[A-List] UK state: strategy of tension

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

It's August 1974 all over again. Except instead of striking miners and other
assorted communist revolutionaries led by Harold Wilson it's al-Qaeda --
though I bet Arthur Scargill is involved in all this somewhere. Truly
amazing events going on just now and a sign of just how desperate is the
state of Tony's credibility, and/or the productivity of MI5.


Rocket attack threat at Heathrow as terror alerts grip Britain and US
LORNA MARTIN
The Herald, 12 February 2003

FEARS of a terrorist rocket attack on an airliner at Heathrow yesterday
forced the prime minister to order hundreds of troops to guard the London
airport.

Tony Blair's decision was echoed in the US, where people were advised to
prepare for a major chemical, biological, or radioactive "dirty bomb" attack
over the next three days. American householders were urged to be ready to
seal off their homes with tape, and stockpile food and medical supplies.

Last night, after a day of growing tension, a man said to be Osama bin Laden
urged Iraqis to carry out suicide attacks in the face of a war by the west.
His words were broadcast on the al-Jazeera Arab satellite TV channel, and
both the station and US intelligence analysts believed it was the al Qaeda
leader.

In London, the complete closure of Heathrow was considered at one stage, but
rejected. Instead, 450 troops in armoured personnel carriers guarded the
airport's perimeters and manned checkpoints, and 1000 extra police officers
were on patrol. Security was also stepped up at other sites around Britain,
including Windsor Castle.

It was the first time troops have been deployed on mainland security duties
since 1994, after the IRA tried to mortar bomb runways at Heathrow.

The Metropolitan Police said the "precautionary measure" was taken because
of the possibility the al Qaeda terrorist network would use the end of the
Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, which runs from today to Saturday, to mount
attacks.

The comment sparked fury among Muslim leaders, who accused the government of
"Islamophobia" and justification for going to war on Iraq.

The alerts came three days before a crucial report from weapons inspectors
on their latest Baghdad discussions is made to the UN security council.

Shortly after security was stepped up at Heathrow, Sheikh Omar Bakri
Mo-hammed, the spiritual leader in Britain of al-Muhajiroun, the
controversial Islamic group, warned that Muslims were prepared to act as
suicide bombers in the UK.

Urging people to stay away from important financial institutions and
government buildings, he said: "I would be careful. There are people who are
in the UK, these are people who are supporters of al Qaeda and . . . they
are people who feel they have a right to retaliate back."

Police were also searching under the flight path on the western approach to
Heath-row, Britain's busiest airport, and combing areas of Windsor Great
Park. Although Scotland Yard would not comment in detail, police officers
stopped motorists and searched cars in and around Wraysbury.

Chris Yates, an expert with Jane's Airport Review, warned a missile could be
used to bring down a plane. "We can put all sorts of technology and security
in airports, but it doesn't take an Einstein to work out you can park around
the perimeter and launch something like a missile."

Mr Blair's spokesman said the heightened security presence was part of "an
ongoing operation in relation to a specific threat.

"The threat is real and the response to it will go up and down accordingly,"
he said. "The government and the security authorities are taking whatever
action they believe necessary to protect the public."

Claims of a possible link between a terrorist attack and the festival of Eid
were dismissed as "deeply insulting" by senior Muslim leaders. Massoud
Shadjareh, chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, said it was
"extremely provocative and Islamophobic" to suggest Muslims would plant
bombs and try to kill Christians at the end of the festival.

"It is like suggesting that Christians would use Christmas to bomb Jewish,
Muslim, or Buddhist communities. I think that Muslims are not only becoming
second-class citizens but are now being used as a justification for certain
political decisions that are being made by the government. This is being
used as a justification for going to war."

Dr Zaki Badawi, director of the Muslim College, also said the link was a
"ploy" to drum up support for war against Iraq.

Last November, the home secretary warned of "ever more dramatic and
devastating" terror attacks. David Blunkett said al Qaeda would attack key
economic targets or the transport infrastructure or damage the population's
health if it could.

