Egypt’s interior minister, Habib al-Adli, has criticised the British police for coming to “hasty conclusions” about an Egyptian biochemist who was living in Leeds and who returned to Cairo several days before the London attacks.
The pro-government daily, Al Jumhuriya, said the minister had told it that reports of the scientists’s links to al-Qaida were groundless.

The prosecutor general, Maher Abdel Wahid, has also come out with a pointed reminder that Egypt and the UK have no extradition treaty, so that even if the chemist were charged in Britain, Cairo need not send him back.

Egyptian police arrested Magdi el-Nashar, 33, last Thursday after British officials gave his name to the Egyptian authorities a few days earlier. Investigators found explosives in a house in Alexandra Grove, Leeds, to which Dr Nashar was reported to have links.

Muhammad Muhammad, the imam of the Tawhid mosque in Cairo, told the Guardian yesterday: “Police attended prayers on Thursday. They stood beside him and at the end just linked their arms to his and walked him out to a waiting car. That’s the way it’s done here.”

The arrest has caused shock and consternation in the lower middle-class neighbourhood of Cairo where his family lives. Residents say Dr Nashar was known as a quiet, polite scientist who did his family proud by his educational achievements.

Although he attended the mosque regularly, he was not known as a fundamentalist, and he retained close links to a Christian family in the dusty street where he grew up.

Egyptian human rights advocates have taken up the case, urging access to him by independent lawyers. Montasser El Zayat, a senior member of the Bar Association, said: “We are against the bombings; at the same time we want honesty and fairness.”
Full: guardian.co.uk

How many people have been detained since the 7th, being tortured into ‘confessions’?

…Our best strategy now is a prompt withdrawal plan consisting of clearly defined political, military and economic elements. Politically, the United States should declare its intention to remove its troops and urge the Iraqi government and its neighbors to recognize the common regional interest in allowing Iraq to evolve peacefully and without external intervention. The first Iraqi election under the permanent constitution, planned for Dec. 15, is an appropriate date for beginning the pullout.

Militarily, we should establish a timetable for reducing the scope of operations that has enough flexibility so as not to provide a tactical advantage to insurgents. We should also plan on continuing measures like no-flight zones, border surveillance, training for Iraqi security forces, intelligence collection and maintenance of a regional quick-reaction force.

Economically, we should define what amount of assistance we are prepared to extend to Iraq as long as it stays on a peaceful path. It would be best if this aid was but one facet of a broader set of economic initiatives to benefit Arab states that advance our interests.

Of course, these measures cannot guarantee a secure and democratic Iraq free of external domination. But they could be first steps of a strategy to pursue America’s true long-term interests in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf.
nytimes.com

Since ‘a secure and democratic Iraq’ is far far from America’s true long-term interests, whether US troops stay or leave is irrelevant, except in terms of electing Jeb Bush in ’08.

Iraq suicide bomber kills 98; Saddam indicted
MUSAYYIB, Iraq (Reuters) – Stricken townspeople swept away the wreckage of a fuel truck bomb that killed 98 people south of Baghdad and three more suicide car bombers hit the Iraqi capital on Sunday in a devastating new campaign.

The tribunal empowered to try war crimes issued its first charges against Saddam Hussein and said it would announce within days when the ousted dictator will stand trial for his life.

The overnight attack in the highway town of Musayyib was the most lethal since the Iraqi government took power in April and the second deadliest single bombing since the war began in 2003.

It prompted denunciations of the authorities in parliament and calls for local militia to take up arms.

Some 15 suicide bombers have struck within just over 48 hours in the capital and along the main road south in what al Qaeda’s Iraq wing has declared is a campaign to seize Baghdad.

In Saturday’s attack a suicide bomber blew up a fuel truck near a crowded vegetable market outside a Shi’ite mosque in Musayyib, in a lawless area U.S. troops call “the triangle of death.” In addition to the 98 killed, hospital sources said 75 people had been wounded, 19 of whom were in serious condition.

“After the bomb I went over there and found my son’s head. I could not find his body,” said Mohsen Jassim of his son, 18.

Khatami hails new era in relations with Iraq
TEHRAN (AFP) – Iranian President Mohammad Khatami hailed a “turning point” in relations with Baghdad as Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari made a historic visit to Tehran aimed at strengthening ties after decades of enmity.

