This is an interesting story:
Officials tell ABC News the London bombers have been connected to an al Qaeda plot planned two years ago in the Pakistani city of Lahore.
The laptop computer of Naeem Noor Khan, a captured al Qaeda leader, contained plans for a coordinated series of attacks on the London subway system, as well as on financial buildings in both New York and Washington.
"There’s absolutely no doubt he was part of an al Qaeda operation aimed at not only the United States but Great Britain," explained Alexis Debat, a former official in the French Defense Ministry who is now a senior terrorism consultant for ABC News.
At the time, authorities thought they had foiled the London subway plot by arresting more than a dozen young Britons of Pakistani descent last August in Luton, a city known for its ties to terrorism.
"For some time, the locus of terrorism in Britain has been around the Luton area and in some of the northern cities," said Michael Clark, professor of defense at King’s College in London.
Security officials tell ABC News they have discovered links between the eldest of the London bombers, Mohammed Sadique Khan, 30, and the original group in Luton. Officials also believe it was not a coincidence the subway bombers all met at the Luton train station last week.
"It is very likely this group was activated last year after the other group was arrested," Debat said.
One of Khan’s friends informed the BBC today that Khan had undergone training for explosives at terror camps in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. This piece of information only strengthened the London-Pakistani connection.
This is kind of a good-news, bad-news thing. The bad news is that the bombers may have been UK citizens working with Al Qaeda to bomb the London subway system. The good news is that they weren’t just inspired by Al Qaeda, so the worry that this kind of terrorism has turned into an out of control franchise may be incorrect.
Yeah, IIRC, Khan’s the Al Qaeda computer guy who was supposedly turned and providing info on Al Qaeda, but was outed without checking with the UK or Pakistan. (CNN)
The UK had to scramble to round up the people they’d been monitoring. Some got away.
Khan, of course, was no longer useful as a double agent.
To what extent does the US’s blunder, by screwing up the UK effort and losing a double agent, bear responsibility for the recent bombings in London?
A good news/bad news thing? The real bad news, as JonH notes, is the high probability that the Bush administration’s rush to announce Khan’s arrest and up the terror alerts, during the middle of the Democratic convention in July, 2004, prevented the British from cracking this ring, and thereby thwarting the terrorists.
Putting political expediency ahead of national security.
Putting political expediency ahead of national security.
Yeah, but it wasn’t “our” national security, it was someone else’s, right?
Sebastian: you remember that this is the person you wrote about here, and then I wrote about here?
Luton, a city known for its ties to terrorism.
Good lord, that’s some sloppy writing. I hope the policework leading to the arrests was more precise.
Yes I remember that, though I never remember hearing about a resolution to the Pakistan ‘sting’ issue.
Sebastian: Yes I remember that, though I never remember hearing about a resolution to the Pakistan ‘sting’ issue.
Here’s your resolution.
Actually no, if I recall correctly that information is based on a particular and ambiguous news story with two questions which were unresolved.
A) Who told the NYT about Kahn first? In the original stories the source was typically described as coming from a Pakistani intelligence source which was later confirmed by the White House (this was originally the morning/evening issue which caused confusion by lack of reporting the timing of the disclosures).
B) If it was a US source was the US aware that he was being used to run a double agent? (No answer to this question is entirely satisfactory but the sad truth that the Pakistan government does lots of its own questionable things with respect to the War on Terror is not easily fixable.)
confirmed by the White House
Here we go again.
Reporters are given a lead, they start digging and start to come up trumps and they return to the WH for confirmation of what they find and because it is politicaly expedient to do so the confirmation is forthcoming, national security implications be dammed.
Now where have we seen this scenario play out again recently?
It beggars belief that national security agencies around the world co-operating in the intelligence war against international terrorists must figure into their calculations, when passing sensitive information to US agencies, the possibility that the US might leak selective information when doing so might be politicaly expedient.
I don’t understand your complaint. For example London has confirmed the arrest of the ‘chemist’ in the 7th attacks. When the NYT knows about something it reports it often even if asked not to for intelligence gathering reasons. See any number of reports about the methods used in catching people in the first WTC bombing.
If the White House does not confirm, you just get a story about how people are being held without proper court safeguards. Its a no-win situation. If the NYT is going to report that Khan has been captured, you might as well confirm it and take some credit, because people working with Khan are going to start sniffing around in response to the NYT report whether or not it is officially confirmed.
Btw, the DC Circuit today decided that the Geneva Conventions don’t provide a right of action to Al Qaeda members captured in Afghanistan.
Actually something for nearly everyone from the DC Circuit today. A ruling in the case on whether the Redskins can trademark the name “Redskins,” another in the African-American farmers’ class action against USDA, and yet another on campaign finance. Check it out: Court site.
Or this might work.
Sebastian I don’t understand your complaint.
My complaint is about the way in which this WH plants self serving leaks prompting journalists to investigate and return for confirmation. These political operations take precedent over national security operations under Roves leadership. Say it ‘aint so.
