The Iraq as Jihad U fizzle

Telegraph:

Several doctors arrested over the London and Glasgow car bomb plot were on the files of MI5, it was disclosed last night.

At least one was on a Home Office watch list after being identified by security services - meaning their travel in and out of Britain was monitored by immigration officers.

Others were found to be on the MI5 database, which contains an estimated 2,000 suspected jihadists or supporters of terrorism.

Whitehall sources said they had not been involved in previous plots, but were "people who knew people'' who were under observation.

The fact that they were "on the radar" was one reason why the investigation has moved so fast since the failed plot was sprung last Friday morning.

Seven NHS doctors have been arrested over the latest alleged conspiracy, most of them originating from the Middle East.

The investigation spans the world, with an eighth suspect arrested in Australia.

After a frantic four days of investigation and with Britain in the midst of a major security operation, police are confident that they have all the "major suspects" in custody. The arrest of an Indian doctor at Brisbane airport on Monday was described as a "watershed" in the inquiry.

Scotland Yard asked their Australian counterparts to swoop on Dr Mohammed Haneef, 27. He was at the airport with a one-way ticket to India, having not told his employers or his landlord of any plans to leave.

The international nature of the alleged conspiracy and the fact that the suspects being held worked as doctors has surprised investigators.

American intelligence sources suggested yesterday that some cell members were recruited by al-Qa'eda in Iraq up to three years ago. Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, an insurgency leader, was said to have been ordered to find young men to blend into Western society before staging an attack, said the CBS television network in America.

But British security sources insisted there was no intelligence that al-Qa'eda commanders plotted to infiltrate the NHS.

Most of the alleged cell members arrived in this country after 2004 to take up NHS jobs. It is believed they were recruited in Britain. Whitehall sources said that, as yet, there was no sign of any orders, instructions or training from al-Qa'eda based in Pakistan.

There has also been none of the tell-tale ''chatter'' on jihadi websites that usually follows such attacks.

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When the case first broke many in the media wanted to run with the Iraq angle as CBS News suggest. One reason they are running away from that angle now is that it does not play into the media story line on terrorist training in Iraq to rain ruin on the west when they leave. These guys were so inept that it makes that story line look silly so the media will gladly take any excuse to discount it now. It is a little surprising that there is no chatter on the "quality" of their "trade craft."

However, this story in the Times says that al Qaeda in Iraq bragged that “those who cure you will kill you.”

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The warning was delivered to Canon Andrew White, a senior British cleric working in Baghdad, and could be highly significant as the eight Muslims arrested in the wake of the failed plot are all members of the medical profession.

Canon White told The Times that he had passed the general warning, but not the specific words, to a senior official at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in mid-April. A Foreign Office spokesman said last night that it was forwarding the actual words to the Metropolitan Police.

The Times also learnt yesterday that one of the suspects, the Iraqi doctor Bilal Abdulla, had links to radical Islamic groups, and that several of the eight suspects have now been linked to known extremist radicals listed on MI5’s data base. Canon White, who runs Baghdad’s only Anglican parish, said that he met the al-Qaeda leader on the fringes of a meeting about religious reconciliation held in Amman, the Jordanian capital.

“He talked to me about how they were going to destroy British and Americans. He told me that the plans were already made and they would soon be destroying the British. He said the people who cure you would kill you.”

The man, who was in his forties and had travelled from Syria for the meeting, said that the plans would come to fruition in the next few weeks and target the British first. He said that the British and Americans were being targeted because of their actions in Iraq. He did not learn the man’s identity until after the meeting, and will not disclose it now, but said: “I met the Devil that day.”

Separately, intelligence sources told The Times that Bilal Abdulla, 27, the Iraqi doctor involved in the Jeep attack last Saturday on Glasgow airport, had links to radical Islamic groups and was plotting a terrorist attack. They said that Dr Abdulla had met Mohammed Asha, 26, the Jor danian doctor arrested near Sandbach on Saturday night, through their fathers, who were friends. The two young doctors kept in touch after they came to Britain two or three years ago.

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The Daily Mail also has the Iraqi-Zarqawi connection. It appears that the Iraq as Jihad U. story want go away, but it is looking much less ominous than the jihadis and media wanted. If the war in Iraq is responsible for these guys, it is looking like a pretty good investment on our part when you compare them to the Mohammad Atta team that was trained in Afghanistan then spent an equivalent amount of time in the US preparing for their mission on 9-11. The Afghanistan version was much more lethal.

One reason is that they had a sanctuary in which to train and prepare, whereas Iraq is a war zone with comfort zones for al Qaeda to push recruits through and do battle testing. Those going to Iraq are lucky to make it out alive. Most who come from other countries do not come for training but come to become ordinance and explode around a group of Shia they can mass murder.

Also note the casualness with which the discussion of tracing overseas calls by the perps is mentioned without a hint of Leahy like hysteria. That is a level of maturity that Democrats should look to as an example.