Following talks with the first Iraqi head of government to visit Iran since the fall of Saddam Hussein, Khatami said on Sunday that Iran was prepared to do anything it could to help its one-time foe, with whom it fought a devastating eight year war.

“The visit of the Iraqi prime minister to Iran is a turning point in the historic relations between the two countries. It will allow us to plaster the wounds and repair the damage caused by Saddam Hussein through joint cooperation,” said Khatami, quoted by the official IRNA agency.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran will do everything it can to assure the reconstruction, security and stability of Iraq,” said Khatami. “The strategy of Iran is to support a free Iraq, independent and developed.”

Jaafari is heading a large delegation on the visit and is expected to sign a number of deals aimed at aiding his war-torn country to meet its growing energy needs.

“We know the evil wrought by Saddam Hussein on the peoples of the region but he does not represent the Iraqi people,” IRNA quoted Jaafari as saying after the talks.

“Putting security and stability in place in Iraq will benefit all the countries in the region,” he added.

Although serious sources of friction have remained, the two neighbours have embarked on a major process of reconciliation whose success has worried the United States and some Arab countries.

Iraq’s Shiite-led government is the first such in an Arab country for centuries and should be a natural ally for the theocratic regime in Iran, an almost entirely Shiite country.
Not to mention Syria.

Why Iraq oil money hasn’t fueled rebuilding
WASHINGTON – First, the good news: With oil prices at record highs, Iraq is on track to bring in $20 billion or more in oil revenue this year.
That may sound like a lot of petrodollars, especially for a war-torn country with tremendous needs in infrastructure repair and services delivery.

But the bad news is that very little, if any, of that money will actually be used in the country’s stalled reconstruction – despite past lofty predictions that oil-rich Iraq would be financially self-sufficient by now.

Dealing with Iraq’s insurgency is a chief reason for the gap between oil revenues and improving living conditions. But another reason for the lag is a growing problem of income loss from smuggling and outright theft of the revenues.

One worrisome consequence of the inability to turn higher oil revenues into street-level improvements is the impact on the Iraqi public’s faith in the country’s new government and direction.

“The insurgents know that oil is the lifeblood of the Iraqi economy, and that keeping it from improving daily life is key to building up the frustration and sense of helplessness and lack of faith in the new government – all of which they are out to encourage,” says Gal Luft, codirector of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security in Washington. “Unfortunately, I don’t see the government taking advantage of what should be a good time for an oil-producing country to make some money and move forward.”

As the country with the world’s second-largest known oil reserves, Iraq should be sitting pretty at a time of $60-a-barrel oil, analysts say. But they quickly add that Iraq’s potential has been tamped down by a continuing failure to invest in renewing the country’s decrepit oil infrastructure and an ill-conceived strategy of placing exports above oil-field modernization.

Any ‘ill-conceived strategy’ issues straight from Washington. The issue is outlined in the previous article on Iran. It is not in US interests for there to be any semblance of ‘building’ in Iraq. Whatever else this “Al Quaeda in Iraq’ might be, it dovetails exquisitely with American and European aims. As does Hamas in Palestine. As do the ‘religious schools’ in Pakistan. As does all this endless ocean of human blood.

Tony Blair warned yesterday it would be ‘catastrophic’ to believe al-Qaeda could be foiled by changing British foreign policy, in a robust defence to charges that the bombing was provoked by the Iraq war.
The Prime Minister hit back at suggestions that the London atrocities were linked to injustices in the Middle East, saying it was the ‘almost-devilish logic’ of extremists to play on western guilt.

Their propaganda was clever and sophisticated, he told an audience of Labour party delegates in London: ‘It plays on our tolerance and good nature; it exploits the tendency to guilt of the developed world – as if it is our behaviour that should change, that if we only tried to work out and act on their grievances, we could lift this evil; that if we changed our behaviour, they would change theirs.

‘Their cause is not founded on injustice. It is founded on a belief, one whose fanaticism is such that it can’t be moderated. It can’t be remedied. It has to be stood up to.’
Full: guardian.co.uk

Yeah Tony, as if. That last statement certainly pertains to the monstrously ‘evil ideology’ which you yourself represent. Ask the Iraqis about your ‘tolerance and good nature.’

Suicide bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan, the 30-year-old teaching assistant from Leeds, has emerged as the commander of the London terror attacks, with links to suspected al-Qaeda operatives across three continents.

