Suspects Named on UN Terror List Living Free In Britain

Calls were growing last night for firm action to be taken over a dozen terror suspects named on a UN list of individuals with links to al Qaeda who are still living freely in the UK – many at the taxpayer’s expense. The revelation that the men are being allowed to live in Britain without the prospect of being arrested or deported has prompted calls for an urgent change in the law.

Among the 12 suspects named on the UN list are a number of men accused of raising funds for a violent jihadist group with alleged links to Osama bin Laden.

Opposition MPs claim their presence in the UK leaves this country at risk from the prospect of new terror plots being hatched by violent extremists.

Patrick Mercer, Conservative member of the Home Affair Select Committee and chairman of the Sub-Committee on Counter Terrorism, said: “Yet again our security is wide open to these sorts of individuals and it is something the Home Secretary has to address.”

One of the men named on the UN Consolidated List is Mohammed al Ghabra, a 29-year-old British citizen suspected of being a key figure in the plot to blow up passenger airliners over the Atlantic.

Also on the list is Khalid Abd Al-Rahman Hamd Al-Fawaz, 44, a Kuwaiti living in London, who has been accused by the FBI of involvement in bombing American embassies, and Hani al Sayyid al Sebai, a 46-year-old Egyptian also living in London.

Other individuals on the UN list include Ghuma Abd’rabbah, 52, a Libyan-born British citizen who is suspected of raising funds for the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), a jihadist organisation opposed to the Gadaffi regime, and accused of having links with al Qaeda. He is understood to be living in the Birmingham area, along with Libyan-born Abd Al-Rahman Al Faqih, 50, who is also on the UN list.

Another suspected LIFG fund-raiser on the list is Abdulbasit Abdulrahim, 41, who holds British nationality and lives in London. However, the LIFG denies any links with al Qaeda and claims it supporters have been listed in order to appease Colonel Gaddafi.

Suspects named on United Nations terror list living free in Britain – Telegraph.

British Court Convicts Three in Plot to Blow Up Airliners

After two trials and the largest counterterrorism investigation in Britain’s history, three men were found guilty on Monday of plotting to bomb at least seven trans-Atlantic airliners on a single day with liquid explosives smuggled aboard in soft-drink bottles and detonated by devices powered with AA batteries.

The convictions came three years after the global airline industry was thrown into chaos by the plot. The bombers’ plan to drain plastic soft-drink bottles with syringes and refill them with concentrated hydrogen peroxide, a bleaching agent also used as a propellant for rockets, led to new measures prohibiting passengers from carrying all but small quantities of liquids and creams onto flights.

With those measures still in force and causing backups at airport security checkpoints around the world, the police and intelligence agencies in Britain and the United States had waited anxiously for verdicts in the six-month trial at Woolwich Crown Court in London, where eight men were accused of conspiracy to stage the airliner bombings.

Prosecutors said the plot could have killed at least 1,500 people aboard the targeted planes, which by that measure would have made it second only to the Sept. 11 attacks as the most serious terrorist plot in modern history.

“Apart from massive loss of life, these attacks would have had enormous worldwide economic and political significance,” John McDowall, Scotland Yard’s counterterrorism chief, said after the verdicts.

In Washington, the Obama administration praised the verdict on Monday.

Source

Swine Flu Preparedness – Meet the Flu Fighters

Once the H1N1 influenza outbreaks begin – and Maryland health officials have no doubt that they will – this series of nondescript scientific laboratories, located past security guards instructed not to let anyone in without an official escort, will certainly be humming.

Here, inside the state office complex on Preston Street in Baltimore, dozens if not hundreds of polyester swabs will arrive each week, containing what doctors believe is evidence of swine flu’s resurgence. Lab workers will then determine whether it is the flu – H1N1 or seasonal, or something else entirely – and whether the virus seems to be gaining strength. One of the most important roles these labs may play in the H1N1 pandemic will be determining whether this new flu has developed resistance to the antiviral medications stockpiled to make the sick well again.

Maryland is one of a dozen states that will be testing samples of the swine flu virus for hints that it has mutated. As summer turns into fall, what most worries flu experts is that the only tool to fight the H1N1 virus will no longer be available to at least slow the march of the disease that could affect as many as half of Americans.

“That information is very valuable,” said Dr. Robert A Myers, deputy director of the state public health laboratory. “We’re trying to get this information in quickly.”

