"Tick, Tick Boom" (DHS Failed to Warn UK About Tube Bomb Plot)

[leveymg]

http://www.radaronline.com/web-only/politics/2005/07/tick-tick-boom.php
Tick, Tick Boom
In the wake of 7/7, the Brits are livid over their government’s intelligence failures. Just wait until they hear about ours.

by John Aravosis

SNIP

The British public’s ire over the bombings only increased after it was discovered that police had one of the suspects in custody months ago, but released him after determining he posed no threat. No doubt the Brits will be even more pissed once they realize the Bush administration twice botched efforts that could have helped prevent the attack.

The first screw up was back in 2002. According to the Seattle Times, the US had in its custody at that time Haroon Aswat, a man federal prosecutors believe helped set up a terrorist training camp in Bly, Oregon in late 1999. For reasons no one can quite figure out, John Ashcroft’s Justice Department blocked efforts by its own Seattle-based prosecutors to seek a grand-jury indictment of Aswat. Why is that relevant? Aswat has now been tied to the London bombings (the Brits think he was in cell phone contact with at least two of the bombers in the days preceding the attack).

The second screw up is even more astounding.

Last summer, just after the Democratic convention, then-Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge issued another of his many Code Orange terror alerts. The secretary-who-cried-terrorist was facing increasing criticism for politicizing the terror warnings in the months before the presidential election, so this time he did something different. Secretary Ridge gave the public details, and lots of ‘em.

“Reports indicate that Al Qaeda is targeting several specific buildings,” Ridge said at an August 1, 2004 press conference, “including the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in the District of Columbia; Prudential Financial in Northern New Jersey; and Citigroup buildings and the New York Stock Exchange in New York.”

Those details were enough for the New York Times, in less than twenty-four hours, to uncover and break the rest of the story. The Times reported on August 2 that US officials had announced the terror alert after receiving hard evidence that Al Qaeda was targeting New York and DC financial centers. The evidence came from the laptop computer of Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, the Times said, an Al Qaeda operative arrested in Pakistan several weeks prior who was now working as a US mole inside Al Qaeda. That’s when all hell broke loose.

While it remains unclear who spilled Khan’s name—the Americans blame the Pakistanis, and vice versa—the Times story created a panic in English and Pakistani law enforcement circles. Khan’s Al Qaeda buddies in both countries, upon learning that their friend was a double agent, quickly went into hiding. Both British and Pakistani officials were “furious” with the Americans for helping to unmask their spy, according to the New York Daily News, and the Brits had to launch a series of high-speed chases to catch Khan’s fleeing cabal. A senior Pakistani official told the Associated Press “this intelligence leak jeopardized our plan and some Al Qaeda suspects ran away.”

Now back to 7/7.

There was an important piece of information not revealed last August by either Tom Ridge or the Times. As ABC News reported after the London bombing, Khan’s laptop not only contained information about US financial centers, but also evidence that Al Qaeda was planning to target the London Tube. ABC, of course, forgot the clincher: How Bush’s leaky goon squad sabotaged a multinational operation to thwart what would ultimately become the successful London bombings of July 7, 2005.

SNIP

[fooj]

1. The Brits should be furious at this.

:spank:

[leveymg]

3. Particularly since 2 of the bomb plotters were US informants, and

one had even been supplying explosives to UK al-Qaeda cells.

My post yesterday in response to Blair's comment about how the west has gone back to sleep since 9/11, "drpped it's guard", a perceived laxity on terrorism he claims resulted in the 7/7 attack:

Nope. There are too many guards, running too many double-agents.

Tony knows damned well why 9/11 happened. The CIA, the Saudis, and the Israelis were running several loosely-coordinated penetration operations against al-Qaeda and each other. Other intelligence services were watching. The President was given the option of rolling up the UBL cells during the summer of 2001 - for his own reasons, Bush declined.

So, in order to keep the game going, US counter-terrorism accepted the risks of allowing the 19 to enter the country -- the regular "gumshoe" FBI were intentionally kept out of the loop, and the Bureau liaison at CTC was ordered not to put out alerts. Not knowing what the hell else to do, FBI HQ basically stalled all ongoing CT investigations. The WTC and Pentagon attacks proceeded unhindered.

The lessons were clear. All those double-agents, agents provocateur, consensual monitoring, and simulations created a huge opportunity for someone to put together a workable operational plan. You remove the opportunity by rounding up everyone who might be taken down. You watch the rest very closely. You lock out opposing intelligence services, and keep allies on a very short leash.

Tony Blair ignored these obvious lessons, and the London Bombings occurred as a result. The second wave of attacks - with the unexploded minitions - were something else, something perhaps more sinister.

The buildup to 7/7 involved several US double-agents. This is almost pathetically obvious. Just read between the lines below, you'll see exactly what happened.

