Well, it certainly was not UK involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. James Forsyth of The Spectator, with the assistance of Shiraz Maher, has highlighted a crucial segment of the recenly released review of the intelligence. On page 93 of Could 7/7 Have Been Prevented?, there is a picture of Mohammed Siddique Khan from a surveillance operation in January 2001, this was before the invasion of Afghanistan and long before Iraq. In fact, it would be difficult even to argue that Khan took his inspiration from the bravery and heroism of the 9/11 murderers.
Khan was photographed in 2001 during Operation Warlock, a surveillance operation conducted to moniter a number of Islamist extremists. Khan was later identified as having been one of the 40 individuals to have attended a so called 'outward bound' expedition organised by known extremists. Though this does not necessarily prove that Khan was in fact already planning 7/7, it does demonstrate his immersion in the Wahhabi-inspired ideology which eventually drove him to commit mass murder four years later.
This Wahhabi intepretation of Islam comes, of course, from Saudi Arabia, a country that both the US and UK are closely allied with. The main reason, other than oil, for this close relationship is the hope that the Saudis can provide our intelligence agencies with vital information that could prevent future attacks.
In an attempt to prove just how useful they can be, Saudi intelligence told the Observer in September 2005 that they had passed vital information concerning the 7/7 bombers to MI6 in December 2004, seven months before the attacks on the London transport system. However, the recently released 7/7 report casts doubt over how useful the Saudi intelligence was, stating that the December 2004 Saudi report "differs substantially from what actually took place." It also states that:
This Wahhabi intepretation of Islam comes, of course, from Saudi Arabia, a country that both the US and UK are closely allied with. The main reason, other than oil, for this close relationship is the hope that the Saudis can provide our intelligence agencies with vital information that could prevent future attacks.
In an attempt to prove just how useful they can be, Saudi intelligence told the Observer in September 2005 that they had passed vital information concerning the 7/7 bombers to MI6 in December 2004, seven months before the attacks on the London transport system. However, the recently released 7/7 report casts doubt over how useful the Saudi intelligence was, stating that the December 2004 Saudi report "differs substantially from what actually took place." It also states that:
...the [Saudi] intelligence was materially different from what actually occurred on 7 July and clearly not relevant to these attacks, and we can confirm that we have seen nothing in this investigation that alters this view, or that would substantiate the Saudi claims.Although one could argue that this is only what is available in the public sphere, and that there is a lot the public does not know about regarding the effectiveness of Saudi intelligence, this could also be seen as a reason to consider reassessing just how useful it is for us to be so closely allied with the biggest disseminator of extremist Islamist propoganda on earth.
Thanks for writing. Great as usual.
Why is reading national newspapers on this little better than reading a cereal box?
And if you look at the date from the video grab, George Bush was only one week in to his first term in office, having made his inaugurational speech on the 20th January 2001 - Khan was on his boy scouts outing on the 27th!
"Fight against the disbelievers, for it is but an obligation made on you by Allah," thus said Shehzad Tanweer (Mohammed Siddique Khan’s co-terrorist) in a film (ref MEMRI) released a year and a day after the atrocities.
His statement of purpose and justification is full of references to the Quran and hadith. ‘Wahhabi interpretation’ or no ‘Wahhabi interpretation’, Islamism was the motivator for these murders and continues to motivate many other Muslims to do likewise.