As Khan’s family came forward yesterday to make a public statement expressing their astonishment for his part in the ‘horrific and evil’ act that killed at least 55 people, security sources confirmed he was linked to a previous foiled terrorist plot in Britain. US reports also suggest that he had links to a second plot linked to an al-Qaeda cell in Pakistan. Khan is also believed to have been in telephone contact with a suspected al-Qaeda recruiter in New York.

…Last night, the wife of Germaine Lindsay spoke of her devastation at learning of her husband’s secret life. Samantha Lewthwaite, 22, said: ‘I never predicted or imagined that he was involved in such horrific activities. He was a loving husband and father.

‘My whole world has fallen apart, and my thoughts are with the families of the victims of this incomprehensible devastation.’

Lindsay’s half-sister said he had been a ‘great brother, just like any sister would want a brother to be’. But Dana Reid told Channel 4 News that he had changed when he started to attend local mosques.

The pair drifted apart and Reid only heard about his death on the news. But she added, that despite his change, she could not believe he would have carried out the atrocities. ‘I want proof,’ she said. ‘He did change but he never changed in his love for people.’
Full: guardian.co.uk

Well you could see this coming, because Khan was the oldest. And a nursey school teacher at that. What happened to the convenient ‘mastermind’ whom we were told slipped out of the country on the 7th?

Why did they buy return train tickets to Luton? Why did they buy pay & display tickets for cars? Why were there no usual shouts of ‘Allah Akhbar’? Why were bombs in bags and not on their bodies?

THE London bombers may have been duped into killing themselves so their secrets stayed hidden.

Police and MI5 are probing if the four men were told by their al-Qaeda controller they had time to escape after setting off timers. Instead, the devices exploded immediately.

A security source said: “If the bombers lived and were caught they’d probably have cracked. Would their masters have allowed that to happen? We think not.”

The evidence is compelling: The terrorists bought return rail tickets, and pay and display car park tickets, before boarding _ a train at Luton for London. None of the men was heard to cry “Allah Akhbar!” – “God is great” – usually screamed by suicide bombers as they detonate their bomb.

Their devices were in large rucksacks which could be easily dumped instead of being strapped to their bodies. They carried wallets containing their driving licences, bank cards and other personal items. Suicide bombers normally strip themselves of identifying material.
mirror.co.uk

This is of course assuming that bomb residues were found anywhere near their bodies.

July 15, 2005 — One of the bombers in last week’s attacks made a direct phone call to a suspected recruiter for an extremist group in New York.

Authorities told ABC News that records show Mohammed Sidique Khan, the eldest of the bombers now believed to be the field commander of the attacks, had called a person who is associated with the Islamic Center, a mosque in Queens, N.Y. Yet, a member of that mosque claimed they had no knowledge of the phone call.

In addition to Khan, two other men linked to the London bombings also had direct ties with the United States.

“Whilst we are watching the ports and the airports trying to prevent people from coming in,” said M.J. Gohel, a terrorism analyst at the Asia-Pacific Foundation, “al Qaeda and its global jihadi friends are a step ahead. They have already penetrated into the West and are recruiting Western born Muslims to join terrorism.”

Lindsay Germaine, one of the four dead bombers and a Jamaican who left behind a pregnant wife, had recently traveled to see relatives in Ohio.

Furthermore, Magdy El Nashar, 33, who was captured last night at his family’s home outside of Cairo and then questioned by British agents, studied at North Carolina State University. Police believe he helped the bombers build their explosive devices. Now they want to know if there are more bombs and would-be bombers.
Full: abcnews.go.com
A Muslim making a phone call to a mosque in New York, going to college in North Carolina, visiting relatives in Ohio. Monsters.

As we revealed last week, on the very morning of the Bombings, a consultancy agency with government and police connections was running an exercise for an unnamed company that revolved around the London Underground being bombed at the exact same times and locations.

On a BBC Radio 5 interview that aired on the evening of the 7th, the host interviewed Peter Power, a former Scotland Yard official, working at one time with the Anti Terrorist Branch, now Managing Director of Visor Consultants, which bills itself as a ‘crisis management’ advice company.

Power was quoted as saying “At half past nine this morning we were actually running an exercise for a company of over a thousand people in London based on simultaneous bombs going off precisely at the railway stations where it happened this morning, so I still have the hairs on the back of my neck standing up right now”

Beyond the unbelievable “coincidence” of this scenario, the very fact that the bombs in the drill were simultaneous is a smoking gun because almost a week went by before it was revealed that the bombs had gone off simultaneously.

