'FAILED' TERROR IN BIRMINGHAM: JULY 17TH

[astro3]

In January of 2005, an Irishman and a Spaniard booked into the Waqar Hotel in Birmingham, to rent a twin room. The Spaniard informed the hotel proprietor that he was working for a US company located in Spain, and that it would be sending him rent checques on a bimonthly basis. Over the following six-months the room was rented, and three of the cheques duly arrives; however, the proprietor Mr Barki noticed that the two tenants were never there. Then, on 12 July they suddenly turned up and took away 9 heavy bags, which they would not allow anyone else to carry.

Here we note that Tuesday 12th July was the date when police claimed to have found a bath full of ‘several kilos’ of explosives in a Leeds house, owned by Mahmood el-Nashar (who had recently completed his PhD at Leeds biochemistry Department), a tenuous link thereby being made to the ‘Leeds bombers.’ The day before, on the 11th of July, central Birmingham (the Broad Street area) was sealed off by the police due to a ‘credible’ terror alert – and some ‘controlled explosions’ were set off by the police.

At last, on 17 July the hotel proprietor decided to take a look inside the room. In it he found:
* 2 black bags containing a large amount of British currency;
* a ‘Bin Laden’ tape;
* ‘Al Qaeda’ manuals on “How to make bombs” and “ How to blow up an air-liner”; and
* a knife with bloodstains on it, in one of the bags.
The proprietor called the police, and two or three local uniformed officers soon arrived. When they saw the room and its contents they became excited and called colleagues, saying “We’ve found a Bin Laden cell here!”. Mr Barki also called his good friend Mr Appas Malik, reporter of the local Daily Jang, a Pakistani newspaper, and told him his extraordinary news.

A short while later, non-uniformed officers (who did not identify themselves) arrived on the scene. They rebuked the others for having phoned their colleagues, and turned them out of the hotel. Having inspected the room, they then went down into the hotel-lobby, evicted everyone from the hotel, including the staff and the manager, and confiscated the film from the CCTV cameras. They then asked the hotel proprietor to sign a blank sheet of paper. He strongly objected to doing any such thing, but eventually he complied. They instructed him not to talk to anyone outside, from then on.

The story was reported in the Daily Jang, as well as being aired on the British Pakistani TV channel ‘GEO’ (which has the same proprietership as the Jang). On that same day, the 17th, Mr Malik told the story to Dr Naseem, the sage Cleric of the Birmingam Mosque (www.centralmosque.org.uk/ . For his view on the events of 7/7, in the August issue of his Mosque newsletter ‘Dawn’, see: www.julyseventh.co.uk/response.html ) Dr Naseem then endeavoured to obtain confirmation of this story from the hotel owner – who, initially, would not speak. The Deputy Chief constable of Birmingham was visiting the Mosque, and, in response to Dr Naseem’s queries about this incident, he declared that he had never heard about it - however, he assured Dr N. that the Area Superintendent of the B’ham police would call him to clarify the matter: this never happened. Dr N. had a forthcoming appointment to visit the Chief Constable of Birmingham, by way of liasing and maintaining community relations: so, worried about the safety of the hotel owner, Dr Naseem questioned him about the incident - and gained the impression that he genuinely didn’t know anything at all about it.

Four weeks after the event, the hotel proprietor Mr Barki was finally prepared talk to Dr N. about it. The story then told was identical to that which Dr Naseem had heard earlier from his journalist friend. Dr Naseem has recently related it to a group of us members of the London 9/11 Sceptics movement – and we’re telling it here! Br Barki’s hotel business has slumped since the incident, even though officially nothing has happened, being totally unreported in the local or national press (except for the Daily Jang). The B’ham town Council had helped supply the hotel with lodgers, but this seems to have dried up. Left unresolved is the question of the tracking down the two persons who rented the room, which would surely have been quite easy: no-seems inclined to do this.

Is there a sinister programme by the British government of maintaining the atmosphere of terror and fanning the flames of suspicion against Muslims? Could the inflammatory materials discovered in the hotel bedroom have been planted there deliberately in order to fabricate yet another ‘terror-scare’ involving Muslims?

[Andrew Johnson]

I think the timing of this incident fits in nicely with the evacuation of 10th July:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/4668683.stm

They probably planted some devices during the evacuation and this set-up described above would have been the start of the ensuing media circus. Obviously something went wrong with the plan. So maybe the Birmingham devices are saved for another day...

Sorry folks, don't mean to scare anyone - and it's pure guess work on my part.... just joining dots...

[DrJazzz]

So far I've been unable to locate the Daily Jang story of this on their online back issues - can this be clarified?

[astro3]

We finally got the 'Daily Jang' report on this incident, and it turns out that it was on the 12th July - and Dr N. accepts that his memory was mistaken here: so the above-described event happened on the 11th. Concerning the bit about some men coming to remove a lot of bags from the room, he now reckons that would have been the 9th of July.
so the event has been pushed back earlier, much nearer now to the 7/7 event itself - and more deeply connected with the evacuation of central B'ham on the 10th July.
From talking with Dr N I'd say he is a reliable witness, but as regards his getting the date wrong by 5 days, hey he is 80 years old.