Last week, in its first week of drug resistance testing, none of the 20 samples examined at the Maryland lab had become resistant to Tamiflu or the other antiviral medications. A handful of tests around the world have revealed a virus that is resistant to these drugs, but so far they have been isolated cases and do not appear to have spread.

via Read Full Article.

Napolitano Predicts Severe Flu for Fall

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Tuesday that pandemic flu probably will flare up soon after schools open in the fall, before vaccine is available.

Napolitano also acknowledged that there would not be enough pandemic flu vaccine for everyone, at least in the early stages of the flu season. “There will be prioritization of vaccinations,” she told members of the USA TODAY editorial board.

The flu strain causing the pandemic, a new H1N1 virus also known as swine flu, is especially dangerous because it differs from every other known flu virus. As a result, most people are defenseless against it. That makes a vaccine the keystone of any effort to prevent illness and save lives. The first batches of the vaccine are due in mid-October.

Napolitano said this year’s flu season probably will be severe but not as severe as the 1918 pandemic, the world’s worst. In 1918, flu killed at least 675,000 people in the USA and up to 50 million worldwide. She said it’s more likely that the pandemic would mirror 1957, when flu killed about 70,000 people in the USA and 1 million to 2 million people worldwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Read Full Article

Allegation – MI5 Recruited Al Qaeda Sympathizers

MI5 mistakenly recruited al Qaeda sympathisers who were trying to infiltrate the British secret service, it has been alleged.

Conservative MP Patrick Mercer is demanding a probe into claims six Muslims were thrown out of MI5 because of concerns about their past.

Two of the six allegedly attended al Qaeda training camps in Pakistan while the others had unexplained gaps of up to three months in their CVs.

Mr Mercer, counter-terrorism sub-committee chairman, told Sky News that MI5 is believed to have detected two sympathisers at a “fairly early stage” of their secret service training.

The others allegedly did not make it through vetting procedures.

However, Mr Mercer wants clarification on how successful the security services have been at detecting enemy infiltrators.

via MI5 Recruited Al Qaeda Sympathisers Claim: Conservative MP Patrick Mercer Demands Probe | UK News | Sky News.

Swine Flu Worst Case Scenario, Hundreds of Thousands Could Die

Hundreds of thousands of Americans could die over the next two years if the vaccine and other control measures for the new H1N1 influenza are not effective, and, at the pandemic’s peak, as much as 40% of the workforce could be affected, according to new estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That is admittedly a worst-case scenario that the federal agency says it doesn’t expect to occur.

Read Full Article

A Dire Prediction for Swine Flu H1N1 Virus

Public health officials brace for another, nastier wave of the H1N1 virus. Alarming new numbers outline the worst case scenario when H1N1 returns this fall. The World Health Organization predicts 2-billion people may become infected globally. That’s a third of the worlds total population. Here in the United States, 90-million people could become ill, with 10% ending up in the hospital.

Again, it’s a worst case scenario, but local health officials take these numbers seriously. They’re gearing up for what could be the largest vaccination campaign in decades. It’s a tiny bug expected to make a very big return. Health experts are already planning a major attack against the H1N1 virus. They’re worried it may mutate and pack a deadlier punch.

Dr. Dean Sienko, Ingham County Health Department: “We haven’t had something like this in quite a while, and the best way to be successful is to begin planning early.”

To beat the bug, public health officials are gearing up for a mass immunization campaign, the likes of which we haven’t seen since the polio outbreak in the 1950s. It’s an effort to protect those at highest risk- young children and teens.

Dr. Dean Sienko: “This is a major undertaking and that’s why planning now is critical.”

via A Dire Prediction for H1N1 Virus – WLNS TV 6 Lansing Jackson Michigan News and Weather – WLNS.COM |.

Swine Flu Bears A Disturbing Resemblance To 1918 Virus

The new H1N1 influenza virus bears a disturbing resemblance to the virus strain that caused the 1918 flu pandemic, with a greater ability to infect the lungs than common seasonal flu viruses, researchers reported on Monday.

Tests in several animals confirmed other studies that have shown the new swine flu strain can spread beyond the upper respiratory tract to go deep into the lungs — making it more likely to cause pneumonia, the international team said.

In addition, they found that people who survived the 1918 pandemic seem to have extra immune protection against the virus, again confirming the work of other researchers.

“When we conducted the experiments in ferrets and monkeys, the seasonal virus did not replicate in the lungs,” said Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin, who led the study.

The H1N1 virus replicates significantly better in the lungs.”

The new swine flu virus has caused the first pandemic of the 21st century, infecting more than a million people, according to estimates, and killing at least 500. The World Health Organization says it is causing mostly moderate disease but Kawaoka said that does not mean it is like seasonal flu.