The importance of this drill cannot be understated. This is precisely what happened on the morning of 9/11/2001. The CIA was conducting drills of flying hijacked planes into the WTC and Pentagon at 8:30 in the morning. The two scenarios are comparable in that it is a tried and tested method of navigating around the everyday security services, and, more importantly, if the perpetrators get caught during the attack or after with any incriminating evidence they can just claim that they were just taking part in an exercise.

Peter Power has since toned down his claims in further interviews, changing his story of the drill to make it seem less identical to the real attacks. He has also issued a statement via e-mail in response to the thousands of requests he is receiving demanding clarity on the issue, that reemphasizes his backing away from his original “precisely” comment.

It seems that Power may feel he is in too deep and is backing away from the whole incident. This is probably due to the fact that Power himself and his company are not directly involved in the bombings, they have simply been used as a tool in a larger operation.

Power has been hired by the government before and he is always used to release information after terrorist incidents in London.

Two previous examples of this are the March 2001 BBC television center bombing and the September 2000 rocket attack on the MI6 building.

Was Power again used by the government as a conduit for information that would support their official version of events?

Power’s comments (below) seem to suggest that his company was somehow involved in the response to the ACTUAL attacks, so if they were not working on behalf of London Underground or the Government then how were they allowed to be actively involved at multiple crime scenes?

In short, our exercise (which involved just a few people as crisis managers actually responding to a simulated series of activities involving, on paper, 1000 staff) quickly became the real thing and the players that morning responded very well indeed to the sudden reality of events.

Power is named among the elite of the Business Continuity (BC) community, he has regularly appeared on the BBC, covering terror incidents, as the “expert” when it comes to managing the crisis. He is also referred to extensively in a working paper on BC issued by the Bank of England, HM Treasury and FSA and has written for the British Bankers Association. His former clients make for interesting reading, they being JP Morgan Chase, ING, Mellon, Lloyds TSB, Morley Fund Management, Bank of New York, Arcadia Group, FCO and Universal Music.

Power has also spent time on the Advisory Board to the Canadian Centre for Emergency Preparedness(CCEP). This is significant due to the fact that a key member of that board was Richard Sheirer, Senior Vice President of Giuliani & Partners. Here they are listed together.

Sheirer was intimately involved along with Guiliani in the “crisis management” on 9/11. Giuliani himself was in London on 7th July after traveling down from Yorkshire from a speaking engagement at the Local Government Association conference in Harrogate, where he received a standing ovation for praising Tony Blair and hyping the war on terror.

Giuliani was also coincidentally only “yards from Liverpool Street station when the bombs went off.” and later that day went on several TV networks saying that the crisis management teams (Peter Power’s team, or so he would have us believe) seemed like they were expecting the bombing to take place.

Giuliani has met several times with government and police officials in London since 9/11.

CIA connections

The web of deceit extends further and the connections deepen when you take a look at the background of the Commissioner of Transport for London, Bob Kiley. Kiley also has connections with Giuliani.

During his time as President and CEO of the New York City Partnership, the city’s leading business and civic organization, Kiley came into contact with Giuliani regularly, and was even backed by Giuliani as a candidate for city schools chancellor. Kiley was also a member of Giuliani’s “Mayoral Task Force on Tax Reduction and Restructuring” in 1999. The two are also connected through New York City’s deputy mayor for economic development and rebuilding (after 9/11), Daniel Doctoroff, whom Kiley introduced to Giuliani.

Kiley was also an advisory to the Mayor’s office on traffic management in New York, suggesting “eliminating toll booths and just putting transponders on every car’s license plate. That way, motorists would automatically be charged ever time they rode on a heavily traveled bridge or tunnel — or even a highway or major street — during a time of peak usage.”

Early in his career Kiley was tapped by the CIA and quickly became Manager of Intelligence Operations and then Executive Assistant to the Director. Kiley served under Richard Helms, who was appointed CIA director after JFK was taken out. Helms was the only director to have been convicted of lying to Congress over CIA undercover activities and served time in prison. He was heavily involved in the cover up of the MK ULTRA project. As his Executive Assistant, this means Kiley was also intimately involved.

Kiley is also incidentally a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. We should be asking ourselves why is this CIA activist and high member of the Establishment, in charge of London’s Transport network?