-----

Tanks roll into Fortress Heathrow
450 troops guard terminal as police set up roadblocks

JAMES McKILLOP and LORNA MARTIN
The Herald, 12 February 2003

IT is the first time since 1994, when the Provisional IRA tried to mortar
bomb the runways at Heathrow, that the army has been deployed on home

security duties.

Their presence was high-profile and ominous, the most obvious sign yet that
the terrorist threat from al Qaeda was real and had taken a sinister turn.
Or, to the more cynical, a sign of the extreme lengths that the government
would go to in order to drum up support for war with Iraq.

Soldiers, dressed in combat fatigues and carrying rifles, patrolled on foot
in teams of two and three around the terminal buildings.

They were supposed to be discreet but passengers, not used to such a visible
security presence on British soil, could not help but stop and stare.

More than 450 troops from the Household Cavalry and the Grenadier Guards,
called off a training exercise, had been deployed at the airport.

The joint police and army operation was under the operational control of the
Metropolitan Police and authorised by Tony Blair. His spokesman said it was
based on intelligence of a specific threat but refused to elaborate.

Scotland Yard also refused to reveal the substance of the threat for
operational reasons.

However, terrorism experts said it pointed to a possible missile attack on a
plane, similar to one carried out by al Qaeda terrorists in Kenya in
November, in which 270 passengers and crew escaped with their lives when two
missiles narrowly missed an Israeli jet taking off from Mombasa airport.

A suicide bombing was carried out at the same time on a hotel used by
Israeli tourists in Mombasa in which 15 tourists were killed. Al Qaeda
claimed responsibility for both attacks.

As passengers arrived and left Heathrow's Terminal One, a four-vehicle army
convoy in camouflage colours, one of them a fast-moving armoured Scimitar
tracked vehicle armed with a 30mm cannon, thundered past.

Hours after the soldiers arrived, police began stopping vehicles under the
flight path near the village of Wraysbury in Berkshire, just a few miles
from the airport. Officers in yellow fluorescent jackets manned every
roundabout and junction on the main A4 road from Windsor to the airport.

As the drama unfolded within and beyond the airport, some passengers were
initially unaware of events.

"Alert? What alert?" asked David Stephenson, an accountant who had recently
arrived from Edinburgh and was heading towards the Heathrow Express. "I
haven't noticed anything different," he said.

Although the police presence at the airport was said to have been tripled,
security inside the terminal buildings seemed no different from anything
other than the inconvenience travellers have grown to expect since September
11.

Outside it was a different matter. Grenadier Guards armed with SA80
personnel weapons and machine-guns accompanied by police officers were
patrolling the terminals.

In the midst of the usual traffic around one of the world's busiest
airports, a convoy of four army vehicles suddenly came into view.

One was a Scimitar with its cannon pointing straight ahead and the other an
armoured communication vehicle. Two Range Rovers with armed Grenadiers in
the back accompanied the armoured vehicles.

This was just one patrol going around the four Heathrow terminals. Similar
army patrols were being conducted along the perimeter roads around the
airport.

Although it was part of a pre-arranged plan it is the biggest army presence
ever witnessed at the airport.

The last time the army was deployed in numbers was in 1994 when the Irish
republican terrorists were intent on destroying a Heathrow jet. Although
mortars were fired, none hit a target.

Yesterday's operation was much bigger and sources said it would continue for
weeks.

Stephen Watts, an airport employee, said: "I am only glad they are here. Of
course it is worrying, but I am sure they know what they are doing."

Julian Drinkwater, 44, a taxi driver from Buckinghamshire, said: "It's just
a front, isn't it?' he said. "What can they do? If somebody is about to do
damage what can they do to stop it? They can come in on buses with bombs
strapped to their bodies and no matter how much they increase security,
nobody will stop them if they are determined."

