Tony Blair will today meet senior intelligence officers and police chiefs to discuss what extra powers may be needed in the wake of the July 7 London bombings.
Ministers are already fast-tracking three new offences into law with the support of the opposition Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. Mr Blair wants to know if more can be done.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair was expected to be among those to attend.

The controversial issue of whether evidence from phone-tapping should be admissible in court is likely to be discussed.

The government announced yesterday that extremists who use radical preaching, websites or inflammatory articles to incite others to commit acts of terrorism will face automatic vetting before being allowed into the country.

The home secretary, Charles Clarke, said officials would draw up a list of “unacceptable” activities intended to promote or provoke terrorism, in the wake of the London bombings, which killed 56 people and injured hundreds more.
Full: guardian.co.uk

D.C. considers random searches
“The suggestion that we’re just going to do it randomly literally invites abuse and focusing on people who for subjective and unverifiable reasons are more suspect, which means that their skin is a different color.”

US and UK don’t need the pretext of terrorism to curtail the civil liberties of their citizens, but it does make it easier. Whoever is behind 7/7 has far bigger fish to fry.

British Seeking Cleric’s Top Aide in Connection With July 7 Attack
LONDON, July 20 – The police investigating the terrorist bombings here have begun a worldwide hunt for a former aide to one of Britain’s most militant Islamic clerics who they believe may have played a key role in the July 7 attacks, according to British, European and American intelligence and law enforcement officials.

The man, identified as Haroon Rashid Aswat, 31, originally from Dewsbury in north-central England, was a senior aide to Abu Hamza al-Masri, the blind, one-armed militant cleric who preached at the Finsbury Park mosque in north London until his arrest in April 2004. Mr. Masri, who urged young men to wage jihad in Afghanistan, Iraq and beyond, is now facing extradition to the United States to face terrorism-related charges.

Several intelligence and law enforcement officials said they believed that Mr. Aswat was also involved in a plan to set up a training camp for Al Qaeda in Oregon six years ago.

A theory now being pursued by Scotland Yard is that Mr. Aswat provided the four British bombers with support for the coordinated attacks in London’s public transportation system, killing 56 people and wounding 700, several senior intelligence and law enforcement officials said Wednesday night.

Those officials declined to say what specifically made them believe that Mr. Aswat was linked to the bombers, all of whom died in the attacks.

One official noted that Mr. Aswat was raised in Dewsbury, the same area where Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, one of the four bombers, lived. On Wednesday, Mr. Aswat’s family said he had not lived at the family’s home near Dewsbury for 10 years.

Mr. Aswat’s whereabouts are unknown, but several senior investigators said they were almost certain that he was not in Britain now.

Officials say he is of Pakistani descent, like three of the four bombers, but his family’s neighbors said the family was from Gujarat, India.

“Nobody’s tying him in or making him the mastermind yet,” a senior American official said. “There’s no real substantiation yet. But people are looking at some of his confederates and connections, and saying that it’s a possibility.”

An American official and two European officials said Mr. Aswat spent several weeks in Bly, Ore., in late 1999 and early 2000, trying to help several associates establish a Qaeda training camp there. Although he was not identified by name in court papers in the Oregon case, several American officials said he was an unindicted co-conspirator in the indictment of James Ujaama, who pleaded guilty to aiding the Taliban. Mr. Ujaama, 39, is now the leading witness in the United States terrorism indictment of Mr. Masri, American officials said.

Two American officials cautioned it was not fully confirmed that the Mr. Aswat being sought was the same man implicated in the Oregon case.

Mr. Aswat is believed to have met Osama bin Laden sometime in the late 1990’s, senior investigators said. He trained at Qaeda-run camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan, they said.

In recent days, Mr. Aswat has emerged as a suspect of intense interest to investigators searching for a principal plotter behind the London bombings, according to interviews with 10 officials. Scotland Yard says it believes that the four British bombers had logistical, financial and technical support from several accomplices, and Mr. Aswat had the ability to provide that kind of leadership, two senior American officials and two European officials said.

The hunt for Mr. Aswat was especially evident this week in Pakistan, where a senior government official said two men with names similar to Mr. Aswat’s were arrested and released when neither proved to be the man they were looking for.

