A claim by former US security officials but denied by MI5 that Khan was classified as a terrorist threat by America in 2003 and that this information was passed to Britain. These and other revelations have made the survivors of the 7/7 attacks and relatives of the victims increasingly angry. They believe the inquiry by the ISC, a committee with limited powers led by a Blairite Labour MP, has failed to uncover what was really known. They are now demanding a public investigation.
“The more we find out, the more worrying it is,” said Rachel North, who was caught up in the King’s Cross bomb.
The testimony of individuals involved already paints a startling picture of missed opportunities that might have prevented the attacks.
On September 12, 2001, Gilbertson, a former Hell’s Angel and Motorhead roadie, attended a party in Beeston where he met Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, another of the London bombers. The partygoers were “celebrating” the September 11 attacks on America.
Two months later Gilbertson got a job working for the Leeds community school next door to the radical Iqra Islamic bookshop frequented by Khan and Tanweer. “There were back rooms at the bookshop and access was by invitation only,” Gilbertson said yesterday. “I never saw a non-Muslim inside these rooms.”
Gilbertson, a dab hand with technology, found himself drawn into helping the group secure their e-mails and computers from prying eyes. He helped, too, with the production of anti-western videos and DVDs. It was a world of jihadi websites and film “presentations” depicting supposed crimes by the West against Muslims.
GILBERTSON’S main point of contact was McDaid, who had turned to Islam in 2000 and learnt Arabic. He had the zeal of a convert. “McDaid did most of the talking, most of the ranting and raving,” said Gilbertson.
“Khan and Tanweer were regular types, but the talk around me, all their conversation between themselves and their ‘brothers’, was about jihad, Jewish conspiracy, how the Holocaust was fake, the Great Satan America — and Britain’s alliance with the satanic USA.”
Contrary to the government’s claims, this hotbed of extremism had not gone unnoticed by MI5. In early 2002 a source within the security services was sufficiently concerned about McDaid to tip off a journalist on this newspaper about him. The source alleged that young Muslims were being taken on outdoor pursuits courses as part of training for possible terrorist attacks. Inquiries were made but nobody in the local community was willing to talk.
There was — and is — no evidence that McDaid, who strongly condemns violence, was involved in anything illegal. But if the security services needed further evidence of the risks posed by radicals visiting the Iqra bookshop, they did not have to wait long.
By October 2003 Gilbertson was so concerned about the extremist material that he had seen and by conversations among the Beeston radicals that he went to the police, first to the station in Holbeck, where he was apparently told to send his evidence to police headquarters.
He dispatched a package, he said last week, containing his contact number, examples of the extremists’ DVDs and a list of names of those involved and details of their e-mail traffic. The list included Khan and Tanweer.
What did the police do? Gilbertson heard nothing from them. Yesterday, in a prepared statement, the police said: “West Yorkshire police has played, and continues to play, a full and active part in the fight against terrorism. This involves the receipt and analysis of significant amounts of information.
“Whenever we receive information that could potentially be intelligence on crime or terrorist matters, this is carefully considered and analysed. However, for obvious reasons we do not discuss intelligence matters and therefore we cannot comment on specific actions which may arise from the information that we are given.”
Did the the local Special Branch open files on Khan and Tanweer? Was information passed to MI5? Might it then have been passed on to the Americans? These questions remain unanswered because the ISC investigation and report into the bombings failed to address exactly what Special Branch police, as opposed to MI5, knew ahead of the 7/7 bombings.
Although Gilbertson appears to have made no specific warnings about Khan, other information was surfacing. According to a book published last week, Khan was in contact with Islamic extremists in the United States from 2002.
Ron Suskind, author of the One Percent Doctrine, claims that US security officials investigated Khan when he travelled to America that year. They were so concerned about his associations that in 2003 they put him on the “No Fly” list of people banned from entering the country.
Last week senior British security officials and anti-terrorist police dismissed the claims. They believe Khan has been confused with another man, Mohammed Ajmal Khan, who has been jailed in the UK for terrorist offences.
Even if there has been such confusion, further evidence of Mohammad Sidique Khan’s extremism had emerged before the bombings. In 2004 he cropped up during an extensive surveillance operation by MI5. He was not immediately identified, but he was taped and his telephone number had previously been logged. Why was he not pursued and identified?
AT the time, according to the ISC report, the unidentified Khan was regarded by MI5 as a “peripheral” figure and the ISC concluded that this was a reasonable interpretation of the evidence.
However, MI5 clearly thought that Khan should have been investigated further because in late 2004 it resumed trying to find out more about him, only to break off again because of other priorities.
In the months before the London bombings, Khan’s picture was even shown to terrorist suspects abroad, although nobody identified him.
This weekend a senior security official also claimed that a “beacon” tracking device of the type used by police had been planted in a car belonging to Khan. It was, said the source, discovered by investigators who took Khan’s car away for examination after he had been identified as one of the suicide bombers.
With so many apparent suspicions and tips, how was it that the security services failed to act on Khan? On July 7 last year Gilbertson was in Keighley, watching the news with some Muslim friends. When he learnt that three of the four suicide attackers had come from the area, he “felt physically sick” and hurried to contact the police again.
This time they did come to interview him. “They were nice guys . . . but they knew little about Islam and nothing about computers,” he said.
This was the experience of Chris Gourlay, a freelance journalist in the area. In the weeks after the bombings he uncovered evidence, including photographs and audio recordings, that other extremists were planning an attack. He alerted the police.
It was a week before two Special Branch officers turned up and they, too, displayed a worrying lack of awareness.
“They showed little or no understanding of concepts such as jihad and ummah, ‘the global Muslim allegiance’, which are crucial to understanding the nature of the threat,” said Gourlay.
Was there a lack of expertise in the local Special Branch, a lack of communication with MI5? One hypothesis is that MI5, as the ISC had concluded, had more pressing priorities than Khan and delegated the surveillance of him to the local police.
If so, were the local officers sufficiently skilled in Islamic terrorism to recognise the seriousness of the threat? Did they fail to pursue him rigorously enough? Survivors of the bombings will be satisfied only when such questions have been properly investigated.
Additional reporting: Ali Hussain
THE KEY PLAYERS
Mohammad Sidique Khan
Leader of the bombers, he was a special needs teacher. On video he declared himself an Islamic warrior waging war on the West
Shehzad Tanweer
Travelled to Pakistan with Khan in 2004 and also came to the attention of MI5 before the bombings
Martin McDaid
A former Royal Marine who converted to Islam, he worked at Leeds community school where radicals met
Martin Gilbertson
Helped the Beeston radicals with their computer systems. He says he warned police about Khan and Tanweer in 2003
Colin Cramphorn
Chief constable of West Yorkshire. His force declined to say how it reacted to Gilbertson’s warnings
Eliza Manningham-Buller
Director-general of MI5 who told a committee of MPs that it had no reason to suspect Khan and Tanweer of plotting terrorist attacks
