[Micheal Meacher - Ministro britannico dell'Ambiente nel periodo in
cui i paesi della NATO bombardavano i mercati e le industrie chimiche
in Jugoslavia - nutre evidentemente dei dubbi sulla politica (passata
e presente) del suo paese nei confronti dell'Islam radicale. In
particolare, egli nutre dei dubbi sull'operato dell'MI6, il servizio
segreto militare inglese, per come esso "copre" i suoi agenti
islamisti: non solo quelli che hanno combattuto in Bosnia e Kosovo per
uccidere la Jugoslavia, ma anche quelli che hanno a che fare con l'11
Settembre e con le bombe di Londra del luglio scorso... Una
testimonianza importante, segnalataci da Michel Collon.]
From Michel Collon:
---
Michael Meacher was the UK's environment minister from 1997 to 2003.
In 2003, he wrote in the Guardian that the war on terrorism is bogus
and that the 9/11 attacks gave the US an ideal pretext to use force to
secure its global domination.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/attacks/comment/0,1320,1036772,00.html
Now, in the 10 September 2005 Guardian, he is suggesting that the
intelligence agencies may thwart the London bombings investigation.
Meacher looks at the links between the security services and certain
'Moslem' groups who may be linked to the London bombs.
The US used Pakistanis from Britain to fight in Bosnia, in order to
weaken the Serb government's hold on Yugoslavia.
---
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1566916,00.html
---
Comment
Britain now faces its own blowback
Intelligence interests may thwart the July bombings investigation
Michael Meacher
Saturday September 10, 2005
The Guardian
The videotape of the suicide bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan has switched
the focus of the London bombings away from the establishment view of
brainwashed, murderous individuals and highlighted a starker political
reality. While there can be no justification for horrific killings of
this kind, they need to be understood against the ferment of the last
decade radicalising Muslim youth of Pakistani origin living in Europe.
During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, the US
funded large numbers of jihadists through Pakistan's secret
intelligence service, the ISI. Later the US wanted to raise another
jihadi corps, again using proxies, to help Bosnian Muslims fight to
weaken the Serb government's hold on Yugoslavia. Those they turned to
included Pakistanis in Britain.
According to a recent report by the Delhi-based Observer Research
Foundation, a contingent was also sent by the Pakistani government,
then led by Benazir Bhutto, at the request of the Clinton
administration. This contingent was formed from the Harkat-ul- Ansar
(HUA) terrorist group and trained by the ISI. The report estimates
that about 200 Pakistani Muslims living in the UK went to Pakistan,
trained in HUA camps and joined the HUA's contingent in Bosnia. Most
significantly, this was "with the full knowledge and complicity of the
British and American intelligence agencies".
As the 2002 Dutch government report on Bosnia makes clear, the US
provided a green light to groups on the state department list of
terrorist organisations, including the Lebanese-based Hizbullah, to
operate in Bosnia - an episode that calls into question the
credibility of the subsequent "war on terror".
For nearly a decade the US helped Islamist insurgents linked to
Chechnya, Iran and Saudi Arabia destabilise the former Yugoslavia. The
insurgents were also allowed to move further east to Kosovo. By the
end of the fighting in Bosnia there were tens of thousands of Islamist
insurgents in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo; many then moved west to
Austria, Germany and Switzerland.
Less well known is evidence of the British government's relationship
with a wider Islamist terrorist network. During an interview on Fox TV
this summer, the former US federal prosecutor John Loftus reported
that British intelligence had used the al-Muhajiroun group in London
to recruit Islamist militants with British passports for the war
against the Serbs in Kosovo. Since July Scotland Yard has been
interested in an alleged member of al-Muhajiroun, Haroon Rashid Aswat,
who some sources have suggested could have been behind the London
bombings.
According to Loftus, Aswat was detained in Pakistan after leaving
Britain, but was released after 24 hours. He was subsequently returned
to Britain from Zambia, but has been detained solely for extradition
to the US, not for questioning about the London bombings. Loftus
claimed that Aswat is a British-backed double agent, pursued by the
police but protected by MI6.
One British Muslim of Pakistani origin radicalised by the civil war in
Yugoslavia was LSE-educated Omar Saeed Sheikh. He is now in jail in
Pakistan under sentence of death for the killing of the US journalist
Daniel Pearl in 2002 - although many (including Pearl's widow and the
US authorities) doubt that he committed the murder. However, reports
from Pakistan suggest that Sheikh continues to be active from jail,
keeping in touch with friends and followers in Britain.
Sheikh was recruited as a student by Jaish-e-Muhammad (Army of
Muhammad), which operates a network in Britain. It has actively
recruited Britons from universities and colleges since the early
1990s, and has boasted of its numerous British Muslim volunteers.
