July 27, 2005

'Six further terror cells are poised to strike'

AS MANY as six more terrorist cells may be preparing to launch bombing attacks in Britain, with each unaware of the existence of the others, two of the world's most respected al-Qaeda experts warned yesterday.
[...]
Despite the seizure yesterday of a car believed to have been used by the gang, there have been no sightings of the men themselves since they were seen returning to the Curtis House flats after their failed attack.
[They're talking about the killers who did the failed 7/21 attacks in London.--Jen]

One theory is that the men picked up more explosives and then headed for another safe house, where they are waiting to strike again. But another possibility is that they will now lie low while other cells prepare their own attacks. '
[Either way, this is a nightmare!]
[...]
Mr Rana, the author of The Seeds of Terrorism, a new book on the jihadi threat, said he suspected the involvement of Pakistan's Lashkar-e-Taiba network, which has sought to expand its operations in recent years.

He said the group retained strong links with al-Qaeda leaders and had the facility to raise large amounts of money to fund its operations, often through charitable donations from sympathetic Muslims in western countries, including Britain.
[Watch with interest as University of S. Florida professor and Palestinian Islamic Jihad frontman Sami Al-Arian defends his "innocent" Muslim fundraising activities here in the U.S.]
[...]
The problems facing the intelligence services in linking the cells are demonstrated by the failure of Spanish investigators, more than a year on from the Madrid attacks, to find solid connections between the perpetrators and al-Qaeda's leaders.
[It didn't help that some of these bad guys blew themselves up rather than being taken into custody by the police.]
The amount of help that can be expected from Pakistan is also in doubt. Despite a much-vaunted crackdown on extremists, there have been no arrests directly linked to the London attacks, and on Monday the country's president, Pervez Musharraf, said that al-Qaeda was too weak to organise terrorist attacks from Pakistan.

Would God that Musharraf was right, but I doubt it.
It wouldn't surprise me one bit if OBL was in Waziristan and had been there since November of 2001.
Perv's still trying to make up his mind as to whether it's worth his while to cooperate with the West and really fight the war on our side or whether he should cave to the Sunni/Waahab IslamoCrazies in his own country.
We need to hang onto ourselves in both the U.K. and the U.S.
As Friday's booms in Sharm el-Sheik showed us, the long, horrible summer is still not over and there are bad men who mean us harm still at large.
May God guide and protect us and lead our people to the evildoers before they can wreak their mayhem on us.