In a comprehensive and insightful analysis of the Madrid explosions of March11, 2004, written on March 31, 2004, Juan Avilés, Director of the Spanish Instituto Universitario de Investigación sobre Seguridad Interior (University Institute for Research into Homeland Security), had drawn attention to an intriguing coincidence.
On September 11, 2001, terrorists belonging to the Al Qaeda had hijacked four aircraft for their terrorist strikes in the US. Three of the hijacked aircraft hit the intended targets. The fourth failed. On March11, 2004, terrorists belonging to a Salafi organisation of Morocco, believed to be linked to the Al Qaeda, caused four explosions in Madrid trains. Why the number four? Was it just a coincidence without significance? Or, was there something more to it?
These questions have become even more intriguing after the London blasts of July7, 2005. The perpetrators of these blasts too caused four explosions--three deliberately in metro trains and thefourth--either accidentally or deliberately--in a bus. One theory under consideration by the London Police is that the fourth explosive device was also probably meant for a metro train, but the person responsible for the strike could not make it to the targeted train.
Why this number four again--for a third time? Does it have any significance for theAl Qaeda and other jihadi terrorist organisations associated with it in the International Islamic Front (IIF)? These are questions worth exploring.
All credit to the British Police for the rapid progress in the investigation. From the governmental and non-governmental accounts of the investigation available so far, it would seem that the break-through came from a passenger who had got out of the bus before the explosion. He had stated that one of the passengers was behaving in a nervous manner, frequently fiddling with a bag which he was carrying. The police recovered identity documents with photos (a credit card and a driving license) from the mangled bus. The passenger identified the photo as that of the nervous man. In the meanwhile, his mother, on hearing of the explosions and the casualties caused, started making enquiries with the police about her missing son and identified the photo as that of her son.
The police started looking for him in the films recorded by the closed circuit television in the metro stations. In one of the films, they reportedly noticed him along with three others, all carrying identical rucksacks. They also recovered from the targeted trains the identity documents of the other three perpetrators. Thereafter, establishing their place of residence and family background would have been easy.
The tentative conclusion of the police is that the perpetrators must have died in the explosion. Hence, this could be a case of suicide terrorism, but they refrain from categorically saying so. In reply to questions as to why terrorists, planning to carry out acts of terrorism, should carry documents on their person, which would help the police to identify them, the reply given is that they apparently wanted the world to know that it was they who carried out the explosions.
Another intriguing aspect comes to the fore here. Presuming they were all suicide terrorists who carried the explosive device on their rucksacks, the explosions, which were so powerful that they badly damaged the train compartments and the bus and turned them into twisted metal, would have also blown up the perpetrators and their belongings to pieces. How did the identity documents carried by them on their person remain intact? One can allow for this possibility in one or two cases. How did this happen in all the four cases?
Another question which needs exploration is: Did the perpetrators really perish in the explosions or did they deliberately leave the identity documents in such a manner as to be recoverable by the police and get out of the trains after suitably placing the rucksacks inside? This would have created the impression that they were suicide terrorists, who had died in the explosions and enabled them to escape capture and flee the country.
According to the police, they have established the identities of all the four perpetrators, but the media has identified only three of them as of Pakistani origin, apparently on the basis of background briefings by subordinate police officers. Neither the police officers nor the media have so far said anything about the identity of the fourth person. They apparently feel that the revelation of the identities of three of them would not hamper further investigation, but the revelation of the identity of the fourth could. Why? What is so special about him?
The police are also reportedly looking for a fifth person, who, they feel, could turn out to be the master planner, who orchestrated the four explosions. It is interesting to note that while the four perpetrators came from the Leeds/Luton areas with a sizable population of Pakistani origin, the search for the fifth, possibly the master planner, seems to be focussed in the Buckinghamshire area.
The perpetrators identified so far are the following:
Shehzad Tanweer, aged 20 to 22, lived in Leeds. Believed to have blown himself up on a subway train near Aldgate station, east London. The bombing left seven people dead. He sometimes worked at his family’s fish and chip shop in a suburb of Leeds.Was a good student who played cricket for a local team. Reportedly went to Lawnswood school in Beeston, before studying sports science at Leeds University. He did not have a regular job. According to theGuardian, he is believed to have recently travelled to Pakistan. His father, Mohammed Mumtaz, was originally from the Faisalabad region in Pakistani Punjab.
Advertisement
Mohammed Sadique Khan, 30, from Dewsbury, a town about 14 kilometres from Leeds. Believed responsible for the explosion in a subway train at Edgware Road station, west London. Seven people died in the attack. Married to a Muslim girl from Gujarat in India, whose family had migrated to South Africa and then to the UK. He had met her while the two were students at the Leeds University.
