AP

Un hombre que sirvió como conductor para el líder y comandante anterior Gerry Adams de Sinn Fein de IRA trabajado secretamente como espía británico, un funcionario del partido dice.

Roy McShane, 58, era una vez que parte del equipo de la seguridad que se ocupó de los arreglos del transporte para la dirección del ejército republicano irlandés.

Pero él también trabajó para MI5, agencia doméstica del espía de Gran Bretaña, por varios años, e izquierdo su hogar en Belfast del oeste viernes temprano, al parecer fuera de la preocupación por su seguridad después de que su papel alegado hubiera sido divulgado, el AP dicho funcionario.

El funcionario habló en la condición del anonimato, decir lo no habían autorizado a ser el portavoz del partido sobre McShane.

Pero él confirmó informes en los periódicos británicos que cotizaban a Alex Maskey, miembro de Sinn Fein de la asamblea de Irlanda del Norte, como diciendo McShane había dicho a su familia el jueves sobre su papel alegado como agente MI5. Maskey dijo que el miembro anterior de IRA había salido del país después de ser tomado en “custodia protectora”.

El policía rechazó comentar respecto a los informes, que serían embarazosos para Adams, que ha dirigido su movimiento de IRA de un alto el fuego 1997 al desarme 2005.

Hace dos años de Denis Donaldson, uno los ayudantes administrativos más cercanos de Adams', secretamente trabajo admitido como agente doble para MI5. Cinco meses más adelante, tiraron a Donaldson, 56, que habían conducido un equipo de la ayuda de Sinn Fein, absolutamente en Irlanda.

Como conductor, McShane trabajó para los funcionarios mayores de IRA, incluyendo a la hora del proceso de la paz que se convertía que condujo a la firma del acuerdo de buen viernes hace 10 años.

Él habría sido privy a la información altamente sensible pues él condujo a miembros mayores de IRA hacia adelante y hacia atrás a los edificios del castillo, donde ocurrieron las negociaciones intensas.

McShane habría estado sobre una base del primero-nombre con todos los hombres y mujeres superiores en Sinn Fein, incluyendo Martin McGuinness, que ahora es primer ministro del diputado en la asamblea de Irlanda del Norte.

Howard Dahdah

According to reports in the weekend newspapers, the government has accused China of hacking into the computer systems of leading companies.

According to The Times, the MI5 director-general Jonathan Evans sent a confidential letter to 300 chief executives and security chiefs at financial institutions and legal firms last week warning them that they were under attack from Chinese state organisations.

The summary of the letter, which was posted (securely) on the website of the Centre for the Protection of the National Infrastructure, warned its recipients of the “electronic espionage attack”.

“The contents of the letter highlight the following: the Director-General’s concerns about the possible damage to UK business resulting from electronic attack sponsored by Chinese state organisations, and the fact that the attacks are designed to defeat best-practice IT security systems.

“The letter acknowledges the strong economic and commercial reasons to do business with China, but the need to ensure management of the risks involved.”

According to one security expert quoted in the Times article, one of the techniques used by the Chinese groups were “custom Trojans”, software designed to hack into the network of a particular firm and feed back confidential data.

The MI5 website already acknowledges the UK is a high priority espionage target.

“We estimate that at least 20 foreign intelligence services are operating to some degree against UK interests. Of greatest concern are the Russians and Chinese,” it said.

MI5, which has a target of increasing its current 3,000 staff to 4,000 by 2011, also insisted that it wanted to improve relations with Muslim communities.

The BBC Monday was broadcasting a series of interviews with ethnic community members working for Britain’s intelligence and security services in a bid to broaden the recruitment of MI5 and MI6 officers among the country’s minority communities.

A male and female agent, calling themselves Shazad and Jayshree, were permitted to talk for the first time, spoke on the BBC’s Asian Network about their job, which they insisted was to protect the UK and not target Muslims.

“If you look at the bigger picture, I think you realise this isn’t about spying on your own community, or letting your own community down, or any of those things,” Shazad said.

“It is about protecting people like yourself - others out there - from threats, and there can be a number of different kinds of threats,” he said.

Yasmin, who was introduced as a member of overseas intelligence agency MI6, was also reported to have told BBC Radio 1’s Newsbeat about her work recruiting spies.

Yasmin insisted that she did not think she was recruited because of her Muslim faith and said she would challenge “very strongly” any suggestion that her religion complicated her work.

The head of MI6 recruitment, Mark, said the organisation wanted to attract people and to be truly to be representative and reflective from all ethnic minorities, not just Muslims.

“We want to be truly, but clearly if we are going to be reflective we do need to have Muslims in our organisation because of the insight and understanding that they bring,” he said.

Britain’s domestic security service, MI5, also told the BBC that it hoped the insight into life as a British Asian agent will help increase its percentage of black and minority ethnic staff, which currently stands at 6.5 per cent.

MI5, which has a target of increasing its current 3,000 staff to 4,000 by 2011, also insisted that it wanted to improve relations with Muslim communities.