The Establishment have their mits all over this latest staged attrocity, you can carry on probing deeper into the rabbit hole and you always come across the same elite figures and organizations, hiding in every darkened nook and cranny.

It’s a certainty that as the weeks and months go by more and more questionable connections will emerge.
Full: prisonplanet.com

An Egyptian biochemist held for questioning over the London bomb attacks has no links to al-Qaeda, Egypt’s interior minister has said.
Habib al-Adli told Egyptian newspaper Al-Jumhuriyah media speculation about Magdi Mahmoud al-Nashar was groundless.

He also denied agents of the British security services had participated in Mr al-Nashar’s interrogation in Cairo.

Unofficial sources in Cairo and London say British agents are observing the 33-year-old’s ongoing interrogation.

The Egyptians are doing everything possible to cooperate, the sources say.

Mr al-Adli told Al-Jumhuriyah that reports elsewhere in the British and Arab media linking Mr al-Nashar to al-Qaeda were “groundless” and based on a hasty conclusion.
Full: bbc.co.uk

Bombers’ ideology ‘evil’ says PM
Prime Minister Tony Blair has hit out at the “evil ideology” behind the London bomb attacks which killed at least 55.

The PM said it was vital to confront the bombers’ beliefs as well as introducing anti-terrorist measures.

“This is the battle that must be won. A battle not just about terrorist methods, but their views, [not just their barbaric acts but their barbaric ideas,]” he said.

I am sure everyone is pleased that Blair has appointed himself an authority on Islam.

Reports London bombs made from military explosives
Tuesday, 12 July , 2005 18:21:00
MARK COLVIN: More pointers are emerging to the nature of the organisation which bombed three London trains and a bus last week, and killed more than 50 people in the process.

Both the London Times and France’s Le Monde are reporting that the bombers appear to have used sophisticated military explosives.

Both quote a top French counter-terrorism official, and the Times says a single bomb-maker was probably responsible for building all four devices.
see yesterday below

Blair Finally Admits: Al-Qaeda Doesn’t Exist
…Commenting on the possible role of Al Qaeda, Blair said, “Al Qaeda is not an organization. Al Qaeda is a way of working … but this has the hallmark of that approach.”

London Stagecoach Employee Says Bus Bombing Suspicious
We received an e mail from an employee of Stagecoach, the company responsible for the majority of London buses.

Our contact works a route roughly one mile from the site of the bus bombing last Thursday.

The bus driver pointed out that the number 30 bus was the only one to be re-routed after the initial bombs went off in the London Underground, every other bus carried on its normal journey, but for some reason this bus was diverted.

The driver notes the following about CCTV maintainence.

“CCTV gets maintained at least 2 or 3 times a week and can digitally store upto 2 whole weeks worth of footage. this is done by a private contractor….So when I heard that the CCTV wasn’t working on a vehicle that’s no more than 2 years old since last June…..I’m sorry that’s rubbish, I work for the company I know different.”

Also a point of interest….last saturday a contractor came to inspect the CCTV on the buses at the depot, According to my supervisor the person spent more than 20 hours over that weekend, 20 hours to see if the CCTV is working? Also that person who came was not a regular contractor, for security reasons the same few people always come to the depot to carry out work, this time it was different.

Drivers in the depot already think the so called bombers had inside help because it was to organised. Some even think it had help from the company.”

I have received other information suggesting that the CCTV is regularly maintained and checked. The police pay the bus company to check it, and the bus company makes a substantial profit out of this, so all parties benefit from keeping the CCTV systems working.

This information makes it all the more suspicious that the bus cameras were not working.

Was the mammoth 20 hour inspection session of the CCTV a means of disabling the CCTV, or something even darker? Were the contractors, who were not familiar to the bus company employees, actually placing the bomb?

China is prepared to use nuclear weapons against the US if it is attacked by Washington during a confrontation over Taiwan, a Chinese general said on Thursday.

“If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition on to the target zone on China’s territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons,” said General Zhu Chenghu.

Gen Zhu was speaking at a function for foreign journalists organised, in part, by the Chinese government. He added that China’s definition of its territory included warships and aircraft.

“If the Americans are determined to interfere [then] we will be determined to respond,” said Gen Zhu, who is also a professor at China’s National Defence University.

“We . . . will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all of the cities east of Xian. Of course the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds . . . of cities will be destroyed by the Chinese.”
Full:financial times