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Wokeman
Trustworthy Freedom Fighter
Joined: 27 Jul 2005
Posts: 881
Location: Woking, Surrey, UK
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 Posted: Sun Jan 01, 2006 5:32 pm Post subject: Were MI6 Double Agents Involved In 7/7 Bombings |
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According to American terrorism expert John Loftus the British born Haroon Aswat was undoubtedly an MI6 asset. A member of Al-Muhajiroun, the same organisation as the infamous Captain Hook. Aswat joined in 1995 and was involved in MI6 activity during the conflict in Kosovo in the late nineties.
The American authorities want Aswat extradited for conspiring to set up terrorist training camps. Loftus spoke of dismay amongst US intelligence circles with regard to Aswat being allowed to stay in Britain and fly in and out around the time of the bombings in London.
Loftus and many other sources have stated that Haroon Aswat is thought to be the mastermind of the 7th July attacks. It is naive to think that Aswat could have masterminded the attacks in London alone, but one would assume the British police would at least want to interrogate him. This appears not to be the case. See Aswat archive.
Quote from Loftus interview Fox News 29.7.05:
"The entire British police are out chasing him, and one wing of the British government, MI6 or the British Secret Service has been hiding him. And this has been a real source of contention between the CIA, the Justice Department, and Britain."
Due to the ever-present government/media disinformation it is hard to gauge the full truth of this matter, but my guess is that the British based terrorist the BBC report that Khan met, whilst being filmed in 2004, was Aswat. Not British based all the time, but he certainly had a license to come and go. The details of the terrorist can't be given due to legal reasons which would tally up with Aswat's current predicament.
A source that I can not name has reported that Khan had been asked by MI6 to meet with Aswat as part of an infiltration operation. I feel it is likely that this meeting was staged in order to frame Khan, so that in the future he could be proved to have terrorist links. MI5 had Khan under surveillance at certain times prior to 7th July. If he was working for MI6 infiltrating terrorist networks then would MI5 know about it? The answer is almost definitely no.
Imagine this - MI6 stage a meeting between Khan and Aswat, MI6 tip off MI5 (not unusual) and then MI5 take footage of the meeting. To those at MI5 Khan is for certain a potential terrorist. To the few at MI6 Khan is assisting in infiltrating 'known' terrorists, whilst also being set up to be a patsy. Khan may have been duped in to thinking he was going to be part of a sting operation or terrorism drill on the 7th July. This is my speculation based on the information that has come my way.
It would seem that Aswat has been betrayed by MI6 if indeed he was still a double agent. On one of the most important days of the Muslim calendar Aswat appeared in Bow Street magistrates' court, central London to attend the formal opening of his extradition hearing, the next hearing is on the 24th November. Already sounding disorientated, by the time he is through with Belmarsh he'll probably be deported to Guantanamo Bay where he'll likely lose his sanity within a short period.
Predictably Aswat's actions around the 7/7 bombings, his knowledge of any MI6 involvement and his possible connections with the four alleged bombers will never see the light of officialdom.
It is looking like an 'intelligence failure' scenario is being set up. Trickles of evidence from Al Qaeda goons such as Nasir Abbas are slipping in, presumably influenced by jail term concessions and forced confessions. Not forgetting the PDA with the 7/7 plans found in Iraq, the pathetic website claim and of course the all star cast of al-Zawahir featuring Khan.
As is now becoming apparent Khan and the other three men had been under surveillance up to a year before the 7th. What is intriguing is the length of time this key information has gone unreported. As ever the security source cannot be confirmed. Shortly after the 7th it was noted that MI5 did have Khan under surveillance in 2004. The latest information is implying that Khan had been heavily involved in terrorist activities since at least 2001.
Pertinent information has persisted to drip out somewhat delicately. How many of these elusive security sources can we really believe?
Source BBC: Khan, "Had extensive contacts with an international Jihadi network which British intelligence either missed or ignored."
Slowly but surely the predictable picture of men linked with global Islamic extremist terrorism has been painted. Everything is slotting in to place to form the basis of an intelligence failure - 'we need more money, more resources, more laws because you know we almost got 'em but due to man power etc etc'. |
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Sinclair
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Joined: 10 Aug 2005
Posts: 395
Location: La piscina de vivo
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| Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 1:19 pm Post subject: Oh what a tangled web they weave... |
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I see that Aswat is in the news today http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4583520.stm
| Quote: | Briton facing extradition to US
Mr Aswat was initially detained in Lusaka jail in Zambia
A British terror suspect can be extradited to the US, a judge at Bow Street Magistrates court has ruled.
