Daglig Jihad: Israel: Fanget al-Qaeda-topmand bag selvmordsangreb i Israel i 2003

Det spektakulært fejlslagne dobbelte selvmordsangreb i april 2003 bliver nu forbundet med Nashwan abd al-Razzaq abd al-Baqi, den al-Qaeda-topmand der i denne uge blev overført til Guantanamo:

Under US interrogation, his rich experience in charting al Qaeda’s offensive in the West has come to light. Al Hadi is now credited with plotting the first direct al Qaeda suicide attack inside Israel on direct orders from Osama bin Laden.

Two British Muslims were sent to blow up the US embassy in Tel Aviv on April 30, 2003. Instead, they bombed a Tel Aviv seafront bar, Mike’s Place, killing three Israelis and injuring 60.

Al Hadi was quick to spot the potential of young British Muslims of Pakistani origin, who are English-speaking and carry EU passports. Their recruitment was a major feat of this Iraqi-born terrorist commander’s global strategy. Two years later (according to the Sunday Times), he is said to have masterminded the July 7 suicide bombings on the British tube and a bus, leaving 52 dead and hundreds injured.

Asif Muhammed Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif, the Mike’s Place bombers, were headhunted at the radical Finsbury Park mosque in London. So too was Richard Reid, the failed shoe bomber serving time in the United States for attempting to blow up an American Airlines plane bound for Miami from Paris in Dec. 2002.

Past investigations established that Hanif, Sharif and Reid all spent time at Hamas training camps in the Gaza Strip before they embarked on their missions.

The al Hadi case confirms once again the farsightedness and long preparations al Qaeda invests in operational planning. In each case, every effort is made to wipe clean any leads to the chain of command after the suicide bombers are dead; the planners have a preset escape route that leaves counter-terror agents very few clues to work with.

Despite the close cooperation between the Israeli, American and British secret services in probing the Mike’s Place attack in 2003, the full scope and depth of Al Qaeda’s mobilization drive in Britain were not appreciated in time to avert the 7/7 bombings on London transport two years later. To this day, no one knows who exactly prepared the explosives used in Tel Aviv and gave the two bombers their instructions.

Full details of the Mike’s Place bombing, the 4th anniversary of which falls in exactly two days, appeared in DEBKAfile on June 3, 2003. Click HERE

This attack was a flop for its planners in more ways than one, but it served as a useful dry run for the attacks which followed. Asif Hanif managed to detonate his bomb vest, but his partner did not. Omar Sharif escaped and two weeks later, a body identified by Israeli security services as his was washed up on the Jaffa coast.

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