Irak: 72 terrorister fanget i razziaer i provinserne Anbar og Salah ed Din

Razziaerne fandt sted som led i en koordineret kampagne mod al-Qaeda i Irak, og alene i byen Samarra blev 36 arresteret. Nær Karmah blev et lager af kemikalier til fremstilling af sprængstoffer yderligere fundet.

Kilder:

• MNF-Iraq 29/4 2007: 72 SUSPECTED TERRORISTS DETAINED

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.

Kilder:

• DEBKAfile 28/4 2007: Abd al Hadi Engineered First al Qaeda attacks in Israel and Britain

Irak: Top al-Qaeda leder fanget

En begivenhed, der fandt sted sidst på året sidste år, men som først nu er blevet offentliggjort: Nashwan abd al-Razzaq abd al-Baqi, bedre kendt under sit nom de guerre Abd al-Hadi al-Iraki, (al-Hadis slave fra Irak) er blevet fanget af CIA da han forsøgte at krydse ind i Irak fra Iran.

al-Baqi startede sin karriere i Saddam Husseins hær i Irak, hvor han nåede rangen af major før han rejste til Afghanistan i starten af 1990´erne. Her havde han en lang karriere som kommandant for diverse terror-træningslejre før han i slutningen af det årti blev medlem af al Qaeda. Siden avancerede han til at blive medlem af både al Qaedas shura-råd (det rådgivende organ for Osama bin Laden) og al-Qaedas militære komité. I sidstnævnte position stod han blandt andet for en række angreb fra Pakistans stammeområder ind i Afghanistan, forsøg på at snigmyrde Pakistans præsident Musharraf, samt selvmordsbombeangrebene i London i sommeren 2006.

Efter befrielsen af Irak i 2003 stod han for forbindelsen til al-Qaeda i Irak, og da han blev arresteret sidst i 2006 var han på vej for at tage kommando over denne, åbenbart fordi al Qaeda ikke havde været voldeligt nok indtil da.

En interessant detalje: det lader til, at han også har voret involveret i at lave ballade i Iran. Man kan spekulere i, om Iranerne derfor har fundet det opportunt at stikke ham til USA.

Kilder:

• BBC 27/4 2007: US holds `senior al Qaeda figure´
• BBC 27/4 2007: Profile: Abd al-Haid al-Iraqi
• TimesOnline 28/4: 7/7 `mastermind´ seized in Iraq