US authorities say Haroon Rashid Aswat, 31, tried to set up a camp in Oregon between 1999 and 2000 to train people to fight in Afghanistan.
Home Secretary Charles Clarke has up to two months to approve the extradition of Mr Aswat, of Dewsbury, Yorkshire.
Mr Aswat, who denies the charges, was deported from Zambia in August after he was arrested and held in Lusaka jail.
Mr Aswat's lawyers said that the terror suspect would appeal against the decision by District Judge Timothy Workman.
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It is a tangled web that surrounds Aswat; the article at http://www.westernresistance.com/blog/archives/000050.html discusses the John Loftus revelations & also links to an article at http://www.newcriminologist.co.uk/news.asp?id=1124824797 which has an obvious Photoshoped photo of Aswat in a taxicab with Dr. Hook (Abu Hamza) of the Finsbury Park Mosque.
I believe that Aswat & others were involved in a Honeytrap to sign up British Muslims. I have undertaken some limited research on the subject but it goes round in circles.
I came across a passage from the book Synthetic Terror by Webster Tarpley:
| Quote: | BRITISH TERROR SCOOLS FOR PATSIES
A window into the London state-sponsored synthetic terror milieu came in December 2001, when British authorities were forced to arrest and question Mark Yates, a selfstyled security expert who ran a firearms training camp in Alabama. Yates was suspected of helping Islamic terrorist patsies from Britain who were to hone their marksmanship skills on American soil before going off to fight for Islamic causes around the globe. Yates, a British bodyguard and firearms trainer who had operations in both the United Kingdom and the United States, allegedly offered “live fire” weapons training in America for aspiring holy warriors. British police thought that Yates was involved on the US end of the “Ultimate Jihad Challenge” training program offered on the London market by the Sakina Security Services company, owned by Suleiman Bilal Zain-ul-abidin. Yates, who was also the operations and training director at the Ground Zero firearms training camp outside Marion, Alabama, denied everything. “Ultimate Jihad Challenge” included instruction in “art of bone breaking,” and learning to “improvise explosive devices.”
British Moslems would be given the opportunity to squeeze off up to 3,000 rounds at a shooting range in the United States before heading off to fight for Islamic causes around the world. “All serious firearms training must be done overseas” because of British gun laws, advertising for the course noted. British prosecutors said their investigators had searched Zain-ul-abidin’s apartment and seized documents believed to be related to suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network, anti-Semitic material and what appeared to be disabled firearms, including a rifle and two handguns.
The Sunday Telegraph reported about another military training course, this time at a secret camp near the village of Yetgoch in southern Wales. Young Moslems and others learned how to use Uzi machine guns at the camp, which was run by Trans Global Security International.
The reports of the Welsh training camp rekindled a debate in Britain over how the UK had become a hotbed for military recruitment by radical Islamic elements. Sheik Omar Bakri Mohammed, a firebrand Islamic leader in London, founder of the fundamentalist al-Muhajiroun organization, and Bin Laden’s sometime spokesman, said in 2000 that between 1,800 and 2,000 British Moslems were going abroad each year for military training. “We find young men in university classes or mosques, invite them for a meal and discuss … ongoing attacks being suffered by Moslems in Chechnya, Palestine or Kashmir,” Bakri Mohammed said. “We … make them understand their duty to support the jihad (holy war) struggle verbally, financially and, if they can, physically in order to liberate their homeland.” Bakri’s al-Muhajiroun group, like al Qaeda, advocated wiping out the world’s 50-plus existing Moslem-majority states and replacing them with a single “khilafah” (caliphate), or Islamic state. (Sunday Telegraph, MSNBC, December 27, 2001)
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See also this comprehensive Xymphora posting
http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2003/01/sulayman-balal-zainulabidin-is-de ad.html for more info on Aswat, & Sakina Security Services etc.
