The al Qaeda in Iraq connection to Brit bomb plot

Sunday Times:

AT least one of the suspects being quizzed over the alleged plot to set off car bombs in Britain was in recent contact with Al-Qaeda in Iraq, senior security officials said yesterday.

Scotland Yard’s Counter Terrorism Command SO15 is understood to have uncovered evidence that in the months leading up to the attacks one or more of the suspects communicated by telephone or e-mail with terrorist leaders in Iraq.

The development has fuelled a theory that the failed attacks in London and Glasgow were designed as a farewell to Tony Blair to punish him for his role in Iraq. Details of the Al-Qaeda role in the three failed car bombings are expected to emerge over the next few days.

The development suggests that intelligence received by MI5 earlier this year about a possible Al-Qaeda attack to mark Blair’s departure was accurate. A report in April by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) warned that a senior Iraqi Al-Qaeda commander had outlined details of a big attack on Britain.

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Ahmed was allegedly radicalised by Hizb ut-Tahrir, the extremist group which the government tried to ban two years ago. Shiraz Maher, a former member, claimed that Ahmed came under the group’s influence in 2004 while he was doing research at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge.

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I have yet to hear a convincing argument on why this group has not been banned. they openly call for the killing of Jews. They support the preachers of hate who want to establish Shari'a law, which by itself should be enough to have them banned. The ties to al Masri still seem a little muddy at this point. Perhaps some of this information is being held back. An earlier report connected the Iraqi doctor to a Sunni cleric with ties to al Qaeda in Iraq. I have seen no follow up stories on his current disposition, but they should be checking his mosque every Friday to see if he shows up wearing a burqa.