Another Pakistani intelligence official said Mr. Aswat had been under criminal investigation in Britain since 1999, but British officials declined to comment on that. The Metropolitan Police have said previously that a man on Britain’s security “watch list” entered England by ferry two weeks before the July 7 bombing attacks and then left either the morning of the bombings, or the night before from Heathrow Airport, officials have said. Officials declined to say Wednesday whether Mr. Aswat was that man.

Several senior European and American officials said it was reported that Mr. Aswat died during an American bombing raid in Afghanistan in late 2001, but investigators now say that he is still alive.
It’s worth resurrecting him from the dead for this. How is it he was allowed into England a few weeks ago? Clearly, there are advantages to being dead.

Pakistan questions Briton on ‘key role’ in bombings
Security officials in Pakistan were yesterday questioning a British man arrested on suspicion of playing a key role in the 7/7 bombings in which 56 people died.

Haroon Rashid Aswat was carrying a belt packed with explosives, a British passport and a substantial amount of cash when he was seized, according to intelligence sources in the country.

His name is understood to have been passed to Pakistan’s security agency, Inter Services Intelligence, by British authorities after it emerged after an examination of the mobile phones used by the four bombers.

The arrested man is thought to have been born in Dewsbury and grown up in Batley, West Yorkshire, a short distance from the three suicide bombers who were from Leeds, and the fourth, who grew up in Huddersfield. Counter-terrorism officials in the UK said they believed the detainee and a 30-year-old from Yorkshire, who has the same name, are probably the same person.

The Briton being questioned in Pakistan was also hunted by the FBI for several years after he allegedly travelled from London to Oregon in November 1999 in an attempt to establish an al-Qaida training camp. That search was scaled down, however, after the agency heard that he had been killed while fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan.

It was unclear whether Aswat was also the name used by the so-called “fifth man”, a known al-Qaida suspect who was reported to have slipped into the UK through an east coast seaport several weeks before the attacks, but who was not placed under surveillance and flew out on July 6.

UK counter-terrorism officials said they were “interested” in the British detainee, but added that there was no firm evidence to link him to the blasts on three tube trains and a bus two weeks ago.

Mr Aswat was being held for questioning in Islamabad last night after being flown by helicopter from the small town of Sargodha, 110 miles west of Lahore, where he was arrested four days ago. He is expected to also be questioned by British intelligence officials based in the city.

A second Briton, Zeeshan Siddiqui, 24, from Hounslow, west London, is also being questioned in Pakistan about an alleged plot to bomb targets in the UK. Mr Siddiqui, who was arrested in Peshawar on May 18, was a close schoolfriend of Asif Hanif, also from Hounslow, who killed himself and three other people in a suicide bomb attack on a bar in Tel Aviv in April 2003.

Police had rounded up about 200 men in raids on mosques and madrasas within 24 hours of Tony Blair saying he was anxious to see Pakistan crack down on militant teaching in religious schools.

Some were being questioned about possible links with the three suicide bombers from Leeds – Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, Shehzad Tanweer, 22, and Hasib Hussain, 18 – whose families originated in Pakistan, and who are known to have travelled there late last year.

Several security sources in the country, who did not wish to be named, said Mr Aswat had been arrested when police first began rounding up suspected militants. “We have arrested Haroon Rashid in Sargodha three days ago,” said one security official.

Pakistan’s interior minister, Aftab Khan Sherpao, and information minister, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, yesterday denied the arrest. Intelligence sources insisted, however, that Mr Aswat had been detained. One source close to the investigation told the Guardian that he had links with Jaish-i-Muhammad, one of four major Islamist groups active in the country. Other sources say that he is linked to al-Qaida.

As well as the belt packed with explosives and the British passport, Mr Aswat was said by one of the security officials to be in possession of around 1m rupees (£9,650).

The name Haroon Rashid Aswat came to the attention of security services around the world after a man by that name allegedly attempted to establish an al-Qaida training camp in Oregon almost six years ago.

According to documents lodged with a federal court in New York, he was one of two men who travelled from London to assist a local man, James Ujaama, in setting up a “jihad training camp” near the town of Bly. After his arrest, Ujaama, 39, a convert to Islam previously known as James Ernest Thompson, cooperated with the FBI and was jailed for two years after he admitted providing aid to the Taliban.

The FBI is understood to have believed Mr Aswat was killed while fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan, but has continued searching for Oussama Kassir, a resident of Sweden, who is said to have been the second man who travelled from London.