Sakina Security Services was also raised within a question in the UK House of Commons (with a typical woolly answer given) see http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm200102/cmhansrd /vo011113/text/11113w11.htm
I'd be interested if anyone has any other research leads into any of the above. Within all this, lies the honeypot to the recruitment of British Mulim Patsies who may possibly have been (unknowingly) involved in the 7/7 events |
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ian neal
Angel - now passed away
Joined: 26 Jul 2005
Posts: 3140
Location: UK
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| Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 7:08 pm Post subject: |
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Good stuff Sinclair, keep digging.
IMO we shouldn't jump to any conclusions on Mr Aswat or John Loftus, but continue to follow the story and if necessary approach John Loftus for his opinion with any questions.
Key to getting 7/7 investigated openly and in a way that considers the possibility that it was false flag terrorism is demonstrating on provable historical evidence that MI6 and other western security agencies have been involved in promoting domestic false flag terror previously (as demonstrated in part by Operation Gladio and its involvement in Irish Terror . Further sources 1, 2 |
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Prole
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Joined: 07 Oct 2005
Posts: 632
Location: London UK
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| Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2006 11:10 am Post subject: James McLintock and Martin Abdullah McDaid |
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Ummmm, maybe just a coincidence but both James McLintock (aka Mohammed Yacoub) and Martin Abdullah McDaid (anti-terrorist, ex-army special forces trained) ran bookshops and study groups in Leeds.
| Quote: |
Deccan Herald » Foreign
Asian leaders say investigate convert’s links
From Shyam Bhatia
DH News Service London:
Scotland born James McLintock who converted to Islam was arrested near the Afghan border in December 2001 but let off a month later.
Asian community leaders in the UK have asked police to examine links between a white convert to Islam and Islamic study groups in the city of Leeds that were attended by one of the July 7 London suicide bombers.
The request for a police investigation follows the disclosure that Scotland born James McLintock, who changed his name to Mohammed Yacoub shortly before moving to Pakistan, was in charge of the study groups attended by suspected ringleader of the July 7 London suicide bombings Mohammed Sidique Khan.
Khan, a teaching assistant in the Beeston suburb of Leeds, was at 30 the oldest of the July 7 suicide bombers who included Shehzad Tanweer, Hasib Hussain and Germaine Lindsay Jamal.
Community leaders, who have been delving into the background of each of the suicide bombers, say they hope police will look into the newly disclosed links between McLintock and the Leeds study groups.
McLintock, who lived in nearby Bradford in the 1990s, was arrested by Pakistani police near the Afghan border in December 2001 and questioned by the CIA and Scotland Yard anti-terrorism officers. He claimed he was working for a charity and was released a month later.
Two years ago he was arrested in Manchester and questioned by police investigating possible al-Qaeda links but released without charge. He has always denied having terrorist links or knowledge of terrorist activity. |
http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/aug162005/foreign175632005815 .asp
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Yacoub lived in Bradford during the mid-1990s. By 2000 he was working in nearby Leeds at a second Islamic bookshop called Rays of Truth with a fellow Muslim convert, Martin Abdullah McDaid. |
| Quote: |
McDaid, a former special forces soldier, was also closely linked to the Iqra bookshop and knew the three Leeds-based bombers. When The Sunday Times approached him about Yacoub last week, McDaid said: “Whether he was at the Iqra bookstore or not is none of your business — you should fear Allah.”
A former friend of Khan’s said: “Yacoub was definitely giving study circles. I remember walking past the Iqra shop one day. I asked who was giving the talk and a brother said it was Yacoub. Other brothers I know were also aware that Yacoub was giving study circles. |
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1734327,00.html
_________________
'The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought'. JFK |
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Prole
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Posts: 632
Location: London UK
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| Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2006 11:45 am Post subject: More on McDaid |
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According to this from the NY Times, Martin Abdullah McDaid, is not just ex-army or special forces trained but:
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"They don't know whether they're Muslim or British or both," said Martin McDaid, a former antiterrorist operative who converted to Islam, taking the name Abdullah, and worked in the neighborhood. |
Except McDaid didn't just work in the neighbourhood, he ran the Iqra Bookshop.
