connected at all in terms of any formal or
loose relationship or allegiance to each other."
Security sources here are privately furious at the fishing expedition launched by the
US in the wake of the September 11 attacks, and seething at the allegations coming out
of continental Europe that al-Qaida has flourish
ed in this country.
Al-Qaida cells
The focus of investigations should not be alleged al-Qaida cells operating in Britain
- British authorities are convinced they simply don't exist. Individuals with
nefarious connections may have operated out of London and
Leicester, but "cells" is a concept that does not fit. Continental European
investigators find this element of Britain's self-defence baffling, as they point out
that they have always accepted that formal cells probably
did not exist in the UK.
The focus, intelligence and police sources say, should be to the future, not the past.
Their worry is that hundreds of young, disaffected Muslims and new converts to Islam
are still being drawn into extreme Islamist movem
ents in which they are susceptible to manipulation. In little halls up and down the
country youths are still being drawn by preachers using Bin Laden's name as the big
attraction when they have no connection to him or his
movement.
As Mike Diboll, an expert in modern Islamic and Arabic thought, says: "It seems to me
that there are two groups of people in the UK who are very vulnerable to recruitment
into anti-western Islamist terrorist groups: young
Asian Muslim men who are seething with resentment at Britain and the west, not out of
directly religious concerns, but as a result of socio-political factors such as
racism, unemployment and social exclusion, and white o
r African-Caribbean converts to Islam who, while they approach the religion in good
faith, are liable to be exploited by militants as a result of their combination of
zeal and ignorance."
MI5 and the anti-terrorist branch are using new resources to monitor these recruiting
grounds, in the hope that they can break the cycle in which potential future
terrorists are moulded.
The new strategy involves gathering intelligence on sympathisers of a number of
Islamist groups - whether they be Kashmiri, Algerian, Chechen or other nationalities -
and paying much closer scrutiny to the mosques that pr
each fundamentalist doctrines. Abdel Bar Atwan, editor of the Arab newspaper al-Quds
al-Arabi, who travelled to the Hindu Kush to interview Bin Laden in 1996, said: "I
have received a lot of calls from young Pakistanis wh
o said 'look, we want to go and fight the Americans, we want to go and join Bin Laden'.
"You can find these hot-headed young chaps anywhere and they are willing to do
anything."
Blame game or list of shame?
Plots the continental Europeans say are linked to Britain include:
� A plan to bomb the US embassy in Tirana, Albania. Documents prepared for the trial
of Misbah Ali Hassanayn, an Egyptian, which the Guardian has obtained, quote a message
from Rome police saying he was suspected of being
in touch with "a group of terrorists living in London that was about to carry out an
attack on the US embassy in Tirana".
� A planned attack on the 2000 Christmas market in Strasbourg. Until now this has been
ascribed entirely to a Frankfurt-based group but a Milan police report indicates that
hit men sent from Britain were to have played th
e key role.
� Italian court papers point to Abu Doha's involvement in a
prospective attack on the US embassy in Rome. In January 2001, the
embassy was closed. Court papers say the US had been tipped off to a
possible attack. Doha was described as "the person in charge".
� A suicide attack by helicopter or lorry on the US embassy in Paris
was planned by a group including Djamel Beghal and Kamel Daoudi, who
had lived in Britain.
Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002
End<{{{
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