On Sun, 10 Jul 2005 08:17:58 -0400, America the Beautiful
wrote:
This is an important read!
For a Decade, London Thrived as a Busy Crossroads of Terror
LONDON, July 9 - Long before bombings ripped through London on Thursday,
Britain had become a breeding ground for hate, fed by a militant version
of Islam.
For two years, extremists like Sheik Omar Bakri Mohammed, a
47-year-old Syrian-born cleric, have played to ever-larger crowds,
calling for holy war against Britain and exhorting young Muslim men to
join the insurgency in Iraq. In a newspaper interview in April 2004, he
warned that "a very well-organized" London-based group, Al Qaeda Europe,
was "on the verge of launching a big operation" here.
In a sermon attended by more than 500 people in a central London meeting
hall last December, Sheik Omar vowed that if Western governments did not
change their policies, Muslims would give them "a 9/11, day after day
after day."
If London became a magnet for fiery preachers, it also became a
destination for men willing to carry out their threats. For a decade,
the city has been a crossroads for would-be terrorists who used it as a
home base, where they could raise money, recruit members and draw
inspiration from the militant messages.
Among them were terrorists involved in attacks in Madrid, Casablanca,
Saudi Arabia, Israel and in the Sept. 11 plot. Zacarias Moussaoui, the
only man charged in the United States in the 9/11 attacks, and Richard
C. Reid, the convicted shoe-bomber, both prayed at the Finsbury Park
mosque in north London. The mosque's former leader, Abu Hamza al-Masri
openly preached violence for years before the authorities arrested him
in April 2004.
Although Britain has passed a series of antiterrorist and immigration
laws and made nearly 800 arrests since Sept. 11, 2001, critics have
charged that its deep tradition of civil liberties and protection of
political activists have made the country a haven for terrorists. The
British government has drawn particular criticism from other countries
over its refusal to extradite terrorism suspects.
For years, there was a widely held belief that Britain's tolerance
helped stave off any Islamic attacks at home. But the anger of London's
militant clerics turned on Britain after it offered unwavering support
for the American-led invasion of Iraq. On Thursday morning, an attack
long foreseen by worried counterterrorism officials became a reality.
"The terrorists have come home," said a senior intelligence official
based in Europe, who works often with British officials. "It is payback
time for a policy that was, in my opinion, an irresponsible policy of
the British government to allow these networks to flourish inside Britain."
Those policies have been a matter of intense debate within the
government, with the courts, the Blair government and members of
Parliament frequently opposing one another.
For example, when the Parliament considered a bill in March that would
have allowed the government to impose tough controls on terror suspects
- like house arrests, curfews and electronic tagging - some legislators
objected, saying it would erode civil liberties. "It does not secure the
nation," William Cash, of the House of Commons, said of the bill. "It is
liable to create further trouble and dissension among those whom we are
seeking to control - the terrorists." The measure is still pending.
Investigators examining Thursday's attacks, which left at least 49 dead
and 700 injured, are pursuing a theory that the bombers were part of a
homegrown sleeper cell, which may or may not have had foreign support
for the bomb-making phase of the operation.
If that theory proves true, it would reflect the transformation of the
terror threat around Europe. With much of Al Qaeda's hierarchy either
captured or killed, a new, more nimble terrorist force has emerged on
the continent, comprising mostly semiautonomous, Qaeda-inspired local
groups that are believed to be operating in France, Switzerland, Spain,
Italy and other countries.
"Terrorists are not strangers, foreigners," said Bruno Lemaire, adviser
to Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin of France. "They're insiders,
well integrated inside the country."
Another senior intelligence official based in Europe said the fear was
that there would be additional attacks in other European cities by
homegrown sleeper cells inspired by Al Qaeda and by the attacks in
Casablanca, Madrid and now London.
"This is exactly what we are going to witness in Europe: most of the
attacks will be carried out by local groups, the people who have been
here for a long time, well integrated into the fabric of society," the
official said.
I watched Ken Livingstone (Mayor of London) on TV making an
emotional statement about the London bombing whilst evoking the
image of a multicultural community suffering together. I thought
what a hypocrit. He is the one who publicly embraced, in London,
Yusuf al-Qaradawi a Muslim cleric who supports suicide bombing.
For example:
'Qaradawi on use of Children in Suicide Bombing: "We cannot say
that the [Israeli suicide bombing] casualties were innocent civilians.
They are not civilians or innocent"; "The Israelis might have nuclear
bombs but we have the children bomb." ‘Life and Religion’ discussion
programme, Al-Jazeera TV 28/4/02 As transcribed and translated in Al
Jazeera programme debates Arab stand on infitadah, suicide bombers
BBC Monitoring 30/4/02'.
As a consequence Livingstone has been in dispute with a substantial
constituency of London citizens ranging from Gays to Jews, Muslims
and Hindus since 2004. Here are a few links dealing with this
dispute.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programme...ht/3875119.stm
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/enc...-Qaradawi1.htm
http://www.matthiaskuentzel.de/artikel.php?artikelID=30
http://www.london.gov.uk/view_press_...releaseid=3862
http://www.universityracism.multiser...t/Qaradawi.htm
http://www.wpiran.org/wb177%20Living...20and%20us.htm
http://www.londoncommunitycoalition.org/
http://www.axt.org.uk/HateMusic/essa...timisation.htm
I wonder if Livingstone would embrace Qaradawi today? Should
Livingstone now do the honorable thing and go?