The exclusive interviews were said to have been the first recorded at MI5’s London headquarters in the organisation’s 98-year history. –IRNA

The Observer

Fragments of bomb timer that helped to convict a Libyan ex-agent were ‘practically carbonised’ before the trial, says bankrupt Swiss businessman

The key piece of material evidence used by prosecutors to implicate Libya in the Lockerbie bombing has emerged as a probable fake.
Nearly two decades after Pan Am flight 103 exploded over Scotland on 21 December, 1988, allegations of international political intrigue and shoddy investigative work are being levelled at the British government, the FBI and the Scottish police as one of the crucial witnesses, Swiss engineer Ulrich Lumpert, has apparently confessed that he lied about the origins of a crucial ‘timer’ - evidence that helped tie the man convicted of the bombing to the crime.

The disaster killed 270 people when the London to New York Boeing 747 exploded in mid-air. Britain and the US blamed Libya, saying that its leader, Colonel Muammar Gadaffi, wanted revenge for the US bombing of Tripoli in 1986. At a trial in the Netherlands in 2001, former Libyan agent Abdulbaset al-Megrahi was jailed for life.

He is currently serving his sentence in Greenock prison, but later this month the Scottish Court of Appeal is expected to hear Megrahi’s case, after the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission ruled in June that there was enough evidence to suggest a miscarriage of justice. Lumpert’s confession, which was given to police in his home city of Zurich last week, will strengthen Megrahi’s appeal.

The Zurich-based Swiss businessman Edwin Bollier, who has spent nearly two decades trying to clear his company’s name, is as eager for the appeal as is Megrahi. Bollier’s now bankrupt company, Mebo, manufactured the timer switch that prosecutors used to implicate Libya after they said that fragments of it had been found on a Scottish hillside.

Bollier, now 70, admits having done business with Libya. ‘Two years before Lockerbie, we sold 20 MST-13 timers to the Libyan military. FBI agents and the Scottish investigators said one of those timers had been used to detonate the bomb. We were shown a fuzzy photograph and I confirmed the fragments looked as though they came from one of our timers.’

However, Bollier was uneasy with the photograph he had been shown and asked to see the fragments. He was finally given permission in 1998 and travelled to Dumfries to see the evidence.

‘I was shown fragments of a brown circuit board which matched our prototype. But when the MST-13 went into production, the timers contained green boards. I knew that the timers sold to Libya had green boards. I told the investigators this.’

Back in Switzerland, Bollier’s company was in effect bankrupt, having faced a lawsuit from Pan Am and having lost major clients, such as the German federal police to which Mebo supplied communications equipment.

In 2001, Bollier spent five days in the witness box at the Lockerbie trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands. ‘I was a defence witness, but the trial was so skewed to prove Libyan involvement that the details of what I had to say was ignored. A photograph of the fragments was produced in court and I asked to see the pieces again. When they were brought to me, they were practically carbonised. They had been tampered with since I had seen them in Dumfries.’

Few people apart from conspiracy theorists and investigative journalists working on the case were prepared to believe Bollier until the end of last month, when Lumpert, one of his former employees, walked into a Zurich police station and asked to swear an affidavit before a notary.

By Renee Viellaris, Ian McPhedran and Margaret Wenham

FREED terror suspect Mohamed Haneef was regularly in contact with Islamic radicals under surveillance by Britain’s top spy agency MI5.

Highly classified intelligence reveals the former Gold Coast doctor - still considered a person of interest by British and Australian investigators - made contact using medical chat rooms, international phone cards and phone boxes.

The intelligence suggests this was to avoid detection and suspicion.

The leaked dossier, part of the information that formed a key plank in Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews’ decision to revoke Dr Haneef’s visa, alleges the Indian-born doctor spoke to a number of suspects about a “project” and a “purpose” before the failed UK bombings.

However, it’s understood the intelligence does not contain information about a terrorist attack in Australia and only puts Dr Haneef as being on the outer edge of a large group of like-minded people.

But it comes as Indian police intelligence alleged Dr Haneef had links to Al-Qaeda.

He remains under surveillance in India by at least two law enforcement agencies.

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty yesterday said Dr Haneef could face further charges.

“It’s still potentially possible that a brief of evidence will be submitted against Dr Haneef,” he said.

And in a significant development yesterday, senior Government sources confirmed that Dr Haneef’s former Gold Coast colleague and Liverpool flatmate, Dr Mohammed Asif Ali, was being investigated over his knowledge of terrorist activities.

Dr Ali, stood down from Queensland Health on Friday for lying about his employment history in India, owned two rubber stamps used to forge medical testimonials.

Dr Ali admitted to the Medical Board of Queensland that he made up about an extra 12 months of experience but it was because he had taken time off to take care of a family problem.

But sources said the AFP were suspicious of his activities in that time.

“(Dr Ali) is a person of interest to us,” Mr Keelty said yesterday.

Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews revealed on Tuesday parts of information relating to Dr Haneef to explain why he revoked his visa.

However, he said he would not reveal “part B” because of the ongoing AFP investigation.

The Courier-Mail reports that the second document contains names of suspects and detail of involvement in planned attacks.

Dr Haneef’s lawyer Peter Russo said there were plans for Dr Haneef to address the allegations contained in the so-called protected information released by Mr Andrews.

“He will be coming out with a general statement about the allegations against him,” he said.

Mr Russo also denied reports that a large party had been thrown for him in India.

