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14-07-2005 The Scotsman Attacker 'was recruited' at terror group's religious school By Gethin Chamberlain Chief News Correspondent ONE of the suicide bombers who struck in London was probably recruited when he attended a religious school in Pakistan with strong links to al-Qaeda and its south-east Asian offshoot Jemaah Islamiyyah, The Scotsman can reveal. Security sources in Pakistan are investigating a tip-off that Shehzad Tanweer attended a religious school run by the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) during a recent visit to the country. The group's founder has publicly stated that he believes suicide bombing to be the "best form of jihad [holy war]". The revelation came as Pakistan claimed that it helped thwart a terrorist attack in Britain before the May general election, and that its intervention led to arrests in several countries. However, Pakistani authorities refused to comment on reports that the UK was seeking access to Zeeshan Siddiqu, a 25-year-old British national arrested in May near Peshawar. Yesterday, British police and security services were concentrating their efforts on tracing the man who masterminded the attacks. They now know the identity of all four bombers but are understood to be looking for a fifth man who appears on the CCTV footage from King's Cross. His picture has been distributed to police in London. There was also a fresh warning from Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, that a "large number" of people in Britain had been through radical camps abroad. "We have to understand that these foot soldiers who have done this are only one element of an organisation that is bringing about this kind of mayhem in our society," he said. "And we have to attack the people who are driving it, organising it, manipulating those people." Mr Clarke dismissed as "completely and utterly untrue" claims that he had told EU colleagues some of the bombers had previously been subject to "partial arrest". But there were suggestions that one of the bombers had previously been linked to a suspect in a separate anti-terrorist inquiry. The family of Shehzad Tanweer - whose bomb killed six people on a Circle Line train to Aldgate last Thursday - were yesterday said to have been "left shattered" by the news that the 22-year-old was a suicide bomber. His uncle, 65-year-old Bashir Ahmed, said his nephew went to Lahore in Pakistan for two months earlier this year to study religion, but was "proud to be British". Pakistani investigators suspect that Tanweer attended one of the many madrassas, or religious schools, run by LeT, which is based in Lahore. The group, which also operates under the name Jamaat ud-Daawa (the party of preaching), has close ties with al-Qaeda and access to munitions and safe houses. Abu Zubaydah, a senior al-Qaeda lieutenant, was seized in an LeT safe house in Faisalabad in March 2002. The group has also been linked with Hamas and Jemaah Islamiyyah, and Indian security forces believe it is playing a significant role in channelling militants into Iraq. Most of its membership of several thousand have been through madrassas in Pakistan, and many are familiar with the use of explosives. The group maintains links with other terrorist networks and it is known to solicit donations from the Pakistani community in the UK through its charitable wing. LeT was founded by Hafiz Saeed, a former professor at Lahore's University of Engineering Technology. In April 2003, he defended the use of suicide bombing, saying: "Suicide missions are in accordance with Islam. In fact, a suicide attack is the best form of jihad. "Jihad is prescribed in the Quran. Muslims are required to take up arms against the oppressor. The powerful western world is terrorising the Muslims. We are being invaded, humiliated, manipulated, and looted. How else can we respond but through jihad?" The group runs a number of madrassas, including the Darasitul Islamia madrassa, where six Malaysian students were arrested in 2003 on suspicion of training for Jemaah Islamiyyah activities in Malaysia and Indonesia. Hafiz Saeed was delivering a sermon at the madrassa on the day of the arrests. Meanwhile, the biggest concern for police and the security services is that the bombers could have been acting on the orders of an al-Qaeda mastermind and there may be another bomb team waiting to strike. The Home Secretary said the security services were checking telephone records to establish whether the bombers were part of a larger organisation. Alan Capps, editor-in-chief at the US Homeland Security Institute, said he believed the British authorities would be looking for two more people - one the bomb-maker and the other the leader who would keep the four bombers focused on their task - though they were likely to have left the country a few days before the attack. "One is a strong personality, probably well educated, easily able to blend into an international community, confident of himself and well travelled," he said. "The other is probably well educated in the technical aspects of creating devices, confident about handling explosives and also probably blends into the community, clearly with a technical background, possibly educated in the West." He said investigators would want to examine where the explosives came from, which could give a better picture of who they were dealing with. And he warned that the bombers were unlikely to have been the only cell. "I am sure that there are other cells either in the process of being formed or already up and running and at different stages of preparation," he said. "I think we have to assume that this was part of the al-Qaeda franchise." Police were yesterday giving out few new details about their investigation, but an MP disclosed that one of the houses being searched by officers in Leeds had been used by the terrorists as an operational base. Greg Mulholland, MP for Leeds North West, said: "I understand this is where the material may have been stored." Yesterday, Colin Cramphorn, the West Yorkshire chief constable, said there remained a "potential threat of an explosion" at the search scene. By last night, ten of the victims of the London bombings had been formally named but Dr Andrew Reid, the Inner North London coroner, warned that it may take weeks to identify some of the others. The names of all four bombers have now emerged. They were Tanweer, 22, Mohammed Sadique Khan, 30, and Hasib Hussain, 18. A fourth man was named in Leeds as Eliaz Fiaz, also known as "Jacksy". Last night, detectives interviewing a 29-year-old man arrested in Leeds on Monday in connection with the bombings were granted a further three days to question him. A spokesman for Tony Blair said the Prime Minister was "shocked" to learn the bombers were born and raised in the UK, adding: "He is determined that we should take on this extremism. It is his view that this is not a problem that is limited to this country, but it is a symptom of a much bigger problem and we need to look at that. This problem didn't start in this society, in this country. It started beyond our shores." |
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................................................................................................................. Copyright ©2004 Gethin Chamberlain. All rights reserved. |
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