Suspect bomber three: No name has been cited in the British press about the suspect, who is believed to have blown himself up on a train between Russell Square and King’s Cross stations – which left at least 25 people dead. Why was this explosion much more devastating than the other two in the subway? According toThe Times, he came from Luton, north of London, where he met his three colleagues, who drove to the town in rented cars. The four bombers are believed to have left Luton, which has a large Muslim population, and traveled together to King’s Cross on a commuter train. Upon arrival at the station in central London they said their farewells, before proceeding to launch their attacks.
Advertisement
Hasib Hussain, 19, also from Leeds. Believed to have blown himself up on the number 30 double-decker bus near Tavistock Square in Bloomsbury, central London, almost 55 minutes after the subway bombings. Thirteen people were killed. According toThe Times, he had gone "a bit wild" as a younger teenager, but had become devoutly religious about 18 months ago after returning from a trip to Pakistan to visit his relatives. He lived with his Pakistani-born factory worker parents in a suburb ofLeeds. He studied at the Matthew Murray High School. Never went to university.
In a report carried on July 14, 2005, the Daily Times, the prestigious daily of Lahore, said as follows:
"Intelligence agencies are collecting information about Shahzad Tanweer’s activities and the seminaries he stayed at during his four-month stay in Pakistan last year, intelligence sources here told Daily Times. Tanweer (23), one of the suicide bombers in the London bombings, was a Briton of Pakistani origin and came here in December 2004 for Islamic learning. "Intelligence agents have clues that he spent his time in various seminaries frequented by foreign students," said sources. They added that Tanweer also visited major seminaries in Karachi. Sources also said the British government was requesting information about the suspected bomber’s activities here. "It will be easier for Pakistani and British officials to search for the bombings’ mastermind once it is established where Tanweer studied," they said. They added that agencies were also collecting information about the other bombers Mir Haseeb Hussain (19) and Kamal Raza Butt. Lahore District Police Officer Tariq Saleem Dogar and Senior Superintendent Police (Operations) Shafqaat Ahmad denied the police was involved in monitoring seminaries."
Advertisement
Kamal Raza Butt figuring in the Daily Times report as one of the bombers does not figure in the reports emanating from London. Is he the third train bomber whose name has not been revealed so far by the British Police?
Had the bombers previously come to the notice of the British police? If so, in what connection? There is some confusion on thisissue. British Home Secretary Charles Clarke strongly denied a reported statement by the French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy that he (Clarke) had told an Europran Union Counter-terrorism meeting on July 13 that some of the bombers were arrested last year by the British Police.
Advertisement
Following this denial, Sarkozy clarified that he did not say that Clarke had said this, but he had only said that he (Sarkozy) had heard that some of them had been arrested last year. According to the BBC, Shehzad Tanweer was arrested by the local police in 2004 for disorderly conduct and cautioned. Hasib Hussain, reportedly a good friend of Shehzad Tanweer, was arrested in 2004 for shop-lifting and released after caution.
According to a 2001 study by Professor Muhammad Anwar of the University of Warwick, there are about 700,000 Pakistanis living in the UK. Because of their high birth rate, about 47 per cent of them are under the age of 16, as compared to 17 per cent for the rest of the population. The Muslims of Pakistani origin in the UK have the highest unemployment and crime rates as compared to the other sections of the population. Two per cent of the convicts and under-trials in British jails are Pakistanis and people of Pakistani origin.
Many of the Pakistanis, who have migrated to the UK, are Punjabi-speaking Mirpuris from Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK), who have migrated due to the lack of economic development in the POK and due to the failure of successive Pakistani Governments to provide for the rehabilitation of the persons displaced from their land by the construction of the Mangla dam.
Wahabi, Ahle-Hadith and Salafi ideologies have made a strong impact on these persons and this has been taken advantage of by the Al Qaeda, the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ) and the Hizbut Tehrir (HT) to radicalise them.. People of Pakistani origin living in the UK have been in the forefront of the activities of the HT in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia. This radicalisation has come in the way of the integration of these people in the British society. While the migrants from India (one million) look upon themselves as British citizens and have very well integrated themselves in the local society, many persons of Pakistani origin look upon themselves as part of the Islamic Ummah and hence do not identify themselves with the UK. For them, the interests of the Ummah come before those of the UK. They also look upon the UK as responsible for the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and support bin Laden's demand for an Islamic Caliphate.
In an editorial on the London investigations, the Daily Times of Lahore wrote on July 14 as follows:
Advertisement
"The sad fact is that Muslims in the UK have turned their face away from the obligation to integrate with British society at large. Integration is a defensive measure taken by expatriate communities to avoid being persecuted by the red-neck local extremists who simply hate anyone looking different. A trans-national feeling of being persecuted in the Middle East and events such as the Salman Rushdie affair have forced the Pakistanis into a kind of defensive isolation that is not natural. This is not the case, for example, of the one million strong Indian community.
