Blasts Destroyed UK Terror Theories

Blasts Destroyed UK Terror Theories

Sean O'Neill and Daniel McGroryDecember 29, 2005
INVESTIGATIONS into the backgrounds of the bombers involved in the July7 attacks in London have forced British counter-terrorist chiefs to tear up their intelligence assessments of potential terrorists.None of the four young men from West Yorkshire in northern England, who killed 52 bus and Tube passengers, fitted the existing "threat profile".
Analysts of Islamist terrorism have identified the bombers as forerunners of the next al-Qa'ida generation.
Michael Scheuer, of US institution the Jamestown Foundation, said: "The UK-born and raised suicide bombers of 7/7 foreshadow the next mujaheddin generation, who will operate below the radar of local security services."
Senior British police officers involved in planning future anti-terrorist strategy are struggling to redefine what makes a young British Muslim want to become a martyr for the jihad.




The Times has obtained some of the material being prepared at Scotland Yard to gauge the terrorist threat. The bewildering colour-coded diagrams, lists and flow charts appear to be part of some academic endeavour. There are arrows, dotted lines and boxes labelled with impenetrable phrases and jargon.
These are the physical representations of police attempts to prevent a repeat of the London bombings. They are very much a work in progress.
In the absence of any reliable stereotype of a terrorist, this is an attempt to identify the influences that brainwash young people and lead them to the point where they wish to blow themselves and dozens of innocent people to bits.
The radicalisation of a potential recruit begins, typically, with an extremist preacher who sends "talent scouts" to find young Muslims who might be willing to answer the call.
Some of these hardline clerics are well known. But their scouts, disciples and other less prominent preachers are often unknowns. Unobtrusively, they set to work on their target recruits. The first meeting place might be a mosque, but the radicals have also set their sights on places as diverse as universities and prisons.
A former militant leader in Iraq, who has fought alongside young Britons in attacks against British troops, said mosques in Britain were now controlled by "moderates" and were no longer recruiting grounds.
The ex-commander, who calls himself Abu Ahmad, claimed most of the Britons sent to Iraq were "talent spotted" in gymnasiums and Islamic bookshops as well as pubs and discos.
The young target may well be a vulnerable personality, exhibiting a sense of injustice and alienation.
The recruiter will use apparently chance meetings to chat, gradually drawing the target into Islamist circles.
It is, one senior Scotland Yard source says, a process of "ideological grooming", not unlike the techniques used by pedophiles to coach and coax their victims.
Mohammad Sidique Khan, the oldest of the London bombers and apparent leader of the cell, used these methods. Using youth centres, gyms, whitewater rafting trips and jihadi videos, he convinced Germaine Lindsay, Shehzad Tanweer and Hasib Hussain of the need to murder innocent people to defend their religion.
Khan had come to the attention of the intelligence services as an associate of other men suspected of involvement in a terrorist bomb plot. But he was not pursued because he did not tick enough of the boxes in the pre-July profile of the terror suspect.
A crucial part of the July jigsaw, and one that is still missing, is discovering how Khan, a teaching assistant and father of young children, was radicalised.
He visited Pakistan with Tanweer, and is thought to have spent time at training camps run by groups linked to al-Qa'ida.
But Khan's mentor, the possible leader behind the London attacks, has not been identified and the possibility remains that Khan was a self-taught bomber. A police source said: "It would be quite a revelation if this group had no one running it at all. If that is so, we really are in a mess."
The Times