Captured Iraqi planned UK's 7-7 bombing for al Qaeda

Times:

The al-Qaeda leader who is thought to have devised the plan for the July 7 suicide bombings in London and an array of terrorist plots against Britain has been captured by the Americans.

Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, a former major in Saddam Hussein’s army, was apprehended as he tried to enter Iraq from Iran and was transferred this week to the “high-value detainee programme” at Guantanamo Bay.

Abd al-Hadi was taken into CIA custody last year, it emerged from US intelligence sources yesterday, in a move which suggests that he was interrogated for months in a “ghost prison” before being transferred to the internment camp in Cuba.

Abd al-Hadi, 45, was regarded as one of al-Qaeda’s most experienced, most intelligent and most ruthless commanders. Senior counter-terrorism sources told The Times that he was the man who, in 2003, identified Britain as the key battleground for exporting al-Qaeda’s holy war to Europe.

Abd al-Hadi recognised the potential for turning young Muslim radicals from Britain who wanted to become mujahidin in Afghanistan or Iraq into terrorists who could carry out attacks in their home country. He realised that their knowledge of Britain, possession of British passports and natural command of English made them ideal recruits. After al-Qaeda restructured its operations in Pakistan’s tribal areas he sought out young Britons for instruction at training camps. In late 2004 Abd al-Hadi met Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, from Leeds, at a militant camp in Pakistan and, in the words of a senior investigator, “retasked them” to become suicide bombers.

They were sent back to Britain where they led the terrorist cell that carried out the 7/7 bombings, killing 52 Tube and bus passengers.

Pakistani intelligence sources said that Abd al-Hadi was also in contact with Rachid Rauf, a Birmingham man now in prison in Pakistan and alleged to be a key figure in last summer’s alleged plot to blow up transatlantic airliners in mid-flight.

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He is believed to have been involved in other plots involving the UK, but the Brits have put themselves in a corner by taking the position that Gitmo should be closed and they will not send their people to question him there. It is another example of people being too liberal for their own good some times.

The Telegraph story makes it blindingly clear that he was being sent by bin Laden to run the Iraq operation. So, again, why don't the Democrats want to fight al Qaeda? This development should be a fatal blow to their legislation to withdraw from the fight in Iraq. I suspect they will continue to remain willfully ignorant on the issue.

His direct ties to Zarqawi and the al Qaeda operation in Iraq are discussed here.

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More than anyone else, it was Abd al-Hadi who rebuilt al-Qaeda after its leadership fled from the US-led invasion of Afghanistan.

Once secured in the tribal areas of Pakistan, he began forging a firm alliance with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and bringing the jihad in Iraq under the al-Qaeda banner. He ran terror training camps, planned strategy with bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri and directed operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Europe.

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So what is the excuse for retreating from Iraq now?