Investigations in Pakistan have suggested that on his visits there
Shehzad Tanweer, one of the London suicide bombers, contacted members
of two outlawed local groups and trained at two camps in Karachi and
near Lahore. Indeed the network of groups now being uncovered in
Pakistan may point to senior al-Qaida operatives having played a part
in selecting members of the bombers' cell. The Observer Research
Foundation has argued that there are even "grounds to suspect that the
[London] blasts were orchestrated by Omar Sheikh from his jail in
Pakistan".
Why then is Omar Sheikh not being dealt with when he is already under
sentence of death? Astonishingly his appeal to a higher court against
the sentence was adjourned in July for the 32nd time and has since
been adjourned indefinitely. This is all the more remarkable when this
is the same Omar Sheikh who, at the behest of General Mahmood Ahmed,
head of the ISI, wired $100,000 to Mohammed Atta, the leading 9/11
hijacker, before the New York attacks, as confirmed by Dennis Lormel,
director of FBI's financial crimes unit.
Yet neither Ahmed nor Omar appears to have been sought for questioning
by the US about 9/11. Indeed, the official 9/11 Commission Report of
July 2004 sought to downplay the role of Pakistan with the comment:
"To date, the US government has not been able to determine the origin
of the money used for the 9/11 attacks. Ultimately the question is of
little practical significance" - a statement of breathtaking
disingenuousness.
All this highlights the resistance to getting at the truth about the
9/11 attacks and to an effective crackdown on the forces fomenting
terrorist bombings in the west, including Britain. The extraordinary
US forbearance towards Omar Sheikh, its restraint towards the father
of Pakistan's atomic bomb, Dr AQ Khan, selling nuclear secrets to
Iran, Libya and North Korea, the huge US military assistance to
Pakistan and the US decision last year to designate Pakistan as a
major non-Nato ally in south Asia all betoken a deeper strategic set
of goals as the real priority in its relationship with Pakistan. These
might be surmised as Pakistan providing sizeable military contingents
for Iraq to replace US troops, or Pakistani troops replacing Nato
forces in Afghanistan. Or it could involve the use of Pakistani
military bases for US intervention in Iran, or strengthening Pakistan
as a base in relation to India and China.
Whether the hunt for those behind the London bombers can prevail
against these powerful political forces remains to be seen. Indeed it
may depend on whether Scotland Yard, in its attempts to uncover the
truth, can prevail over MI6, which is trying to cover its tracks and
in practice has every opportunity to operate beyond the law under the
cover of national security.
Michael Meacher is the Labour MP for Oldham West and Royton; he was
environment minister from 1997 to 2003.
cui i paesi della NATO bombardavano i mercati e le industrie chimiche
in Jugoslavia - nutre evidentemente dei dubbi sulla politica (passata
e presente) del suo paese nei confronti dell'Islam radicale. In
particolare, egli nutre dei dubbi sull'operato dell'MI6, il servizio
segreto militare inglese, per come esso "copre" i suoi agenti
islamisti: non solo quelli che hanno combattuto in Bosnia e Kosovo per
uccidere la Jugoslavia, ma anche quelli che hanno a che fare con l'11
Settembre e con le bombe di Londra del luglio scorso... Una
testimonianza importante, segnalataci da Michel Collon.]
From Michel Collon:
---
Michael Meacher was the UK's environment minister from 1997 to 2003.
In 2003, he wrote in the Guardian that the war on terrorism is bogus
and that the 9/11 attacks gave the US an ideal pretext to use force to
secure its global domination.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/attacks/comment/0,1320,1036772,00.html
Now, in the 10 September 2005 Guardian, he is suggesting that the
intelligence agencies may thwart the London bombings investigation.
Meacher looks at the links between the security services and certain
'Moslem' groups who may be linked to the London bombs.
The US used Pakistanis from Britain to fight in Bosnia, in order to
weaken the Serb government's hold on Yugoslavia.
---
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1566916,00.html
---
Comment
Britain now faces its own blowback
Intelligence interests may thwart the July bombings investigation
Michael Meacher
Saturday September 10, 2005
The Guardian
The videotape of the suicide bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan has switched
the focus of the London bombings away from the establishment view of
brainwashed, murderous individuals and highlighted a starker political
reality. While there can be no justification for horrific killings of
this kind, they need to be understood against the ferment of the last
decade radicalising Muslim youth of Pakistani origin living in Europe.
During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, the US
funded large numbers of jihadists through Pakistan's secret
intelligence service, the ISI. Later the US wanted to raise another
jihadi corps, again using proxies, to help Bosnian Muslims fight to
weaken the Serb government's hold on Yugoslavia. Those they turned to
included Pakistanis in Britain.
According to a recent report by the Delhi-based Observer Research
Foundation, a contingent was also sent by the Pakistani government,
then led by Benazir Bhutto, at the request of the Clinton
administration. This contingent was formed from the Harkat-ul- Ansar
(HUA) terrorist group and trained by the ISI. The report estimates
that about 200 Pakistani Muslims living in the UK went to Pakistan,
trained in HUA camps and joined the HUA's contingent in Bosnia. Most
significantly, this was "with the full knowledge and complicity of the
British and American intelligence agencies".