“There is a misunderstanding about this virus,” he said in a statement. “There is clear evidence the virus is different than seasonal influenza.”

Read Full Article

Swine Flu Fear Isolates 84 Cadets At Air Force Academy

UPDATE:

The Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado is dealing with the state’s largest outbreak of the H-1-N-1 virus, or swine flu.

The Academy says initial tests show 15 cadets with the virus.

—— Original Post ———

Colorado – Dozens of sick cadets at the Air Force Academy have been isolated over fears of H1N1, the Swine Flu.

A spokes-person for the Academy tells 11 News 84 cadets, mostly freshman recruits, started showing symptoms on Monday. Since then, they have been tested, and are being isolated from the rest of the Academy in a dorm on the base.

Officials say test reults she come back within 24 hours.

Test samples were sent to Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.

As protocol the Academy has been in touch with the El Paso County Health Department and the Centers For Disease Control.

Source

Swine Flu – Parts of Britain Near An H1N1 Epidemic

Fourteen Britons who had contracted H1N1 flu have died and the rapid spread of infection in two areas of the country is close to epidemic level, health officials said on Thursday.

The Department of Health said Britain now had 9,718 laboratory-confirmed cases, the third most in the world behind the United States and Mexico.

Britain’s Chief Medical Officer Liam Donaldson said the actual number of cases was likely to be higher.

All 14 who have died had underlying health issues and it was not clear in how many cases the patients had died as a direct result of the virus, known as swine flu.

“In London and the West Midlands we are getting pretty close to epidemic levels. We’ve seen big surges there,” Donaldson told

BBC TV.

“For the country as a whole, the average is about the level of the flu season but in some parts of the country the levels are getting pretty big.”

via Parts of Britain near an H1N1 epidemic; 14 dead | Reuters.

Taliban Target Britain On Orders From al-Qaeda

The terrorist informant has told prosecutors he was trained by Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistan Taliban, and was planning a series of suicide attacks with 11 other men.

The informant, known as “Ahmed”, told investigators the bombers were to work in pairs using a “device carried in a backpack with a third person to detonate a remote control” in order to ensure the bombers went through with their mission.

Details of the attempted attacks emerged in papers submitted to the Spanish authorities in a case against the alleged bombers, who were arrested in raids in the Raval district of Barcelona in January last year.

It is claimed the attacks were to begin on the Barcelona underground system and then spread to the other European countries with a presence in Afghanistan, thought to include Britain, according to new documents.

The information echoed claims made by British security services that a terrorist cell was sent to Manchester from the Taliban heartland in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas.

British investigators believe that the cell, which was allegedly planning attacks on the Trafford and Arndale shopping centres over the Easter holidays, had connections with al-Qaeda, and Spanish prosecutors say their cell may also have had links with al-Qaeda.

The terrorist group is believed to have formed a “holy alliance” with the Taliban to launch terrorist attacks on foreign soil.

Instead of relying on British-born men travelling to Pakistan for training, al-Qaeda is now recruiting “ready made” terrorists from among the Taliban, investigators believe.

The 10 men arrested in the north west are fighting deportation on national security grounds after Government lawyers accused them of being members of a “UK-based network linked to al-Qaeda involved in attack planning”.

Spanish police found chemicals including nitrocellulose and potassium perchlorate along with batteries, timers and cables in the raids.

They also found “materials for indoctrination” relating to attacks against Nato forces in Afghanistan and books and DVDs.

Spanish prosecutors submitted documents laying out their case earlier this month and Dolores Delgado Garcia, a prosecutor at Spain’s National Court, told the Daily Telegraph she believed the Barcelona cell was inspired by speeches by Osama bin Laden about the “loss of Andalucia” once part of the Muslim Ottoman empire.

“Al-Qaeda has been targeting Spain because of its historic associations with Andalucia,” she said. “But other cities in Europe where countries have troops in Afghanistan were also targets.”

Explaining her case at a top-level conference organised by New York University’s Centre for Law and Security, she said “Ahmed” had become a “protected witness” and had told them that “Baitullah Mehsud would make demands and when they were not complied with, they would launch their attacks”.

Read Full Article

Britain Prepares To Deport 9 Terrorism Suspects to Pakistan

Two weeks after hundreds of police officers staged raids in northern England and arrested 12 men in what Prime Minister Gordon Brown described as “a very big terrorist plot,” the police released nine of them on Tuesday and handed them over to Britain’s border control agency for deportation to Pakistan.

