19 July 2005: Toronto Star
By Sandro Contera
Britain's largest Muslim group says Tony Blair's government won't make the country safer unless it recognizes how the Iraq war has radicalized some Muslims.
Yet the government seems more interested in "saving face" than acknowledging the obvious, says Inayat Bunglawala, spokesperson for the Muslim Council of Britain.
"Some sections of the government are in denial about their own actions and how they have contributed to the radicalization of some Muslim youths," he said yesterday, referring to Britain's participation in the Iraq war.
The invasion and postwar chaos in Iraq fuels the kind of extremism that led four British suicide bombers to attack three subway trains and a double-decker bus July 7, Bunglawala said.
"It's not a matter of saving face, it's a matter of safeguarding our country. We would hope that the sense of urgency is there to prevent similar atrocities from occurring by understanding what's happened to these lads," he added.
Bunglawala made the statements after a report from one of Britain's leading think-tanks said the Iraq war made Britain a target of terrorist attacks, bolstered al-Qaeda and hurt the global war against terrorism.
"There is no doubt that the situation over Iraq has imposed particular difficulties for the U.K., and for the wider coalition against terrorism," says the report co-written by The Royal Institute of International Affairs, also known as Chatham House.
"It gave a boost to the al-Qaeda network's propaganda, recruitment and fundraising, caused a major split in the coalition, provided an ideal targeting and training area for al-Qaeda-linked terrorists, and deflected resources and assistance that could have been deployed to assist the Karzai government (in Afghanistan) and to bring (Osama) bin Laden to justice.
The report, by British terrorism experts Frank Gregory and Paul Wilkinson, portrays Prime Minister Blair's government as a hapless ally of the United States.
"Riding pillion with a powerful ally has proved costly in terms of British and U.S. military lives, Iraqi lives, military expenditure, and the damage caused to the counter-terrorism campaign," the report says.
The conclusion that the 2003 Iraq war boosted support and financing for al-Qaeda is widely held among terrorism experts in Britain and was first expressed in a 2004 report by the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies.
The Chatham House report also criticizes British intelligence services for focusing on hunting the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland while allowing terrorists involved in the Middle East to operate from within Britain until Sept. 11, 2001.
"By the mid 1990s, the U.K.'s intelligence agencies and the police were well aware that London was increasingly being used as a base by individuals involved in promoting, funding and planning terrorism in the Middle East and elsewhere," the report says.
"However, these individuals were not viewed as a threat to the U.K.'s national security, and so they were left to continue their activities with relative impunity, a policy which caused much anger among the foreign governments concerned," it added.
Blair's government is desperate to avoid links being made between the London bombings and the Iraq war, which many accuse him of launching after "sexing up" information about Iraq's non-existent weapons of mass destruction.
Home Secretary Charles Clarke yesterday received the support of opposition parties for plans to toughen anti-terror laws. The proposed law would make it a criminal offence to take part in preparing terrorist attacks, train in terrorist techniques at home or aboard, or indirectly inciting to terrorism.
Three British-born men from Leeds in northern England - aged 18, 22 and 30 - launched the attack July 2 with a 19-year-old Jamaican-born British resident. At least 56 people were killed and 700 injured.
The three men from Leeds spent time last year in Pakistan, where several suspects have been detained in connection with the London bombings. One of the men, Shehzad Tanweer, 22, visited a religious school linked to the banned Jaish-e-Mohammad (Army of Mohammad) group, according to British news reports.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf yesterday acknowledged that some Islamic schools "are involved in extremism and terrorism" and denounced the London bombings as a violation of Islam.
An Israeli official also confirmed media reports that one of the bombers, Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, visited Israel in February 2003. The Israeli newspaper Maariv said Khan is suspected of helping two British-born suicide bombers who killed three Israeli's in Tel Aviv in April that year.
Questions are also being raised about the failure of Britain's MI5 intelligence service to detect the London bomb plot. British media reports say Khan, a primary school teaching assistant, was investigated last year by MI5 in connection to a plot to blow up a truck bomb in London. He was not charged or placed under surveillance.
Eight suspects linked to the truck bomb plot were arrested in March 2004 and are awaiting trial. Ottawa resident Mohammad Momin Khawaja, 29, was arrested in Canada and charged with terrorism in connection with the plot.
The Sunday Times says U.S. intelligence warned Britain that another bomber, Jamaican-born Germaine Lindsay, 19, was on a terror watch list but MI5 failed to monitor him.
