-Caveat Lector- Euphorian spotted this on the Guardian Unlimited site and thought you should see it.
------- Note from Euphorian: So. Does Tooney want to go and obfuscate evidence of his inability to manage his own problems? AER ------- To see this story with its related links on the Guardian Unlimited site, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk Bin Laden: the elusive threat Britain exposed by security forces as key staging post for terror network Wednesday September 04 2002 The Guardian Anti-terrorist police and MI5 now concede that Britain was a communications, fundraising and logistical hub for al-Qaida terrorists and their supporters, and that it unknowingly played an important role in the development of the network from the mid-90s. While they remain convinced activities in Britain played no part in the conspiracy to commit the atrocities of September 11, they have identified hundreds of individuals who embraced Islamist extremism before the attacks last year. Security sources placed them in one of three tiers. At the top end, there is a core of "determined conspirators" engaged in a "high degree of central and long-term planning". This group were - some are still - based in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Kashmir but not in Britain. British-based extremists are mainly in a second group and include those with roots in Algerian, Egyptian, Kashmiri, and in a few cases, Tunisian, radical Islamist organisations. Though they are not members of al-Qaida and are not centrally controlled, they are in frequent personal contact with the network with whom they have strong sympathies, security sources say. They include Abu Doha, an Algerian in jail and wanted in the US in connection with an attempt to bomb Los Angeles airport, and Abu Qatada, a Jordanian who has been on the run in Britain since December. They range, in a series of concentric circles, from a hard core to those who may remain inactive forever. Some of those who have returned from Afghanistan and Pakistan received different degrees of terrorist training, even in biological and chemical warfare. Others are sleepers and minor players who will be called upon from time to time to obtain funds which they will get from credit card fraud, or petty crime, including street robbery. The third category comprises individuals who have been radicalised but are not linked to any group. They include Richard Reid, the "shoe bomber" seized on a flight from Paris to the US last Christmas. It is a misnomer, security sources say, to say "al-Qaida" poses the threat. Al-Qaida, they say, is shorthand for sympathisers with the movement. The al-Qaida label should strictly be limited to those who went to Afghanistan to fight and receive terrorist training. The individuals in Britain who broadly support the same aims are from a number of Islamist groups. As the investigation into the events of September 11 has deepened, the role of Europe, and Britain within it, has been given increasing attention as a potential focal point for key support networks on which al-Qaida depends, such as fundraising, recruiting and propaganda. The hunt is on to try to pick up Europe's key al-Qaida figures before they act again, possibly against a European target. Minh Luong, assistant director of International Security Studies at Yale University, said: "The US is certainly the No 1 target, followed by Israel. But Britain and continental Europe are also on al-Qaida's list of enemies. European forces have taken part in the operations in Afghanistan and taken very strong action to roll up al-Qaida's financing." Much of the September 11 planning was carried out by a Hamburg-based cell whose role, it is believed, was to supply the pilots. Three of the four suicide flyers - including the most important, Mohammed Atta, lived and studied in Hamburg. Last week Germany's federal prosecutor announced charges against Mounir el-Motassadeq, a Moroccan arrested in Hamburg two months after the attacks. He is accused of 3,000 counts of being accessory to murder and is said to have provided support, including money, for the suicide pilots. Other alleged members of the Hamburg cell, however, are thought to be still at large. Ramzi bin al-Shibh, from Yemen, may have been intended to be the fourth suicide pilot but he was unable to obtain a US visa and ceded his place. Investigators are now desperate to know what happened to him. Shortly before September 11, Bin al-Shibh fled Germany, as did two other former occupants of the Hamburg flat on which the cell was centred. The fate of the other two men is uncertain. But, unless he died in the US bombing of Afghanistan Bin al-Shibh is likely to be a key figure in today's al-Qaida. Of the other "European" cells affiliated to al-Qaida, two were already in the process of being broken up by police and intelligence investigators. In July 2001 in Dubai, the security services of the United Arab Emirates arrested and interrogated a Franco-Algerian called Djamel Beghal who is alleged to have led a transnational cell plotting a suicide attack on the US embassy in Paris. He and his associates are said by French investigators to belong to the radical Takfir-wal Hijra movement. Beghal confessed to spending a year in al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan, where he received orders to return to Europe and launch his operation. But he has since retracted that statement, saying he was blindfolded and beaten during his interrogation in the UAE. Several of Beghal's associates were rounded up after September 11 in raids carried out in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. One man, his alleged deputy, Kamel Daoudi, fled to Britain from where he was extradited back to France. More than a dozen men linked to Beghal are still in jail. In Italy, police had already decapitated a Milan-based al-Qaida logistics unit with links to a Frankfurt-based cell that was smashed at the end of 2000. Further arrests of suspects believed to be linked to one or both of the groups were made in the months after September 11. Eight members of the Milan cell have since been jailed. The alleged Frankfurt members are now on trial. But while several groups were already known to the authorities, some appear not to have been. At least one group is thought to have been working undetected in Spain. In July this year police arrested three Syrian-born suspected members of al-Qaida and found a collection of home- made videos that may provide a link to September 11 attacks. They included detailed images of the World Trade Centre and a string of other US landmarks including the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco, the Sears Tower in Chicago, the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, and the Statue of Liberty. Also apparently unknown to the authorities, another group was active in Italy. In February police arrested nine Moroccans suspected of planning an attack on the US embassy in Rome. An underground tunnel was later discovered that led directly to the embassy. A further source of concern is that al-Qaida's European support network remains largely intact. Fundraising cells, propaganda and recruiting units, safe houses and front charities - essential back-up services to the organisation - are all "still very much intact in western Europe", according to Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism expert at St Andrews University and author of Inside al-Qaida. Experts, however, stress the risk to targets inside Europe itself should not be hyped. Guillaume Dasquié, editor in chief of the Paris-based Intelligence Online, argues that "for al-Qaida, Europe was never a target". Attacks that were in preparation in Paris, Rome and Germany "were not managed by the core of al-Qaida", he said. Islamist guerrillas have killed Europeans since September 11, but they have done so outside Europe: German tourists in Tunisia and French engineers in Pakistan. The only foiled attack launched from Europe itself was that of the "shoe bomber", Richard Reid, who attempted to blow up a Paris-Miami jet. The fact remains that Europe provided a staging post for al-Qaida before September 11 and may to some extent still do so. In Britain security sources say between 200 and 300 British-based Muslims have been to Afghanistan, Chechnya, Kashmir and Yemen to fight and, in some cases, for terrorist training. There, security sources say, they "bonded" with sympathisers and supporters of Bin Laden and al-Qaida. 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