Top al-Qaeda Briton called Tube bombers before attack

[seriousstan]

THE British al-Qaeda leader linked to the London terrorist attacks was being questioned by police in Pakistan last night after the discovery of mobile phone records detailing his calls with the suicide bombers.
Haroon Rashid Aswat has emerged as the figure that Scotland Yard have been hunting since he flew out of Britain just hours before the attacks which killed 56 people.



Aswat, 30, who is believed to come from the same West Yorkshire town as one of the bombers, arrived in Britain a fortnight before the attacks to orchestrate final planning for the atrocity. He spoke to the suicide team on his mobile phone a few hours before the four men blew themselves up and killed fifty-two other people.

Intelligence sources told The Times that during his stay Aswat visited the home towns of all four bombers as well as selecting targets in London.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22989-1702411,00.html

[lockdown]

1. Linked to Abu Hamza no less

the British tabloid's favourite evil Islamic caricature. How convenient.

[lockdown]

5. Odd that the British media haven't went big on this

Search for abu hamza aswat at Google News and there's plenty of links mentioning his reported connection to Abu Hamza, but the only UK source I've noticed from a quick check is the AP feed on The Guardian. Maybe they've been asked not to cover it because he's awaiting trial, or for fear of provoking attacks at mosques? Or maybe it's just overshadowed by the London incidents for now and he'll be glaring from tomorrow's front pages.

[truthisfreedom]

2. i have no reason to bother with conspiracy theories but cell phone records

are just a bunch of easily-manipulated numbers and characters, ultimately. we can't hope to know the truth unless witnesses come forward.

[non sociopath skin]

3. Call me a cynic, but is it not a fact, m'lud ....

... that the loose "structure" of what we might call the "Al Qaeda Tendency" lends itself to dramatic overplay. Thus we hear of "Osama's #2", "The British Leader of Al Qaeda," "The Most Wanted Al Qaeda leader in the States" &c &c as if these were Suits in Lear Jets zooming between air-conditioned office suites in Saudi and Pakistan and Lottery-subsidised branch offices in leafy suburbs.

Quite a kudos thing for a bunch of rather seedy (if dangerous) religious nutcases shuffling around the public transport systems of the world with volatile haversacks.

We shouldn't underestimate the threats but we shouldn't be treating these guys like the New Soviet Union either.

The Skin

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. The amount of detail given here seems prejudicial to any trial in the UK

"THE British al-Qaeda leader linked to the London terrorist attacks" - assumes he is part of this, as you say, amorphous organisation

"arrived in Britain a fortnight before the attacks to orchestrate final planning for the atrocity" - guilty before the trial has even started?

Compare this way The Times has already convicted him with this quote from The Guardian:

It was unclear whether Aswat was also the name used by the so-called "fifth man", a known al-Qaida suspect who was reported to have slipped into the UK through an east coast seaport several weeks before the attacks, but who was not placed under surveillance and flew out on July 6.

UK counter-terrorism officials said they were "interested" in the British detainee, but added that there was no firm evidence to link him to the blasts on three tube trains and a bus two weeks ago.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1532829,00.html