Two other men remained in police custody for further questioning under Britain’s Terrorism Act. Another man had been handed over previously to the border agency for deportation.

A Home Office spokesman, referring to the transfer of the nine suspects to the border agency, said the government was “seeking to remove these individuals on grounds of national security,” suggesting that some kind of plot was still under investigation. A police spokeswoman in the northern city of Manchester, which the British news media had portrayed as the focal point of the plot described by Mr. Brown, said the investigations were continuing.

But Britain’s security agencies appeared to have pulled back from earlier suggestions that they had foiled a major imminent attack involving infiltrators with Al Qaeda sent to Britain from Pakistan on student visas. After the arrests on April 8, senior officials were quoted in British newspapers as saying they had moved against the 12 men after deciding that a bombing attack involving mass casualties was only days from being carried out, probably against a target in Manchester, possibly a crowded shopping center over the Easter weekend.

via Britain Prepares to Deport 9 Terrorism Suspects to Pakistan – NYTimes.com.

Report: Britain to Use Google Against Terrorists

The British government may be deploying a new weapon against terrorists: Google.

According to the tech-related news site The Register, the Home Office’s Office for Security and Counter Terrorism plans to work with “approved” Islamist Web sites to “flood the Internet” with pro-Western viewpoints.

It will train the operators of the pro-Western sites in search-engine optimization, an arcane strategy that basically makes sure your site is near the top of Google, Yahoo and Microsoft LiveSearch results pages.

That way, young British Muslims searching online for say, “jihad,” will get pro-Western Web sites instead of Al Qaeda mouthpieces, or so the theory goes.

“In order to support mainstream voices, we work with local partners to help develop their communication, representational and leadership skills,” an unnamed Home Office spokesman told The Register. “This support could include media training, which can help make their voices heard more widely, and support the development of skills which allow communities to be more effective in debate.”

Source Read Full Article

Al-Qaeda Terror Plot To Bomb Easter Shoppers Broken Up – UK

An al-Qaeda cell was days away from carrying out an “Easter spectacular” of co-ordinated suicide bomb attacks on shopping centres in Manchester, police believe.

Sources told The Daily Telegraph that the arrests of 12 men in the north west of England on Wednesday were linked to a suspected plan to launch a devastating attack this weekend.

Some of the suspects were watched by MI5 agents as they filmed themselves outside the Trafford Centre on the edge of Manchester, the Arndale Centre in the city centre, and the nearby St Ann’s Square.

Police were forced to round up the alleged plotters after they were overheard discussing dates, understood to include the Easter bank holiday, one of the busiest shopping weekends of the year.

“It could have been the next few days and they were talking about 10 days at the outside,” one source said. “We had to act.” Police are now engaged in a search for an alleged bomb factory, where explosives might have been assembled.

If such a plot was carried out, it would almost certainly have been Britain’s worst terrorist attack, with the potential to cause more deaths than the suicide attacks of July 7, 2005, when 52 people were murdered.

A plan to arrest the suspects in a series of co-ordinated raids yesterday morning had to be hastily brought forward to Wednesday afternoon after the country’s most senior anti-terrorism officer, Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick, of the Metropolitan Police, was photographed going into Downing Street carrying a briefing paper with top secret details of Operation Pathway in full view.

Yesterday morning, Mr Quick resigned after he was told by the Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, that he had lost her confidence and that of MI5.

As a result of his blunder, hundreds of police officers had to be scrambled to arrest the suspects, who were being monitored round the clock.

Former police chiefs pointed out that rounding up suspected suicide bombers in public places in Liverpool, Manchester and Clitheroe, Lancs, had put other people at risk and could also have compromised the operation.

Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, described the alleged plot as “very big” and said investigators were looking at links with Pakistan.

Mr Brown said: “We know that there are links between terrorists in Britain and terrorists in Pakistan. That is an important issue for us to follow through and that’s why I will be talking to President Zardari about what Pakistan can do to help us in the future.”

All but one of the men arrested were Pakistani nationals who came to Britain on student visas. This suggested a possible new tactic by al-Qaeda, which had previously used British-based extremists who travelled to Pakistan for training.

The issue of student visas represents a potential security nightmare for the police and MI5. There are 330,000 foreign students in Britain and around 10,000 such visas are issued every year to Pakistanis alone.

Source – Read Full Article

Related articles by Zemanta

• U.S. al Qaeda effort lacking, official warns (cnn.com)

Next Page »