Briton Named as Bomb Planner; Met With Bin Laden
Wed Jul 20 2005 20:20:53 ET

Terror investigators hunting the London bombing mastermind are to question a suspected Al Qaeda planner held in Pakistan.

British-born Haroon Rashid Aswad was seized at a religious school with a suicide bomb belt, explosives and GBP 13,000 in cash.

Security sources in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, claim he had up to 20 telephone conversations with London bombers Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer. One of these is believed to have been just hours before the blasts.

The UK’s DAILY MAIL reports on Thursday: Security sources say he trained at an Afghan camp which was visited by Osama Bin Laden and that he is linked to two of Bin Laden’s planners and an Al Qaeda suspect held in America.

U.S. investigators have been told that Aswad attended the Khalden camp in Afghanistan, favoured by foreign terror trainees. British shoe bomber Richard Reid is among those who attended the camp and it has been reported that London bomber Khan also went there.

Wow this guy has all the stuff: US connections, Osama, Richard Reid, religious school, AND a ‘suicide belt. Dead too.

Roberts Coauthored Amicus Brief in Support of Mountain Top Removal.

Roberts’ Lobbying Efforts Cost the American People $500 Million a Year.

Roberts Argued that Private Citizens Do Not Have the Right to Sue Over Environmental Regulations.
Full: americablog.blogspot.com

This makes Roberts a good nominee for both the Democrats and Republicans.

Here are several mainstream newspapers that are now saying what we’ve been saying all along: It simply doesn’t add up that a group of otherwise normal and quiet individuals with families and children would blow themselves up as part of a terrorist attack.

These patsies didn’t have any real motive. Who had the motive? Who benefited from the attack? Tryannical governments everywhere, most especially in the UK and the US, where these events have increased support for Blair and Bush and greased the skids for more intense “anti-terror” legislation.

Its very exciting to see mainstream publications not buying into the propaganda. Never before have so many people witnessed a government-backed terrorist attack and immediately seen through it. The results of the bombings have not been what the Globalists expected. People are awake or waking. They refuse to swallow the lie and its forcing the real perpitrators of this atrocity to change their story.
Full: infowars.com

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Sunni Muslim members on a committee drafting the new Iraqi constitution suspended their membership Wednesday in the wake of a colleague’s assassination. A suicide bomber blew himself up outside an army recruiting center in central Baghdad, killing at least 10 people.news.yahoo.com

WASHINGTON, July 19 – China is modernizing its military and emphasizing preparations “to fight and win short-duration, high-intensity conflicts” over Taiwan, the Pentagon said Tuesday with the release of its annual report on Chinese military power.

With military spending that has grown by double digit rates since the mid-1990’s, China “appears focused on preventing Taiwan independence or trying to compel Taiwan to negotiate a settlement on Beijing’s terms,” the report said.

This political and military pressure on Taiwan may run counter to American national security interests – and to American calls for a peaceful, negotiated resolution of the Taiwan question. But China has not yet built the military power to have full confidence it can achieve its political objectives regarding Taiwan.

Beijing’s conventional forces also are not deemed capable of threatening American territory, as “China’s ability to project conventional military power beyond its periphery remains limited,” the report stated.

At the same time, it cautioned that China was both modernizing and expanding its arsenal of nuclear missiles capable of reaching the territory of the United States.
Full: nytimes.com

U.S. Allies and Congress ‘Positive’ About India Nuclear Deal

Nukes for India; Threats for Iran: George W. Strangelove and the Triumph of Nuclear Faith

An independent investigation of the murder last week of 32 Iraqi children has been conducted by a local Iraqi news location (Mufakirat Al-Islam / Islamemo.cc) with results as follows:

The writing is in Arabic, so I will translate some highlights for non-Arabic speakers:

– All major Iraqi Resistance groups issued joint written communiqué that was distributed on Thursday proclaiming that this operation was not undertaken by any of the groups neither in terms of execution or planning or involvement.

– Interview with local residents of the bombing stated that US forces cordoned off the street under the pretence that a vehicle (a KIA) parked in the street was wired to explode.

– Local residents stated that the US soldiers began handing out candy and schoolbags attracting the children.

