And now this is being used against MI5, as apparently belying their claim not to have known about the 7/7 plot in advance. But why would hearing someone say he was waging jihad have caused anyone in MI5 concern, since we’re all endlessly told by the deceptive and the willfully ignorant that jihad is just an interior spiritual struggle?
“MI5 trailed 7/7 bombers for a year,” by Philip Johnston, Duncan Gardham and Richard Edwards in the Telegraph, with thanks to DD:
MI5’s defence that it was not aware of the threat of the July 7 bombers was looking increasingly shaky today after it was revealed that it had listened to a bugged conversation in which one of the suicide bombers spoke of waging jihad.
A parliamentary committee is to examine MI5’s handling of its intelligence after it was accused of failing to reveal the extent of its knowledge of the July 7 bombers following revelations yesterday that two of the suicide attackers were in their sights more than a year before the atrocity.
The extent of MI5’s missed opportunities came to light when five British Muslim members of an al-Qa’eda gang, who were associates of the July 7 suicide bombers, were jailed for life for plotting to blow up a nightclub, shopping centres and utilities with home-made fertiliser bombs.
The convictions were a triumph for MI5, which was alerted to the plot early in 2004 while monitoring links between British Muslims and al-Qa’eda leaders in Pakistan. But celebrations were tempered by renewed criticism of their failure to stop the July 7 bombings.
Immediately after those attacks, the Government said the bombers were unknowns, but it became clear within weeks that two had connections to the fertiliser plotters. No attempt was made to follow them up. MI5 was quickly diverted to another major conspiracy after decided that they did not pose as great a risk to the country as some of the 55 other “fringe players”.
In an unprecedented move, MI5 placed a “rumours and reality” rebuttal on its website last night, defending its actions. It said: “[Mohammed Sidique] Khan and [Shehzad] Tanweer were never identified during the fertiliser plot investigation because they were not involved in the planned attacks. Rather, they appeared as petty fraudsters in loose contact with members of the plot. There was no indication that they were involved in the planning of any kind of terrorist attack in the UK.”
But the leaked transcript of the conversation Mohammed Sidique Khan, the July 7 bomber, had with Omar Kyam, the leader of the fertiliser bomb cell, showed they spent most of the time talking about going to Pakistan and “operations”. Only two pages of a 10-page transcript refer to fraud. In the rest, Kyam tells Khan to be careful to obey his emir at the training camp and Khan wonders whether to say goodbye to his child.