By David Rose

When Bisher al-Rawi agreed to work for the British government, he thought he was doing the right thing. He spent four gruelling years at Guantanamo Bay for his efforts. In this remarkable interview he breaks his silence and tells his extraordinary story to David Rose.

James Bond used to interview informants in nightclubs and luxury hotels. Le Carré’s George Smiley preferred park benches, or safe houses in Belgravia. But when Bisher al-Rawi met the men from MI5, they chose somewhere more prosaic: a table in the basement of the Kensington High Street McDonald’s, just to the left of the stairs. ‘I always had a Filet-o-Fish,’ al-Rawi says drily. ‘They would only drink. One supposes they didn’t like the food.’

It wasn’t the only difference between Britain’s real and fictional spies. Having risked his life and reputation to tell MI5 about Islamic radicalism in London in the months after 9/11, al-Rawi has told The Observer the sensational story of his betrayal.

A secret telegram was sent from the British Security Service to the CIA, in which they told the Americans that al-Rawi was carrying a timing device for a bomb - in reality, an innocuous battery charger from Argos - on a business trip to Gambia. Al-Rawi, the telegram added, was an ‘Iraqi extremist’ associate of the preacher Abu Qatada, later described as Osama bin Laden’s ambassador to Europe and now in a British jail

It did not, however, mention the fact that al-Rawi had been seeing Qatada at the request of MI5.

Only a few months earlier, in the spring of 2002, while Qatada was wanted and supposedly in hiding, al-Rawi had visited him numerous times with MI5’s knowledge, in the hope of arranging a meeting between him and his handlers. In addition, he had told MI5 all about his life and tried to provide an insight into Britain’s Islamic scene.

All of it was thrown in his face. Arrested on arrival in Gambia and interrogated, a month later, al-Rawi was flown on an illegal CIA ‘rendition’ flight halfway across the world and spent four and a half years detained without charge in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. From the beginning, he says, the basis of his hundreds of interrogations was the information he had already freely given to MI5.

Last week, in two days of interviews, al-Rawi told his story for the first time. He was speaking out for one reason - to help his friend, Jamil el-Banna, who was arrested in Gambia with him and shared his ordeal. Like al-Rawi, he has now been deemed to pose no threat by the Americans. But el-Banna, a refugee from Jordan long settled in Britain who has five British children, is still in his cell in Guantanamo - because the UK government has refused to allow his return.

Now 39, al-Rawi looks older and thinner than in photos from before his arrest. Clean-shaven, in designer jeans and a sweatshirt, he remains animated and articulate, punctuating even the grimmest episodes with an expansive, mischievous laugh.

His family came to Britain when al-Rawi was 16 after his father, a wealthy businessman, was tortured by Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq. For a time he went to Millfield, the public school in Somerset, and later studied engineering at London’s Queen Mary and Westfield College. His father died in 1992 and the rest of his family - his mother, brother and sister - acquired UK citizenship. al-Rawi remained an Iraqi, in the hope that this would one day make it easier to retrieve property left behind.

During the 1990s he ran his own engineering business and learned to fly helicopters. He rarely drove a car, preferring big motorbikes. It was through his business that al-Rawi got to know el-Banna.

Al-Rawi recollects that he met Qatada at a mosque in London and gradually they became friends. ‘I got to know his kids. My relationship with Abu Qatada wasn’t much different from with a lot of people in the community,’ said al-Rawi.

Several times before 9/11, he was asked to be an interpreter at meetings between MI5 and Arabic-speakers, including Qatada. ‘On two occasions I asked the officers in private, “Is it OK to have a relationship with Abu Qatada? Is this a problem?” And they always said, “No, it’s fine, it’s OK.”‘ Phase two of his relationship began a few weeks after the 11 September attacks in 2001, when two MI5 men came to his home, introducing themselves as Alex and Matt. ‘The family was freaking out, so I took them in the conservatory and closed the door. They’d done their homework very well, they knew a lot about me. It was like an interview.’

They came back a week later but because his family felt uncomfortable, al-Rawi says they began to meet outside - first in a pub at Victoria, and later at the McDonald’s. ‘In those early days they were always offering me money. I was very clear with them. I told them I wasn’t going to be paid. I agreed to talk to MI5 because I believed it would do some good.’ Even before 9/11, al-Rawi says, he could see that tension was rising between Muslims and the authorities in Britain. ‘I wanted to bring the two sides together.’ He shrugs. ‘Boy, did I fall through the gap.’

However, al-Rawi was concerned that he might somehow incriminate himself, by speaking of people who - unbeknown to him - really might have links with terrorism. He also sought assurances that everything he said was in confidence. He was asked to meet an MI5 lawyer called Simon. ‘He gave me very solid assurances about confidentiality,’ al- Rawi says. ‘He promised they would even protect me and my family if they had to. He said that, if I was ever arrested, I should cooperate with the police. If a matter got to court, he would come as a witness and tell the truth.’

Last night MI5 declined to comment on this or other aspects of the case. Despite repeated and detailed requests, their spokesman did not return calls.