| Quote: |
Mr. McDaid, who worked at the bookshop, said it was intended only to raise awareness and passions - among Muslims and the British establishment alike - about the oppression of Muslims around the world. |
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This notion recurs in the materials circulated by Islamic bookshops and on the Internet. DVD's produced and distributed by Iqra juxtapose images from the Crusades with images of war-mutilated Muslims. A cross drips blood over Afghanistan. In one DVD are images of what Mr. McDaid called "mujahedeen," Muslims fighting in an array of conflicts, but he insisted those images were not on the copies given away. |
NY Times
_________________
'The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought'. JFK |
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Sinclair
Moderate Poster
Joined: 10 Aug 2005
Posts: 395
Location: La piscina de vivo
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| Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2006 1:02 pm Post subject: Honeypot |
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The nefarious activities of certain islamic individuals/converts/companies/study groups etc. is certainly a factor in the background of the July 2005 events. Events were happening in this field around 2001...(eg links with the American training camps run by Mark Yates & the Washington Beltway sniper).
Questions have been asked in the UK parliament regarding these topics, by Andrew Dismore the Labour MP for Hendon (anyone in his constituency who could enquire further?), with wooly responses....
From http://www.theyworkforyou.com/search/?s=sakina
| Quote: | Written answers
Tuesday, 13 November 2001
Home Department
Al-Muhajiroun
Andrew Dismore (Hendon, Lab) Hansard source
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will investigate
(1) the links between (a) Medina Ltd, TransGlobal Security International, Mark Yates and Paul Field and (b) Sakina Security Services Ltd, Al-Muhajiroun, and Omar Bakri Mohammed; and if he will make a statement;
(2) the activities of TransGlobal Security International; and if he will make a statement;
(3) the links between Anil Shah and Sakina Security Services; and if he will make a statement.
John Denham (Minister of State (Police, Courts and Drugs), Home Office) Hansard source
I have been in close touch with the relevant enforcement units, following their work in monitoring and evaluating any information that might be used in connection with any prosecution. The investigation of any alleged criminal offences is of course entirely a matter for the police. Any information that my hon. Friend is aware of which might assist the police in their investigations should be supplied to my Department immediately. |
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Prole
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Joined: 07 Oct 2005
Posts: 632
Location: London UK
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| Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2006 7:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | EXCLUSIVE: BOMBERS AND THE SPECIAL FORCES SOLDIER
They worked in same bookshop
By Lucy Thornton
A FORMER Royal Marine, who converted to Islam, last night denied preaching violence to the four London bombers.
Martin McDaid, who also served in the Special Boat Service, said he knew the four terrorists but had no negative involvement with them and was totally against violence.
Mr McDaid, who now calls himself Abdullah, said he worked several hours a week at the Iqra bookshop in Beeston, Leeds, where the four terrorists lurked.
It was raided by police after the London atrocities.
Mr McDaid said: "They left the bookshop before I even joined."
He said Mohammed Sidique Khan, who blew up the Edgware Road Tube train, fell out with the bookshop manager over the September 11 attacks in America. "He (Khan) said he agreed with it and the manager didn't. It was only Mr Khan then, the other three weren't even on the scene. They then stopped speaking to us.
"They had also been ostracised by the mosques in Beeston, who did not agree with their views."
Mr McDaid said he was upset that he and the Iqra bookshop had been linked with the bombings. "It's not true. We are totally against any violence."
The bearded ex-squaddie said he had served in the Royal Marines for 10 years.
"I'm an ex-anti-terrorist operator. I spent one and a half years with the Special Forces - with the Special Boat Service. I finished nearly 15 years ago."
Asked about his picture being taken with the four bombers, he said he was the educationalist at the Hamara Islamic Centre and was responsible for taking many youngsters out on field trips. "I know a lot of people," he said. "I know 600 people in this grand mosque alone. Yes, I know these four and I spoke to them to say "hi and bye'.
"Whatever views they held, they did not make them widely known. They even came to the grand mosque a few days before. They were polite.
"I also met Jermaine Lindsay (the King's Cross bomber) twice at the mosque. He played with the kids for an hour and everyone talked about his smile. It's very strange how these four came together.
"I also know the Egyptian from the chemist. Yes he is a bio-chemist working on enzymes. But he is not a bomb maker.
"I do not know how this guy has been implicated.
"Nothing can upset him, he is so sweet."
"We need to find the person who is really behind it. We need to find out who taught them. We are all worried that this person is lurking around teaching other people. The Muslim community wants to find this person as much as everyone else"
Wearing green robes with white trainers, the bearded former soldier denied preaching hatred and distributing hate-filled DVDs. He also denied any money from the bookshop had been used for anything illegal.