As the 2002 Dutch government report on Bosnia makes clear, the US
provided a green light to groups on the state department list of
terrorist organisations, including the Lebanese-based Hizbullah, to
operate in Bosnia - an episode that calls into question the
credibility of the subsequent "war on terror".
For nearly a decade the US helped Islamist insurgents linked to
Chechnya, Iran and Saudi Arabia destabilise the former Yugoslavia. The
insurgents were also allowed to move further east to Kosovo. By the
end of the fighting in Bosnia there were tens of thousands of Islamist
insurgents in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo; many then moved west to
Austria, Germany and Switzerland.
Less well known is evidence of the British government's relationship
with a wider Islamist terrorist network. During an interview on Fox TV
this summer, the former US federal prosecutor John Loftus reported
that British intelligence had used the al-Muhajiroun group in London
to recruit Islamist militants with British passports for the war
against the Serbs in Kosovo. Since July Scotland Yard has been
interested in an alleged member of al-Muhajiroun, Haroon Rashid Aswat,
who some sources have suggested could have been behind the London
bombings.
According to Loftus, Aswat was detained in Pakistan after leaving
Britain, but was released after 24 hours. He was subsequently returned
to Britain from Zambia, but has been detained solely for extradition
to the US, not for questioning about the London bombings. Loftus
claimed that Aswat is a British-backed double agent, pursued by the
police but protected by MI6.
One British Muslim of Pakistani origin radicalised by the civil war in
Yugoslavia was LSE-educated Omar Saeed Sheikh. He is now in jail in
Pakistan under sentence of death for the killing of the US journalist
Daniel Pearl in 2002 - although many (including Pearl's widow and the
US authorities) doubt that he committed the murder. However, reports
from Pakistan suggest that Sheikh continues to be active from jail,
keeping in touch with friends and followers in Britain.
Sheikh was recruited as a student by Jaish-e-Muhammad (Army of
Muhammad), which operates a network in Britain. It has actively
recruited Britons from universities and colleges since the early
1990s, and has boasted of its numerous British Muslim volunteers.
Investigations in Pakistan have suggested that on his visits there
Shehzad Tanweer, one of the London suicide bombers, contacted members
of two outlawed local groups and trained at two camps in Karachi and
near Lahore. Indeed the network of groups now being uncovered in
Pakistan may point to senior al-Qaida operatives having played a part
in selecting members of the bombers' cell. The Observer Research
Foundation has argued that there are even "grounds to suspect that the
[London] blasts were orchestrated by Omar Sheikh from his jail in
Pakistan".
Why then is Omar Sheikh not being dealt with when he is already under
sentence of death? Astonishingly his appeal to a higher court against
the sentence was adjourned in July for the 32nd time and has since
been adjourned indefinitely. This is all the more remarkable when this
is the same Omar Sheikh who, at the behest of General Mahmood Ahmed,
head of the ISI, wired $100,000 to Mohammed Atta, the leading 9/11
hijacker, before the New York attacks, as confirmed by Dennis Lormel,
director of FBI's financial crimes unit.
Yet neither Ahmed nor Omar appears to have been sought for questioning
by the US about 9/11. Indeed, the official 9/11 Commission Report of
July 2004 sought to downplay the role of Pakistan with the comment:
"To date, the US government has not been able to determine the origin
of the money used for the 9/11 attacks. Ultimately the question is of
little practical significance" - a statement of breathtaking
disingenuousness.
All this highlights the resistance to getting at the truth about the
9/11 attacks and to an effective crackdown on the forces fomenting
terrorist bombings in the west, including Britain. The extraordinary
US forbearance towards Omar Sheikh, its restraint towards the father
of Pakistan's atomic bomb, Dr AQ Khan, selling nuclear secrets to
Iran, Libya and North Korea, the huge US military assistance to
Pakistan and the US decision last year to designate Pakistan as a
major non-Nato ally in south Asia all betoken a deeper strategic set
of goals as the real priority in its relationship with Pakistan. These
might be surmised as Pakistan providing sizeable military contingents
for Iraq to replace US troops, or Pakistani troops replacing Nato
forces in Afghanistan. Or it could involve the use of Pakistani
military bases for US intervention in Iran, or strengthening Pakistan
as a base in relation to India and China.
Whether the hunt for those behind the London bombers can prevail
against these powerful political forces remains to be seen. Indeed it
may depend on whether Scotland Yard, in its attempts to uncover the
truth, can prevail over MI6, which is trying to cover its tracks and
in practice has every opportunity to operate beyond the law under the
cover of national security.
Michael Meacher is the Labour MP for Oldham West and Royton; he was
environment minister from 1997 to 2003.