In December 2001, the government introduced the 2001 Terrorism Act, allowing foreign nationals such as Abu Qatada to be detained without charge. Shortly before it was passed, Qatada disappeared. Like most of his associates, al-Rawi had no idea of his whereabouts. But one day in early spring a stranger phoned and asked to meet him at a London mosque. He took him to a house where Qatada was staying. ‘He asked me if I could help him find somewhere new.’

Through a friend, al-Rawi found him a flat near the river. ‘Less than a week later I saw Alex in McDonald’s. He asked me straight out: “Bisher, do you know where Abu Qatada is?” I thought to myself, if I was going to tell a lie, now was the time to do it. But I didn’t. I said: “Yes, I do.”‘ A few days later they met again, this time with Alex’s boss, Martin. ‘He seemed excited. Up till then the British authorities had no idea where Abu Qatada was.’

Al-Rawi told Qatada that he had informed MI5 that he knew where he was. ‘He looked at me in amazement. He didn’t like it, yet at the same time he tolerated it. I really thought I could bring them together.’

Al-Rawi acted as a messenger, shuttling from preacher to spy and back again. Finally, in early summer 2002, al-Rawi says, Qatada agreed to meet MI5, but barely had he informed his handlers of this when Qatada changed his mind. Soon afterwards al-Rawi got a final phone call from Alex. ‘It was a brief conversation terminating our relationship. It was very tense, like breaking off with a girlfriend. He was pissed off, I was pissed off. But I was also relieved: it was a huge load off my shoulders.’

Later, after Qatada’s arrest in October 2002, MI5 claimed in court that they had not known of his whereabouts for almost a year. Al-Rawi finds this implausible, as, he says, did his interrogators at Guantanamo. ‘As I told Abu Qatada at the time, all they had to do is follow me on my motorbike.’

On 1 November, al-Rawi, Jamil el-Banna and another friend, Abdullah el-Janoudi, a British citizen, were strolling to the gate at Gatwick airport to board their flight to Banjul, Gambia. Al-Rawi’s brother, Wahhab, had plans to set up a peanut plant there and the three friends were flying to meet him. Wahhab had travelled ahead.

The previous evening, MI5 and the police had been to visit el-Banna and, according to an MI5 memo disclosed to his lawyers, tried to recruit him. He could, they said, ’start a new life with a new identity’ and acquire British citizenship. He refused. But the officers promised that he could travel the next day ‘without a problem’ - and return to Britain afterwards.

It was not to be. The three men were stopped at the gate, searched, and detained for five days at Paddington Green police station. Searches of their homes confirmed, as further police documents state, that they contained no trace of explosives or other illegal materials, while the ’suspicious’ device found in al-Rawi’s luggage was, indeed, a battery charger.

While al-Rawi was being held, MI5 sent its first telegram to the CIA, describing the charger - which al-Rawi had modified to make it waterproof - as ‘a timing device [that] could possibly be used as some part of a car-based IED [improved explosive device].’ A second telegram three days later failed to correct this, repeating the claim that al-Rawi was ‘an Islamic extremist’ and saying the men would soon be on their way again.

In a report last week on the case, the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee cited testimony that it was given in secret from MI5, claiming that the service had sent ‘caveats’ with the telegrams asking for no action to be taken. These, it was clear, were ignored. With no evidence against them, the men were released without charge from Paddington Green and allowed to book new flights for the following Friday. But the telegrams had done their job. On arrival in Gambia on 8 November all three were held, together with Wahhab and his local agent, who had come to the airport to meet them.

Next morning al-Rawi came face to face with the Americans. A man who called himself Lee was the lead interrogator.

‘From the beginning, the questions made it plain that the Americans had been given the contents of my own MI5 file, which was supposed to be confidential. Lee even told me the British were giving him information. I had agreed to help MI5 because I wanted to prevent terrorism, and now the information I had freely given them was being used against me in an attempt to prove that I myself was some kind of terrorist.’

He was accused of planning a Gambian terrorist training camp - in a tiny country where he knew no one. In his last week in Gambia, one of the Americans came to al-Rawi’s cell and told him he was going to a US prison in Afghanistan - the process known as rendition. ‘He told me: “We know you were working for MI5″, and said if I told the truth I would get out.’

The Americans informed MI5 of the pending rendition, which breached international law, but the British did nothing to help their former agent. Wahhab and el-Janoudi, who were UK citizens, were released, but al-Rawi and el-Banna did not have the protection of British passports.

Al-Rawi and el-Banna - shackled, blindfolded and hooded - were taken to the airport, where two men dressed in black and wearing balaclavas cut off their clothes and removed their hoods. Al-Rawi describes what happened next. ‘They dressed me in two layers of nappies and tracksuit bottoms and a top. Over that they put a harness, and shackled and cuffed me again, fixing the chains through the harness. They dragged me forcefully up the stairs and into the plane. They forced me on to a stretcher and tied me to it so tightly I could hardly move at all. There were belts restraining my feet, my legs and my body. They covered my eyes with a blindfold, and then goggles, and something over my ears. All the way through that flight I was on the border of screaming. At last we landed, I thought, thank God it’s over. But it wasn’t over. It was just a refuelling stop in Cairo. There were hours still to go.’