As for preaching hatred and being anti-America and anti-Israel he added: "I am against oppression of any sort.
"The videos are internet material. It was collated so the public would have easy reference information that is not normally available."
He admitted knowing Naveed Fiaz, who also ran the bookshop and has been quizzed by police since the bombings.
He added: "There is no charge against him. He runs the bookshop, he works with me. I am totally against violence of this sort and I completely condemn these acts.
"There were innocent people at the centre of those atrocities. Those people have no part in anything like this."
"I served this country in so many different conflicts. I would rather do someone a good turn than a bad one.
"These people have now passed away and they will be judged for what they have done. They will be judged by God".
A man, who did not wish to be named, said he had been preached to by McDaid but it had not been extreme.
He said: "He would be behind the counter wearing western clothes, and would tell me to make sure I prayed and attended the mosque.
"He was always quite pleasant."
The Ministry of Defence said it could not identify current or former members of the armed services. |
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=15760968&method=full&siteid=9 4762&headline=exclusive--bombers-and-the-special-forces-soldier-name_p age.html
_________________
'The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought'. JFK |
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Prole
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Posts: 632
Location: London UK
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| Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2006 10:45 pm Post subject: White water rafting anyone? |
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Martin Abdullah McDaid was a member of the SBS, a more elite and secret service than the SAS according to it's website:
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Her majesty's government hold the SBS in higher regard than the SAS, and there is one important reason for this. The recruits for the SBS are of a higher calibre due to the fact that they have already been through the arduous training required to become a Royal Marine commando in the first place. Members of the SAS are drafted from all areas of the British Army and therefore would have received inferior basic training to those members of The Royal Marines who have already attended the longest basic infantry course within NATO and indeed the world.
There is another reason why the SBS is regarded higher than the SAS, and this is the contrast between the regiments attitudes to service. Because the SAS are forever in the public eye, members of the regiment usually have inflated egos. This has been known to regularly interfere in their professionalism, most notably during the Falklands conflict where order were disregarded on many occasions, putting the task force deployed at enormous risk. The Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher straight away put heavy reliance on the SBS due to the fact that she now held a great deal of mistrust for the SAS.
Selection for the SBS is also more arduous in comparison of that undertaken by the SAS. Not only do recruits have to cover the syllabus required to become a member of the SAS, they also have to be educated in methods of diving, submarine insertion, advanced marine reconnaissance, canoeing and other specialist waterborne methods of warfare.
As far as the amalgamation of the special forces goes, this is as good a speculation. If it was to happen, an SBS officer would most certainly be in charge of the newly formed regiment. Although training has become more integrated between the two services, SAS servicemen still feel a certain amount of jealousy for not being able to become SBS members, and tensions between the two regiments exist today stronger than ever!
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) keeps the SBS regiment size down to 250 in strength. This is to maximise efficiency, mobility and the level of secrecy, which the SAS can never have due to it's sheer size in numbers and profile in the public eye. High profile missions are therefore always undertaken by the SAS, but the ones that really do directly relate to the security of the United Kingdom and the safety of Her majesty ( the missions which are kept secret in order to prevent panic within the nation!) are always, in my experience anyway, undertaken by members of the SBS Regiment.
I Hope that I have been able to convince you. Also there is reading material avaliable, a book entilted "Not by Strength but by Guile" by a former collegue of mine, written in an attempt to set the record straight about which is the most elite service. |
http://www.specialoperations.com/Foreign/United_Kingdom/Royal_Marines/ SBS.htm
_________________
'The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought'. JFK |
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Sinclair
Moderate Poster
Joined: 10 Aug 2005
Posts: 395
Location: La piscina de vivo
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| Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2006 12:39 am Post subject: More White water rafting ? |
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Prole, good digging on the 'bombers' & the special forces soldier links.
here is some info I unearthed a while back on locations of 'training facilities' in Wales.......
From the post by Welsh Witch, postedon Fri Aug 05 at http://www.travelbuzz.biz/bb/ftopic4515-0-asc-15.html
| Quote: | There's been a big row down south
as they have taken one of the beautiful Christian chapels and are turning
it into a mosque.
