BBC charity funded Islamist militants

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BBC charity funded Islamist militants


LONDON: A BBC charity funded the activities of Islamist militants linked to the July 7 bombing in Britain, a news report has said.

The BBC’s 'Children in Need' charity donated 20,000 pounds to the Leeds Community School, which funded the propaganda activities of the bombers of July 2005.

The disclosure was made by the BBC Two programme ‘Newsnight’, which was told by a former employee of the school that it received thousands of pounds from City Council and other sources.

The financial support was provided between 1999 and 2002 to the school, which funded and shared premises with an Islamic bookshop where the suicide bombers Mohammed Siddique Khan and Shezhad Tanweer regularly met, The Times newspaper said.

According to the report, Khan attempted to radicalise youths by showing propaganda films at the bookshop, a focal point at the time for young Muslims.

Martin Gilbertson, an IT technician who worked at the school and the Iqra centre next door, said that he had been concerned about the activities of Tanweer and Khan.

"It was like living with jihad on a daily basis," he was quoted as saying by the British daily. The Iqra centre was raided by police investigating the July bombings.

The school in Beeston also paid for adventure weekends, such as a rafting trip to North Wales a month before the London attacks. Tanweer and Khan went on the trip, along with Khalid Khaliq, who this year was jailed for terrorism offences.

"I’m incredibly concerned that we did make an award to Leeds Community School over nine years ago and any allegation that funding we’ve given to any project has been misused and not used to change the lives of disadvantaged children and young people makes me concerned and very sad," said David Ramsden, chief executive of Children in Need.


BBC charity funded Islamist militants-UK-World-The Times of India

 

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U.S. Wary Of European Terror Threat


European terrorists are trying to enter the United States with European Union passports, and there is no guarantee officials will catch them every time, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday.

Chertoff's comments on Capitol Hill comes as the country is entering a potentially vulnerable period with the presidential nominating conventions coming up next month; the presidential election in November; and the transition to a new administration in January - all of which may be attractive targets for terrorists.

In his last scheduled appearance before the House Homeland Security Committee, Chertoff said that the more time and space al Qaeda and its allies have to recruit, train, experiment and plan, the more problems the U.S. and Europe will face down the road.

"The terrorists are deliberately focusing on people who have legitimate Western European passports, who don't appear to have records as terrorists," Chertoff told lawmakers. "I have a good degree of confidence we can catch people coming in. But I have to tell you ... there's no guarantee. And they are working very hard to slip by us."

Chertoff and other intelligence officials have delivered similar warnings before, and he offered no new information about specific threats or an imminent attack.

Chertoff reiterated his concern that terrorists could sneak radiological material into the country on small boats or private aircraft. This material could be used to create an explosive device known as a "dirty bomb."

The Homeland Security Department has a strategy to protect against this small boat vulnerability and is testing radiation detection equipment in Seattle and San Diego ports.

Chertoff said that getting out a regulation to prescreen and enhance security of general aviation aircraft coming to the U.S. from overseas is one of his top priorities.

He also said he expects to approve new radiation detection technology this fall.

Responding to a question from Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, Chertoff dismissed any rumor that he is on a list of potential running mates for Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Chertoff quipped that the only list he has for next year is a list of vacations.

Chertoff's term as the country's second Homeland Security Secretary ends when a new administration takes over the White House in January.

U.S. Wary Of European Terror Threat, Homeland Security Chief Says No Guarantee Catching Terrorists With EU Passports - CBS News

 

[sunny_aus]

U.S. Wary Of European Terror Threat


European terrorists are trying to enter the United States with European Union passports, and there is no guarantee officials will catch them every time, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday.

Chertoff's comments on Capitol Hill comes as the country is entering a potentially vulnerable period with the presidential nominating conventions coming up next month; the presidential election in November; and the transition to a new administration in January - all of which may be attractive targets for terrorists.

In his last scheduled appearance before the House Homeland Security Committee, Chertoff said that the more time and space al Qaeda and its allies have to recruit, train, experiment and plan, the more problems the U.S. and Europe will face down the road.

