Those London Bombers on a Watch List?

[niallmac]

In no way meaning any disrespect to my friends in the UK; were the people involved in the bombings suspects to any degree prior to the tragedy? Would a plane have been turned around mid atlantic if they were on it? if as I suspect the answer is no then is not the amorphous nature of the 'enemy' frighteningly and unarguably defined now as perhaps beyond the new world police powers inherited by the mere destruction of all our civil liberties and remaining dignity? Can I now have my privacy in a library back? Can we try plan 'B': confine the chase to the perps and use the extra time we will have to understand who the hell our enemies are and what drives the hatred? Seems to me Plan A; Kill everyone who we don't care for, is not working so well.

[pocket]

1. France arrested them, and England had them set loose

they were ALLOWED to complete their mission

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. Have you a source for that? (n/t)

[pocket]

4. I sure do!

http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/newspolitics/tm_objectid=15733904&method=full&siteid=50082&headline=clarke-denies-bombers-arrested-name_page.html

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. No, that doesn't claim that France arrested them

nor does it claim that Britain set them loose. It says that the French Interior Minister had claimed that they had been arrested, without saying who by, and the British said they hadn't. This story says it all happened in Britain, and for things unrelated to terrorism (so may not have been what Sarkozy was refering to):

British Home Secretary Charles Clarke strongly denied a reported statement by French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy that he (Clarke) had told a Europran Union counter-terrorism meeting on July 13 that some of the bombers had been arrested last year by British police.

Following this denial, Sarkozy clarified that he did not say that Clarke had said this, but he had only said that he (Sarkozy) had heard that some of them had been arrested last year. According to the BBC, Shehzad Tanweer was arrested by the local police in 2004 for disorderly conduct and cautioned. Hasib Hussain, reportedly a good friend of Shehzad Tanweer, was arrested in 2004 for shoplifting and released after a caution.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GG16Df04.html

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. Whether anyone was on an American watch list, I don't know

The police say they have a specific man as a suspect for being the organiser (though they haven't named him), who was on a 'watch list' here - but it only meant hisarrivla in the country was noted.

Detectives also revealed that a suspected al-Qaeda operative entered Britain via a channel port two weeks before the attack. Although his name was on a security watch list he was not put under surveillance, as he was not regarded as being of sufficiently high risk. He is believed to have left the country hours before the attacks.

Intelligence leads suggest that the four British bombers were approached by the mastermind of the attacks, a British Pakistani Muslim, while they were abroad.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22989-1695383_2,00.html

And ABC News in the USA say one of the bombers was linked to arrests made last year (the arrests were hurried, because the USA revealed the name of the Pakistani computer specialist, to justify raising the alert level for the Democratic convention, and 5 men got away)

ABC News, citing unidentified officials, reported that the attacks were connected to an al-Qaida plot planned two years ago in Lahore, Pakistan. Names on a computer seized last year from Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, an alleged Pakistani computer expert for al-Qaida, matched a suspected cell of young Britons of Pakistani origin, the report said.

Authorities have now discovered ties between Mohammed Sidique Khan - one of the July 7 bombers - and members of that suspected cell, ABC said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5142867,00.html