------

'Do not go into government buildings, do not be in any financial
institutions'
BILLY BRIGGS
The Herald, 12 February 2003

AN Islamic leader warned yesterday that people in Britain faced a dangerous
new security threat from radical Muslims prepared to act as suicide bombers.

Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed, spiritual leader of the controversial Islamic
group al-Muhajiroun, said that people should stay away from locations such
as financial institutions and government buildings in the UK in light of the
threat.

The sheikh, dubbed the "Tottenham Ayatollah", who has shared a platform with
Abu Hamza, the controversial cleric, at Finsbury Park mosque in north
London, said that supporters of al Qaeda were in the UK and they would be
prepared to take retaliatory action.

Interviewed on BBC radio, he said: "I would be careful, there are people who
are in the UK, these are people who are supporters of al Qaeda and these
people are, Islamically speaking, they are people who feel they have a right
to retaliate.

"So I would warn people to take precautions. Do not go into government
buildings; do not be in any financial institutions; keep away from these
locations."

Asked whether there were Muslims in Britain who would consider blowing
themselves up, Sheikh Omar Bakri said: "I believe so, yes." A joint "Islamic
verdict" on behalf of the group proclaimed that "an attack against Iraq is
an attack against all Muslims".

Speaking after the interview, Sheikh Omar said he was not talking about his
supporters when he referred to radical Muslims prepared to act as suicide
bombers.

He said: "None of my supporters are ready to do something like this. It is
not allowed for them to attack anybody physically. That is completely
against Islam."

But Inayat Bunglawala, spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, said he
had a history of making headline-grabbing, outrageous remarks.

These included pronouncing a fatwa on John Major at the time of the Gulf war
in 1991 and on General Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan during the war in
Afghanistan.

He said: "Now he is is talking about suicide bombers in the UK and again
that will generate him headlines. If he breaks the law, then by all means
the police should take action, but he has a history of just engaging in wild
rhetoric."

In August last year, the sheikh led a group of fundamentalist Islamic
leaders in warning that Britain and the US could face September 11 style
terrorist attacks if they went to war with Iraq.

In November, he said rumours of the terrorist attack in Mombasa, which
killed 10 Kenyans, three Israelis, and three suicide bombers at the Paradise
Hotel, had been circulating within the Muslim community.

Jack Straw had insisted that the British government had not received
intelligence that would have prevented a terror attack in Mombasa during the
run-up to the hotel bombing and simultaneous missile attack on an Israeli
airline.

In 2001, Sheikh Omar targeted a recruitment drive at students at some
British universities. Members of the Al-uhajiroun group distributed leaflets
at several institutions in England in an attempt to find recruits,
infringing the National Union of Students' policy of "no platform" for the
organisation.

It has been claimed that the group has sent young Muslim men from the UK to
"holy war" training camps, including those run by Osama bin Laden.

-----

How No 10 authorised security operation
MICHAEL SETTLE
The Herald, 12 February 2003

TONY Blair authorised the military shield at Heathrow airport after a
detailed conversation with Sir John Stevens, the commissioner of the
Metropolitan Police, and security chiefs.

Unconfirmed reports yesterday suggested that at one point the prime minister
was even considering closing down one of the world's busiest airports after
increased intelligence that al Qaeda could use the end of the Muslim
festival of Eid to launch an attack.

Mr Blair has often said he receives intelligence each day and has to make
judgments as to whether to heighten security, mindful of the fact that to do
so without good cause would simply do the terrorists' work for them.

His official spokesman was asked yesterday if the decision to raise security
levels had come about after a meeting of Cobra, Downing Street's civil
contingencies committee.

He said that it came about as "part of a conversation between the security
services and the police", and added: "You can take it as a given this would
not be happening unless ministers had been involved

. . . The prime minister has been party to the decision."

Asked if he authorised it, the spokesman added: "You can assume that." He
declined to "get into the process" of the decision-making.

Cobra is named after Cabinet Briefing Room A in the bowels of Downing
Street. Its meetings previously covered the September 11 attacks, the
foot-and-mouth outbreak, and the fuel tax protests.