Effort here to charge London suspect was blocked

By Hal Bernton and David Heath

Seattle Times staff reporters

The Justice Department blocked efforts by its prosecutors in Seattle in 2002 to bring criminal charges against Haroon Aswat, according to federal law-enforcement officials who were involved in the case.

British authorities suspect Aswat of taking part in the July 7 London bombings, which killed 56 and prompted an intense worldwide manhunt for him.

But long before he surfaced as a suspect there, federal prosecutors in Seattle wanted to seek a grand-jury indictment for his involvement in a failed attempt to set up a terrorist-training camp in Bly, Ore., in late 1999. In early 2000, Aswat lived for a couple of months in central Seattle at the Dar-us-Salaam mosque.

snip

"It was really frustrating," said a former Justice Department official involved in the case. "Guys like that, you just want to sweep them up off the street."

snip

At the time, however, federal prosecutors chose not to indict Aswat for reasons that are not clear. Asked why Aswat wasn't indicted, a federal official in Seattle replied, "That's a great question."

more
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/20023 ...


Pakistani American Aiding London Probe
Man in U.S. Custody Has Ties to Al Qaeda
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20 ...

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 25, 2005; Page A14

It is safe to assume that most people would not react to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in quite the same way as Mohammed Junaid Babar.

SNIP

Thus began the strange jihadist odyssey of Babar, 30, a naturalized U.S. citizen and Yankees fan who said he gave up a $70,000-a-year job as a computer programmer to join al Qaeda operatives in plotting attacks against U.S. soldiers and targets in Britain.

Now in U.S. custody after pleading guilty to terrorism charges last year, Babar has proved invaluable to U.S. and British investigators probing this month's attacks on the London transit system, numerous officials said. He has identified at least one of the suicide bombers, Mohammed Sidique Khan, through photographs and has provided other details that may be helpful in unraveling the plot, according to law enforcement and intelligence sources.

The revelation that Babar is linked to the July 7 London attacks, which killed at least 56 including the four suicide bombers, is only the latest connection to emerge between the grandson of Pakistani immigrants and al Qaeda.

In addition to his connection to the London bombers, Babar has admitted in court proceedings to supplying bomb-making materials to a Pakistani cell in the United Kingdom that had plotted to blow up restaurants, pubs and train stations there. (When the cell was broken up in 2004, British authorities discovered more than 1,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, the same material used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.) Furthermore, Babar said in federal court in Manhattan during a plea hearing last summer that he spent much of 2003 and early 2004 in the Waziristan province of Pakistan, supplying money and materials -- including night-vision goggles, sleeping bags and other items -- to "a high-ranking al Qaeda official" for use in the fight against U.S. and Northern Alliance forces across the border in Afghanistan. He also admitted to setting up a jihad training camp in the region, a court transcript shows.

Babar also is believed to have links to Issa al-Hindi, the operative involved in surveillance of financial buildings in the United States before the Sept. 11 attacks.

"This guy's connection to different cells and plots just seems to be expanding," said one U.S. law enforcement official, who declined to be identified because parts of the case are classified. "He is the fish that is getting bigger."

Although his arrest and prosecution last year in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York went largely unnoticed, U.S. counterterrorism and law enforcement officials say they have long recognized Babar's importance as a link to major al Qaeda players.

In an interview last fall, Frances Fragos Townsend, now the White House national security adviser, pointed to the Babar case as an example of a major prosecution. Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey also said in an interview during the same period that Babar's case provided a lesson on the importance of greater surveillance powers for the government, citing evidence that he checked e-mail at a library despite having access in his home.

SNIP

U.S. counterterrorism officials said Babar first hit their radar screen in late 2001, after the incendiary comments he made to ITN were broadcast. But it was not until April 2004, after Babar had returned to New York and was put under surveillance by the FBI, that he was arrested.

Babar has told authorities that he recognized Khan, one of the London bombers, as a person he met in Pakistan and that he accompanied him to a jihad camp in the area, sources said.

Although Babar could face as many as 70 years in prison, he is likely to receive a lesser sentence for cooperating with U.S. authorities, and a sentencing date has not been scheduled, officials said.

Not a word in The Post today about the other guy in Seattle who the US arrested and Ashcroft let go. Haroon Aswat and a confederate ended up as a central figure in the London bombing. ((http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph ...

The Seattle Time story, updated version here: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/20023 ...

These revelations show how deeply entwined US intelligence operatives have become in the London cells. It also shows that MI-5 and DHS have a long way to go before they learn how to prevent international terrorist attacks. Obviously, allowing double-agents to run around the world isn't the way to do things. If I were a British MP, I would demand answers of Mr. Blair. If I were Mr. Blair, I might recall the Ambassador from Washington.

[Karenina]

6. What a tangled web...

:kick:

[aquart]

2. They don't really GET 'national security.'

Ever since Nixon staffed the White House from advertising agencies, Republicns only care about PR.

[Baconfoot]

4. If I didn't "know" better I'd say they actively work against it. N/T

[Moderator]

5. leveymg

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