"Communication with extreme elements in other Muslim communities is made possible by a "zone of contact". There is no such zone even in the volatile Middle East. British laxity has also contributed. For instance, successive British governments have paid scant attention to the takeover of Pakistani mosques by extremist imams and khateebs from Pakistan. Research shows that most of the Pakistani-funded mosques in the UK were originally Barelvi, but have now fallen to extreme Deobandi leaders imported from Pakistan. The traditionally moderate Barelvis complain of a similar "takeover" in Pakistan, but the British government was expected to be wiser than Islamabad. The most lethal British export to Pakistan and elsewhere in the region is Hizb al-Tahrir, an organisation banned in Pakistan for seeking to overthrow democracy and replace it with khilafat. Al Tahrir is an example of the "zone of contact" that exists in the UK between Pakistanis and the salafi Arab ideologues.
"Unfortunately, most of the journalistic reaction in Pakistan has been unhelpful. Readers’ columns are full of diatribes against the Labour government. Such opinion is stubbornly in denial of the facts of July 7 ("The Jews did it!"), and defiant in the safety the letter-writers feel in Pakistan. Even though it may appear relevant, reminding the British prime minister that his "crime of going into Iraq with Mr Bush" is behind the London bombings is not a wise stance to adopt. Our concern should go beyond such rhetoric to focus on the plight of the Pakistanis living for generations in the UK who may now face discriminatory measures necessitated by what happened on July 7. Expatriate Pakistanis are "dual" nationals, not simply inhabitants of the UK. They are important to Pakistan economically and politically and they must get priority in our thinking. The practice of "reprimanding" Mr Blair must cease. Pakistan’s High Commission in London must undertake a campaign of "renewal of contact" with Pakistanis, speaking to them on the advisability of a less strident religious expression. London and Islamabad must cooperate, as they have indeed pledged, to act in concert against the terrorists who threaten their peace," the editorial concluded.
On top of the list of non-Pakistani jihadi terrorists likely to come under investigation would figure Mustafa Setmariam Nasar for whom the US Federal Bureau of Investigation had issued after 9/11 an offer of a reward of $5 Million for anyone helping in his capture. According to the FBI's reward notice, he is also known as Abu Musab al-Suri and Umar Abd al-Hakim. The FBI says that he is an Al Qaeda memberand a former trainer at the Derunta and al-Ghuraba terrorist camps in Afghanistan. Born in Aleppo, Syria in 1958, Nasar was a member of the radical Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. He fled Syria in the 1980s and traveled widely throughout the Middle East and North Africa, before associating with the Algerian Islamic Group. He settled in Madrid in 1987 and obtained Spanish citizenship after marrying a Spanish woman. While in Spain, he wrote a number of inflammatory essays under the pen name Umar Abdal-Hakim.
In 1995 he moved to London and reportedly served as the European representative of the Al Qaeda. He traveled frequently to Pakistan and Afghanistan after bin Laden shifted to Afghanistan from the Sudan in 1996. He himself shifted to Afghanistan from London with his wife in 1998. Before 9/11, Nasar allegedly worked closely with Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar alias Abu Khabab al-Masri to train terrorists in the use of poisons and chemicals. He is believed to have survived the US air strikes in Afghanistan after October 7,2001, and fled to Pakistan, where he was reported to have taken sanctuary in the South Waziristan area near the Afghan border. The Spanish authorities, who investigated the Madrid bombings of last year, strongly suspected him of having masterminded the blasts and had been saying since then that his next target would be the UK.
According to Spanish counter-terrorism judge Baltasar Garzon, who investigated the involvement of terrorist elements in Spain in the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US and the Madrid blasts of last year, the Al Qaeda convened a strategic summit of its office-bearers in northern Iran in November 2002. bin Laden and his no.2, ayman al-Zawahiri, were not present. Nasar, who chaired the meeting, stressed the importance of strictly implementing the February 1998 fatwa of bin Laden, which created the International Islamic Front (IIF). According to the Judge, Nasar told the meeting that "the Al Qaeda could no longer exist as a hierarchy, an organization, but instead would have to become a network and move its operations out over the entire world."
The name of Mohamed el-Gerbouzi, a Moroccan living in London who has been jailed in Morocco in his absence for terrorism offences, had also figured in the initial media speculation about likely suspects in the London blasts, but the British Police authorities were subsequently quoted as denying that he was under investigation.
Advertisement
B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Distinguished Fellow and Convenor, Observer Research Foundation (ORF), Chennai Chapter.