Arriving in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, they were driven to the CIA’s ‘dark prison’ - a literal description. Al-Rawi’s blindfold had been removed, but the darkness was absolute. The unheated cell was so cold he could feel ice crystals on the water he was occasionally given to drink. ‘For three days or so I just sat in the corner, shivering. The only time there was light was when a guard came to check on me with a very dim torch - as soon as he’d detect movement, he would leave. I tried to do a few push-ups and jogged on the spot to keep warm. There was no toilet paper, but I tore off my nappies and tried to use them to clean myself. I kept telling myself: “They haven’t killed me yet, this is good.” You sleep and you wait.’

At last, after about a fortnight, they were taken to the American airbase at Bagram, 40 miles from Kabul, where the interrogations began again. On the way, ‘they really beat me and Jamil up. Of course I was hooded, so I couldn’t see anything. But you know how you see in cartoons when people get hit on the head and they see stars? I thought, ah, now I know what those cartoons mean. I saw stars.’

In Bagram, he and el-Banna came under pressure to incriminate Abu Qatada who by then was in prison in Britain, where he remains, now fighting deportation to Jordan, where he has been convicted in absentia of terrorist offences. Gareth Peirce, the solicitor who represents al-Rawi, Qatada and el-Banna, fears the real reason el- Banna has not been allowed back to Britain is a plan to send him to Jordan, where he too might testify against Qatada. Al-Rawi and el- Banna were taken to Guantanamo in March 2003. Like others released from there, al-Rawi describes a regime of isolation and casual brutality. For more than a year, until his release on 31 March this year, he was held in Camp 5, where communication between inmates is almost impossible. ‘You want to speak to someone in Camp 5? No problem. All you have to do is scream your head off. It’s like a cemetery.’ One of the toughest periods came after three inmates committed suicide in June last year. For months the authorities retaliated by keeping the air conditioning turned to maximum. ‘We were freezing the whole time. Other times they made it scorching hot.’

As the months became years, he sank into depression. ‘One tried hard to be normal, to maintain balance. The thing was, the people around me were suffering so much, and in the end you can’t help feeling pretty bad yourself. Jamil knew his mother wasn’t well, and he begged to be allowed to phone her, to speak to her before she died. They refused, and she passed away last year.’ MI5, it was evident, had not fulfilled its promise to help al-Rawi if he ever got into trouble. After he had been in Guantanamo for about six months, an officer came to see him. ‘It was someone I hadn’t seen before. He asked me: “Do you feel betrayed?”‘ Later his former handler, Alex, paid a visit: ‘I suppose he was nice enough. He asked if I wanted anything. I asked for a book on base jumping. He never came back, and I never got the book.’

His last and strangest visit came from Matt and Martin. Despite the ordeal that their organisation had caused him, al-Rawi says they tried to recruit him again. ‘They said, “You know, Bisher, if you agree to work for us when you get back to Britain, we’ll get you out.” They promised to return, but never did.’

There was to be yet another broken promise. When al-Rawi came before a Guantanamo tribunal to assess whether his detention was justified, he asked for Matt, Alex and Simon to corroborate his story as witnesses. The British refused to identify them, and the Americans said that, because he did not know their full, real names, they could not be traced.

Al-Rawi says he feels no bitterness towards America or Americans. MI5, however, has left him deeply disappointed. ‘I used to think of them as cool, tough, as gentlemen. I used to speak about them in the Muslim community, saying they had a level of dignity and that we could trust them. When I got back home one of the first messages I got was from a friend who had heard me say that. He said: “Bisher, they weren’t very honourable, were they?” I suppose he was right. All the credit for what I went through goes to them.’

America’s Dark Secret

The Central Intelligence Agency was granted permission to use extraordinary rendition - one country moving its prisoners to another for interrogation - in a presidential directive signed by Bill Clinton in 1995. The practice has grown sharply since the 9/11 attacks.

Critics say the CIA renders suspects to avoid American laws prohibiting torture, even though many of those countries have, like the US, signed or ratified the UN Convention Against Torture.

The ‘ghost detainees’ are kept outside judicial oversight. Many have disappeared. Evidence suggests the CIA has rendered prisoners to countries including Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Morocco, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. Many European airports have been used to facilitate their transfer to such countries, say human rights groups which have obtained the flight logs of several planes leased by the CIA.

The practice is now exercising the minds of European legislators. Swiss senator Dick Marty released a report last year which concluded that as many as 100 people had been kidnapped by the CIA in Europe and rendered to a country where they may have been tortured.

The allegations have been denied by the White House, which insists no detainees held by the US have been tortured. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has stated that ‘rendition is a vital tool in combating transnational terrorism. Its use is not unique to the United States.’

But evidence from prisoners in Guantanamo suggests the US does practise interrogation techniques which many lawyers argue are tantamount to torture. The most notable is ‘water-boarding’, where detainees are tricked into believing they are going to drown. Interrogation methods during extraordinary rendition remain one of America’s darkest secrets.

Sean O’Neill and Michael Evans

A ten-man MI5 team followed the ringleader of the 21/7 bombers on the night he left Britain for terrorist training in Pakistan, The Times has learnt.

The Security Service was also alerted when Muktar Said Ibrahim returned to Britain three months later, but allowed him to enter the country unhindered.