– When residents, fearing for their children, asked about the KIA car , the US soldiers said that it was a ‘false alarm’ and that there was no bomb (but that a couple of US soldiers remained fiddling with the car).

– Children from neighboring streets came upon hearing of the sweets and free bags (as well as a rumor that Pokemon toys were being given out).

– After a period of about 15 minutes from them entering the street, the US forces dumped the remaining toys/sweets in a pile in the middle of the street and frantically drove off hitting 4 children in the process with their vehicle.

– Seconds later, the KIA vehicle exploded killing 32 children and wounding about ten others who were gathered in the street.

– Residents also reported that, contrary to what the US military stated, there were no US casualties or injuries from this blast as the US forces had rushed out of the street just before the explosion took place.

– Information gathered from the Iraqi fire services stated that the explosion did not leave the signature traces of a TNT blast as used by the Resistance (being left over from Russian explosives used by the Iraqi army), as the TNT blast is always outward from the place of explosion and does not leave a crater as this car bomb did.

In conclusion, the evidence and interviews revealed what was obvious from the very start…That this evil crime was perpetrated by occupation forces with the objective of murdering Iraqi children and blaming the national Resistance so as to lessen its base of support (sounds like Vietnam tactics all over again – Phoenix).

May God grant peace to the dead, victory to the Resistance, and shame and retribution to the occupiers and their allies/supporters.
Full: uruknet.info

WASHINGTON — In the 1988 Hollywood hit “Die Hard,” starring Bruce Willis, a group of “terrorists” take over a Japanese banking institution in Los Angeles, hold hostages and make demands for release of “political prisoners.”

But it turns out the terrorists aren’t really terrorists. They are bank robbers trying to make off with the fortune in the bank’s vaults.

Could it be Osama bin Laden has seen “Die Hard”?

That is a question Scotland Yard and other law enforcement agencies are actually asking themselves following the July 7 London transit system attacks that killed 54 and injured scores more as they continue to scour the planet for evidence and additional conspirators.

Why? Because it appears some profited by short selling the British pound in the 10 days leading up to the attacks.

The pound fell about 6 percent (approximately 1.82 to 1.72) against the dollar for no apparent reason – until, of course, the terror attacks sent the British markets reeling still further.

“This was an almost unprecedented weakness and far too sharp to be a coincidence,” one economist with more than 35 years of experience in the investment industry, told Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence newsletter published by the founder of WND. “That is, after all, an annualized rate of loss of well over 100 percent.”

The fall did not go unnoticed by investigators, who are wondering whether the terrorist masterminds behind the attacks decided to make some money on their action or whether other investors with inside information about possible attacks took advantage of that knowledge.
Full: worldnetdaily.com

These are titles of links to be found on the website linked below:

Vinnell bombing leader Khaled Jehani, fought for the CIA in Afghanistan, Bosnia & Chechnya

Did Rambo ever stop loving Osama?
Full:apfn.net

IRAQ is slipping into all-out civil war, a Shia leader declared yesterday, as a devastating onslaught of suicide bombers slaughtered more than 150 people, most of them Shias, around the capital at the weekend.

One bomber killed almost 100 people when he blew up a fuel tanker south of Baghdad, an attack aimed at snapping Shia patience and triggering the full-blown sectarian war that al-Qaeda has been trying to foment for almost two years.

Iraq’s security forces have been overwhelmed by the scale of the suicide bombings — 11 on Friday alone and many more over the weekend — ordered by the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

“What is truly happening, and what shall happen, is clear: a war against the Shias,” Sheikh Jalal al-Din al-Saghir, a prominent Shia cleric and MP, told the Iraqi parliament.

Sheikh al-Saghir is close to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the supreme Shia spiritual leader and moderate who has so far managed to restrain powerful Shia militias from undertaking any outright attack on Sunni insurgents. His warning suggests that the Shia leadership may be losing its grip over Shias who in private often call for an armed backlash against their Sunni assailants.

The sheikh also cautioned Sunni clerics supporting the insurgency against American forces and the Shia-Kurdish Government elected in January. “I am very keen to preserve the Sunni blood that would be shed due to the irrational acts of some of their leaders, who do not see that they are leading the country into civil war,” he told the national assembly.
Full: timesonline.co.uk

‘Civil war’ is creeping into more and more news reports. See how absurd, the US ostensibly supporting a Shi’ite government. This is all in the script.