Also it is reported that Muslims have a music studio where they learn to
shoot from moving cars.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
HE LOCATION of a military training camp in Britain used by Muslim
extremists suspected of fighting for Osama bin Laden has been discovered by The Sunday Telegraph.
The camp known as Yetgoch in Hebron, South Wales, was used to train young Muslims how to use Uzi machine guns before they were sent to fight in Afghanistan.
Yetgoch was previously used as a recording studio by many famous bands, including Black Sabbath and Take That.
A Muslim woman originally from Pakistan acted as a trainer on the camp.
Until now the location of the camp has been kept secret. Trans Global
Security International refuses to give its exact location on the company
website and participants are told not to disclose its whereabouts. The
company website advises potential recruits that the 10-acre training
facility is located between Narbeth and Cardigan.!!!Yeah
The camp is only one of a number of facilities used by Muslim extremists
in Wales. The location in the principality was favoured because of its
remotenesss. Detectives are examining the use of legitimate facilities,
such as the one operated by Medina, as well as the establishment of
make-shift camps.
One senior police officer: said: "There is now no doubt that people from
this country are going abroad to fight for the Taliban. We still don't
know how many or how they are recruited. This is what the inquiry is
focusing on." The property was recently sold by Medina to a record
producer who has no involvement in training Muslim extremists.
Last night Tom Watson, a Labour MP and leading member of the House of
Commons home affairs select committee, said anyone who had trained
terrorists in Wales must be questioned by Special Branch. The MP said: "It
is incredibly worrying that these young hotheads have been given military
training - especially with guns - on British soil." Mr Yates was unavailable for comment./////cutting ends
Freaky too, as two of the London bombers now dead were also doing white water training at Llangollen about 15 miles form here! Nice blokes
everyone was so surprised they turned out to be murderers
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Prole
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Joined: 07 Oct 2005
Posts: 632
Location: London UK
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| Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2006 1:23 pm Post subject: |
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From today's Observer:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1708002,00.html
| Quote: | Hamza set up terror camps with British ex-soldiers
Former British soldiers taught Abu Hamza's followers to use guns at a camp in Wales as part of an ad hoc terror training network set up by the jailed cleric, according to US intelligence agencies.
But the British security services were either unconcerned or ignorant about Hamza's activities, despite warnings that he was considered a risk from foreign governments and intelligence agencies as early as 1995.
Transcripts of interviews conducted with suspected al-Qaeda terrorists held by America in Guantánamo Bay reveal that the British ex-soldiers, some of whom fought in Bosnia, were recruited to train about 10 of Hamza's followers at the Brecon Beacons camp for three weeks in 1998. The former troops taught them to strip and clean weapons and gave them endurance training and lessons in surveillance techniques. The training camps in Tunbridge Wells, at which no ex-soldiers were present, were held in 1997 and 1998 and were attended by about 30 people who were trained to use AK47 rifles, hand guns and a mock rocket launcher.
The Observer has learnt that two foreign governments - Egypt and Yemen - sought Hamza's extradition from Britain in the Nineties. The Egyptian authorities asked for Hamza and several other suspects in 1995 to face terror charges there, but the British government refused.
'We tried hard to explain to both the British authorities and to other European countries that this is not a situation where they should be guaranteeing a safe haven to these people,' a spokesman for the Egyptian embassy said.
In 1999, the Yemeni President, Ali Abdullah Saleh, wrote to Tony Blair requesting Hamza's extradition. US authorities allege Hamza provided a satellite phone and money to terrorists holding hostages in Yemen that year and spoke to them several times. One of those hostages, Laurence Whitehouse, whose wife had been killed during a botched rescue attempt, called yesterday for the government to reveal any links between the kidnappers and Hamza.
Nazir Ahmed, a leading member of the British Muslim community and a Labour peer, told The Observer he was dismayed the government had not taken action against Hamza sooner. He had raised concerns about Hamza with the government in 2003, assuring the then Home Secretary David Blunkett that 'Muslim people in Britain would be glad to see the back of Abu Hamza and Omar Bakri [the militant cleric now exiled in Lebanon]'.
Andrew Dismore, the Labour MP for Hendon, north London, said evidence he had taken to authorities was dismissed as not strong enough, yet a lot of it later emerged at Hamza's trial. 'There is a case for the [House of Commons] intelligence and security committee to see what lessons should be learned,' he added. |
_________________
'The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought'. JFK |
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