Ibrahim, who tried to blow up a No 26 bus on July 21, 2005, will be sentenced with his three accomplices – Yassin Omar, Hussein Osman and Ramzi Mohammed – at Woolwich Crown Court today for conspiracy to murder.

The jury in the six-month-long trial was discharged yesterday after failing to reach verdicts on two other defendants.

As new details emerge of apparent security failures that left Ibrahim free to carry out the attacks, there are growing demands for an explanation from the authorities.

Counter-terrorist sources have told The Times that Ibrahim was driven to Heathrow on December 11, 2004, by an Iraqi man who was a high-priority terrorist suspect. Their car was being followed.

The man, Rauf Mohammed, has been named in Home Office documents as being “actively engaged” in providing support to the insurgency in Iraq.

Ibrahim, 29, met the Iraqi through an East London mosque run by an ultra-orthodox Islamic sect and his association with Rauf Mohammed was the clearest indication that he was being turned from a street-corner activist into a possible terrorist threat.

The connection with Rauf Mohammed led to Ibrahim and his two travelling companions – who later died fighting in Iraq – being questioned at the airport by Special Branch.

While they were being interviewed, Rauf Mohammed was tailed as he drove back into London. In evidence given at his subsequent trial, the surveillance officers reported that he spotted them, abandoned his car and spent several hours trying to shake them off using practised counter-surveillance techniques. The Iraqi was later subjected to a deportation attempt, charged, tried and acquitted of terrorist offences, and then placed under a strict control order.

Despite his links with this prominent terrorist suspect, Ibrahim was not stopped or questioned when he returned to Heathrow on March 8, 2005, after being trained to make explosives and groomed by al-Qaeda to be a suicide bomber.

Security sources have confirmed that they were alerted to Ibrahim’s return to the country but it seems he was not subjected to round-the-clock surveillance. One security source said: “He was regarded as a low-key follow-up. He wasn’t forgotten about, but the intelligence on him was not as worrying as it was on a whole host of others who were being watched at full tilt.”

If there was any form of monitoring or intelligence-gathering, it missed that Ibrahim was recruiting a cell of suicide bombers and making bulk purchases of hydrogen peroxide to manufacture bombs.

After the July 21 failed bomb plot, MI5 feared that Britain was to be the target of a pattern of repeated terrorist attacks, one every two weeks, security sources told The Times.

So alarmed were the security authorities that other home-grown Islamic terrorists were about to launch further attacks in the summer of 2005 that the official threat level was kept artificially at “critical” – the highest of all – even though there was no specific intelligence of an imminent strike.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, head of Scotland Yard’s Counter Terrorism Command, said that the four men convicted of the 21/7 attacks had told “ridiculous” lies in an attempt to evade justice.

“These men obviously set out to replicate the horrors that had been inflicted on Londoners on July 7, 2005,” Mr Clarke said. “But this was no spur-of-the-moment plan. It had been hatched over several months. They failed to set off their bombs – not through want of trying.

“Despite the carnage of July 7, on July 21 the public responded courageously, and without thought for their own safety.” He added: “These men are dedicated terrorists who no longer pose a danger to the public.”

Ibrahim will be sentenced along with Omar, 26, the Warren Street bomber, Osman, 28, the Shepherds Bush bomber, and Mohammed, 25, the Oval bomber.

The Crown Prosecution Service will announce today whether it wishes to pursue a retrial of the charges against Manfo Kwaku Asiedu, 34, the alleged fifth bomber, and Adel Yahya, 24, who allegedly purchased hydrogen peroxide but was not in the country when the attacks took place.

— Muktar Said Ibrahim was given British citizenship a year before the 21/7 attacks. He had initially been given sanctuary in 1990, aged 12, and was given exceptional leave to remain for four years.

He was convicted as a juvenile in 1993 of indecent assault. In 1995 he was sentenced to three years in prison after he knocked a 77-year-old woman to the ground and stole her handbag. Later he was given a two-year sentence for robbery and attempted robbery.

In 2000 Ibrahim was given indefinite leave to remain in the country. In 2004 he applied for and was given citizenship, even though the Home Office was aware of his criminal record

The warning signs

May 04 Muktar Said Ibrahim is photographed by police at a training camp in the Lake District; Yassin Hassan Omar, Hussein Osman and Ramzi Mohammed are also present

Aug 04 Police photograph Ibrahim during a disturbance at the Finsbury Park mosque in North London

Sept 04 Ibrahim is given a British passport despite having a criminal record

Oct 04 He is arrested at extremist bookstall in Oxford Street, London; charged with public order offence

Dec 04 Special Branch officers question Ibrahim as he is en route to Pakistan

Feb 05 A warrant is issued for Ibrahim’s arrest over the Oxford Street charges

March 05 Ibrahim returns to Britain from Pakistan

By Philip Johnston

The internet was buzzing with claims yesterday that MI5 had prior intelligence on the London car bomb attack.

The suggestion was fuelled by the fact that nightclubs were warned a few weeks ago by police that they were potential targets for car bombers.

An advice booklet for bars, pubs and nightclubs was produced by the security services and included a section on “vehicle borne improvised explosive devices”.

But a Whitehall source said that the booklet’s distribution to clubs just a few weeks ago was long-planned and “purely coincidental”.