Kahn was co-operating till we needed a terra alert during the Democratic convention at which point his value as a turned AQ agent became subpordinated to the value of using information gleaned from his laptop to go from yellow to orange and remind all those focused on the opositions political convention that this election was about going to be about ‘Terra’.
SH:
You need to go back and re-read the facts concerning Khan. Your current analysis misses the boat.
The only reason Khan ever came on anyone’s radar screen was because of the administration’s desire to justify why it called a terror alert at the time of the Democratic National Convention.
The administration made the explicit decision to release information that led to the outing of Khan. From postit’s link — a USA Today article:
“Some law enforcement officials worry that disclosing detailed information would tip off terrorists and dry up intelligence sources. But Ridge said the public has a right to know. “The detail, the sophistication, the thoroughness of this information, if you had access to it, you’d say we did the right thing,” he said Tuesday. “It’s not about politics. It’s about confidence in government telling you when they get the information.”
It does not matter ultimately how the reporters ended up with Khan’s name (we know that issue is disputed, but it was clearly confirmed by the White House “on background”) — the reporters were sent on the chase in the first instance by the Bush administration giving info on why it called the terror alert.
Why was any info released at all? The administration was trying to cover up its clear political motivation in calling the terror alert in the first instance. The alert was based on 3 yr old info on Khan’s computer about surveillance of certain financial institutions as potential terror targets — it absolutely did not merit the terror alert. But it mattered more to the Bush administration to cover its political tracks than to keep all aspects of the Khan operation secret.
Focusing on the final act of the printing of Khan’s name misses the big picture. The administration caused the leak by selectively leaking info, which the reporters followed up on (surprise!), and then further leaking as reporters sought confirmation of what they were learning.
“the reporters were sent on the chase in the first instance by the Bush administration giving info on why it called the terror alert.”
What? The reporters now work for the White House? The ones in Pakistan have to wait for the White House to call a terror alert in order to get contacted by Pakistani agents?
“The administration caused the leak by selectively leaking info, which the reporters followed up on (surprise!), and then further leaking as reporters sought confirmation of what they were learning.”
What selective leak are you talking about? What information? Aren’t you making an impossible to escape Catch-22 by demanding that the adminstration justify its terror alert calls and demanding that it not reveal why?
Sebastian is in a Kool Aid funk, time for another music thread?
Sebastian: What information? Aren’t you making an impossible to escape Catch-22 by demanding that the adminstration justify its terror alert calls and demanding that it not reveal why?
Are you saying the administration should, when issuing a terror alert, justify the alert with specifics of ongoing undercover investigations and intelligence operations?
Huh?
Hm. Sebastian, I don’t think the catch-22 is quite so bad.
In practice, it’s very difficult for me to cast the Ridge quote in a positive light. There’s really only two satisfactory reasons for counterterror folks to make a threat public before the network in question has been completely rolled up. One is the ticking bomb scenario, where the threat is imminent and letting the public know about it may help prevent it. The other is if publicity will help with rolling up the network. Anything else seems plainly irresponsible.
We can pretty much rule out scenario #2 because in that case what you do is describe the people you’re looking for in as much detail as possible. That leaves scenario #1: that the network to which Noor Khan was attached posed an imminent threat to the US. Possible, but if in fact Noor Khan was being surveilled by the Brits, it’s awfully hard to imagine how Ridge would have enough information to be confident that a US (not UK) attack was imminent (meaning within a month or so) but not have enough information to prevent it without public assistance. And that particular combination of knowledge and ignorance is the only one that would justify publicizing the threat without offering any additional details about what people should be looking for.
dmbeaster’s explanation OTOH makes perfect sense and fits all the available facts. As a post facto justification for a politically motivated alert, casually leaking the existence of the Noor Khan data would be very appealing.
Gotta go, but will be interested in your supporting evidence for scenario #1 as opposed to “manifestly irresponsible.”
As far as its being a Catch-22 — obviously the right thing to do is, if circumstances force the Dept. of Homeland Security to raise the terror alert level in a situation where the raising appears to be politically motivated, and they cannot counter that appearance without revealing information damaging to national security, then they should live with the appearance of impropriety. Better they get some bad press, than that the investigation of terrorist suspects is damaged.
(And would I complain about the appearance of impropriety? Sure I would. But that does not excuse Ridge’s action.)
I’m reminded of a piece by Peggy Noonan (I think, I haven’t been able to find it anywhere) from a year or more ago that imagined an alternate history in which Bush had invaded Afghanistan early in 2001 and thus the September 11 attacks had never happened. He ended up impeached, and some of the administration was tried for war crimes.
I wasn’t quite sure what her point was, but my reaction was that if she really believed that was a realistic depiction of probable events, then she was saying that Bush could have prevented the attacks if only he’d been willing to be impeached for it. But if I believed such a thing, I’d have a rather different opinion of Bush than she apparently did.
Pakistanis knew bombers were their own
In this disurbing report, everyday Pakistanis waited for almost a week for the news they were sure would come. The bombers were Pakistani or trained in Pakistani madrassas or terror training camps.