MI5 said it had no advance intelligence of the Haymarket bombs, though the threat level had been at ‘’severe”.

However, MI5 may have been monitoring those involved in a cell at some stage - which, if true, could provoke claims that they were allowed to slip through the net.

Security services played role in similar previous attacks, massive car bomb discovered in London

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet

Intelligence sources are refusing to rule out an Irish connection to a massive car bomb that was discovered in the heart of London this morning. Though at this early stage the facts are sketchy, any link to the IRA or its offshoots would re-open a can of worms concerning the MI5’s role in past terror attacks, and specifically car bombings, over the last few decades in Britain and Northern Ireland.

The timing of the attempted attack coincides with new Prime Minister Gordon Brown taking over from Tony Blair just yesterday.

“The threat of terror returned to London today after a large car bomb was found in the heart of the capital,” reports the Daily Mail .”Bomb squad officers defused the ‘massive’ device after police investigated reports of a suspicious vehicle in the early hours.”

“According to an eyewitness the door staff at the nightclub Tiger, Tiger alerted police after the car, believed to be a silver Mercedes, was driven into bins last night and the driver ran off.”"The witness said the car was being driven ‘erratically’ before the minor crash. The driver was not stopped.”

In any criminal investigation and in particular terrorism inquiry, it is paramount to look at who has the motive and history to carry out such an attack.

It is important to stress that not every terror attack is necessarily part of some elaborate scheme or conspiracy - indeed it is usually small scale incidents such as this that are the work of lone extremists or Islamic fundamentalists who hate the west, of which Britain is inundated with.

But as the facts emerge we would be foolish to overlook the fact that the British security services were intimately involved in numerous terror attacks in Britain over the past few decades, namely car bombings, that were blamed on the IRA or its offshoots. This is particularly relevant considering that officials have refused to rule out an Irish connection in this case.

The sliver car was left outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub on Haymarket. A gas canister can be seen in the bottom left-hand corner of this picture.

Every major IRA bombing in England and Northern Ireland has had the fingerprints of the British government and the FRU all over it.

Starting from at least the 1980’s, SAS and British military intelligence agents were routinely ordered to embed themselves within violent branches of the IRA and aid terrorists in carrying out attacks. How do we know this happened? Because one of the individuals who was ordered to do so, Kevin Fulton, blew the whistle on the fact that he was told he had the Prime Minister’s blessing to aid terrorists in bomb making and political assassinations.

In addition, mirroring the backdrop of the infiltration of the alleged liquid bomb plot , the August 15th 1998 Omagh bombing was allowed to proceed despite the fact that MI5 had fully infiltrated the Real IRA terror cell, knew the date of the bombing, and had tracked the terrorists’ vehicle as it was driven to the bomb site. Again, in this case MI5 had one of their own agents within the bomb squad itself . In this instance, the car bombing went forward and 29 people, including two babies and nine children, were ripped apart as they shopped in a quiet market street.

Documents , lodged as part of a court action being taken against the British government by a disgruntled military intelligence agent, also revealed that an FRU (Force Research Unit) major was the officer who was the handler of the British army’s most infamous agent inside the IRA — a man code named Stakeknife.

Stakeknife is one of Belfast’s leading Provisionals. His military handlers allowed him to carry out large numbers of terrorist murders in order to protect his cover within the IRA.

The London Observer further revealed some of the methods employed by the FRU in Northern Ireland, including the “human bomb” technique, which involved “forcing civilians to drive vehicles laden with explosives into army checkpoints”.

Former MI5 counter-terrorism officer David Shayler also saw documents indicating that the Israeli’s bombed their own embassy in London in 1994 after a car bomb exploded outside the building in Kensington.

He also presented evidence that MI5 had foreknowledge of the 1993 Bishopsgate car bombing that was blamed on the IRA, and could have apprehended the bomb squad but let the attack go ahead.

To forget the proven history of the security service’s involvement in car bombings and other terror attacks in Britain and Northern Ireland in light of this latest incident would be very naive, and as more information about the culprits behind this morning’s attempted attack is released, that history is likely to become more prescient.

THE row over MI5’s handling of the London suicide bombings escalated sharply last night as the Conservatives openly questioned the honesty of the Security Service’s account of events leading up to 7 July, 2005.

The Security Service is under intense scrutiny over the attacks because of the revelation earlier this week that its officers logged Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shezad Tanweer, two of the 7/7 bombers, meeting in early 2004 with Omar Khyam, who was on Monday jailed for life for plotting to explode fertiliser bombs in the UK.

MI5 has publicly insisted that it had too little information to fully identify Khan and Tanweer until after the attacks.

Crucially, the agency has assured ministers and MPs the decision not to fully investigate the two men in 2004 was made because none of the intelligence available at the time indicated they were involved in planning terrorist attacks in the UK.

MI5 has argued that bugged conversations and other evidence suggested they were mainly engaged in low-level fraud.

“They appeared as petty fraudsters in loose contact with members of the fertiliser plot, and the intelligence collected on them gave no indication they posed a terrorist threat,” MI5 says in an unusual public statement on its website.

But with the end of Khyam’s trial, evidence is entering the public domain that some say contradict’s MI5’s version of events. In particular, a transcript of a conversation between Khyam and Khan in February 2004 suggests the two were clearly discussing involvement in jihadi activity.

The two were discussing Khan’s plans to travel to Pakistan, where he later attended a terrorist training camp. It is said that, during the summer of 2004, he changed his plans to fight in Afghanistan and decided instead to commit mass murder in the UK.

Khyam, a more experienced jihadist, gives Khan advice about life at the camp.

“One thing I will advise you, yeah, is total obedience to whoever your emir [leader] is, whether he is Sunni, Arab, Chechen, Saudi, British - total obedience,” he says, adding: “Up there you can get your head cut off.”

Of the trip, Khyam tells Khan: “This is a one-way ticket bruv.” He also says: “You won’t be allowed to take any of the jihad stuff for the flight.”

Significantly, the tape suggests the fraud Khan was involved in was directly linked with his plans to travel to Pakistan.

“You are going to leave now; you may as well rip the country apart economically as well,” Khyam says. “All the brothers are running scams and I advise you to do the same. You will probably walk away with 20 grand.”

Last night, David Davis, the Conservative shadow home secretary, stepped up his party’s criticism over the London attacks, again demanding a fresh inquiry. “Even as late as yesterday, MI5 were dismissing these two terrorists as ‘petty fraudsters’,” Mr Davis said. “This transcript shows that, far from ‘petty fraudsters’, they had jihadi sympathies, were associating with terror suspects up and down the country and planned to travel to Pakistan. The case for an independent, judge-led inquiry is overwhelming.”

That call was supported yesterday by several survivors of the London attacks, which killed 52 people.

Up to 50 of those affected by the bombings signed a letter from the 7/7 Inquiry Group, asking the Home Office for a public inquiry.

“A year ago we were being told that the bombers were ‘clean skins’, coming out of the blue,” said Rachel North, a member of the group. “It is quite apparent now that they were not.”

The government has rejected a public inquiry, arguing it would suck resources away from MI5. Instead, parliament’s intelligence and security committee will review its investigation of the case, which last year cleared MI5 of any culpable failure over the attacks.

JAMES KIRKUP

Michael Evans

MI5 is adopting tactics used by the police to keep tabs on paedophiles and other sex offenders to monitor the activities of known or suspected Islamic extremists, The Times has learnt.

The threat from radicalised young Muslims is growing at such a rate that MI5 has realised that it needs the help of police officers on the streets to help it keep a check on extremists in their areas.

The police keep track of known paedophiles by collating sightings of them and noting whom they meet and which areas they frequent — a tactic that MI5 sees as ideal for keeping track of the movements of Islamic extremists.

Thousands of police officers on the beat in areas with large Pakistani communities — such as Birmingham, Leeds and London — will be expected to keep a lookout for young Muslims known to have become radicals.

The information gathered from day-to-day observations will be used to compile a comprehensive database of lower-level extremism. This register will help both MI5 and the police.

However, there are thousands of other radicalised young Muslims from countries such as Pakistan, North Africa and Somalia about whom there is no intelligence linking them to terrorist groups.

Because of limited resources, they are not regarded as a priority for MI5 when there are so many others who are known to be affiliated to terrorist networks in Britain and, in many cases, actually to be plotting attacks. The fear is that young Muslims who are being radicalised may be persuaded to support the cause of the terrorists.

MI5 has built up an extensive archive of extremist activities, according to security sources. But its surveillance officers have time to focus only on those posing a terrorist threat.

Security sources say that monitoring extremists is only part of the drive to deal with the growing challenge of a younger generation of Muslims, most of them of Pakistani origin, being suborned into supporting terrorism.

The security and intelligence services are relying on the Government to come up with policies and funds that will help Muslim communities, providing jobs, decent homes and social welfare support to dissuade the young from becoming extremists.

The threat from home-grown Islamic extremism and terrorism, largely emanating from British Pakistanis, is a relatively recent phenomenon. The terrorist threat in Britain before the 9/11 attacks in the US was principally viewed as coming from Algerians, Moroccans and other North Africans.

Since 2001, and particularly since the July 7 suicide bombings in 2005, MI5 has been collecting as much information as possible about Muslim radicalisation in this country.

However, security sources emphasised that the new approach — contributing towards the police’s existing “Rich Picture” project, which is aimed at uncovering young Muslims being groomed for terrorism — did not mean that MI5 was targeting the Muslim communities in Britain.

This is a highly sensitive issue, especially as Muslim leaders have accused MI5 and the police of using all their resources to spy on their communities.

Both MI5 and the police insist they want clerics and other Muslim leaders to help them to stamp out extremism and actively seek their cooperation. The security sources said that it was a matter for individual police forces to decide how to prioritise their resources in keeping track of Islamic extremists. But the aim was to enable the police in their areas to know of the whereabouts of extremists.

“This is a new approach and we hope that police officers will understand that the job of countering terrorism and extremism is not just for MI5 and the police special branch but can be carried out by traditional police methods,” one security source said.

Sensitive intelligence about terrorist suspects is shared with Special Branch and with regional intelligence cells. This level of cooperation has improved in recent months, with the setting up of eight regional MI5 offices, sharing Special Branch premises, in Scotland, the North East, North West, the East and West Midlands, South West, Wales and South East.