"The terrorists are deliberately focusing on people who have legitimate Western European passports, who don't appear to have records as terrorists," Chertoff told lawmakers. "I have a good degree of confidence we can catch people coming in. But I have to tell you ... there's no guarantee. And they are working very hard to slip by us."

Chertoff and other intelligence officials have delivered similar warnings before, and he offered no new information about specific threats or an imminent attack.

Chertoff reiterated his concern that terrorists could sneak radiological material into the country on small boats or private aircraft. This material could be used to create an explosive device known as a "dirty bomb."

The Homeland Security Department has a strategy to protect against this small boat vulnerability and is testing radiation detection equipment in Seattle and San Diego ports.

Chertoff said that getting out a regulation to prescreen and enhance security of general aviation aircraft coming to the U.S. from overseas is one of his top priorities.

He also said he expects to approve new radiation detection technology this fall.

Responding to a question from Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, Chertoff dismissed any rumor that he is on a list of potential running mates for Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Chertoff quipped that the only list he has for next year is a list of vacations.

Chertoff's term as the country's second Homeland Security Secretary ends when a new administration takes over the White House in January.

U.S. Wary Of European Terror Threat, Homeland Security Chief Says No Guarantee Catching Terrorists With EU Passports - CBS News

US Counterterror Chief Says Europe Under Higher Terrorism Threat


The top U.S. counterterrorism official says homegrown Islamic militants put Europe, and particularly Britain, under a greater threat of terrorist attack than the United States. But he tells VOA Correspondent Gary Thomas that al-Qaida is still plotting against the United States.

In his first interview since assuming his post as chief of the National Counterterrorism Center, Michael Leiter says the threat to Europe eclipses the danger to the United States.

"I think it is very fair to say that the threat in Western Europe and the United Kingdom is different, and probably more serious today in Western Europe and U.K., than what we face in the United States. Certainly what we have seen in the United Kingdom is of a more significant scope and a significant depth than anything we have seen in the United States," said Leiter.

The suicide airliner attacks on New York's World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 riveted attention on the global terrorist threat and catapulted Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida into the spotlight. But no terrorist attacks have occurred on U.S. soil since that date.

In contrast, there have been several major terrorist attacks in Europe, most notably the Madrid train bombing in 2004 and the London transport system bombing the following year. In 2006, British and American counterterrorism officials thwarted a plot to blow up passenger airliners flying between Britain and the United States.

Former CIA terrorism analyst Marc Sageman says Europe is under threat from what he calls the leaderless jihad - angry young European Muslims, primarily of South Asian origin, who are sympathetic to al-Qaida but not necessarily part of it.

"The notion that the West is at war with Islam really has some traction with those young folks because they lump everything together. They lump what is happening to them personally with the image that they see in Iraq, for instance," said Sageman. "And they think that it is all part of a grand conspiracy against Islam."

Michael Scheuer, who once headed the CIA unit hunting Osama bin Laden, says al-Qaida is not the centralized organization it once was, and the homegrown sympathizers are far more difficult to detect than al-Qaida infiltrators.

"If it was a monolith, again, I think it would be less of a threat. But because it is decentralized, and because so many people are not in contact with the headquarters, with al-Qaida, on a regular basis, it is hard to detect them," said Scheuer.

But NCTC chief Michael Leiter emphasizes that what he calls the "al-Qaida core" still plots attacks from its new safe haven in Pakistan's tribal areas.

"There is indeed an al-Qaida hierarchal command, with its leadership located along the border area of Afghanistan and Pakistan," he said. "That group consists of its senior-most leaders, operational commanders, and includes training camps where individuals from Europe and elsewhere go to Pakistan and get that training from al-Qaida, and are subsequently deployed outside of Afghanistan and Pakistan for attacks against the West."

Michael Scheuer adds that al-Qaida's true strength lies in its use of the Internet to propagandize and train alienated young Muslims.

"It has never been primarily a fighting organization," said Scheuer. "Its main goal that it set for itself was to be a vanguard organization whose chief responsibility was to incite the Muslim world. And I think that we have seen a great deal of success from that activity, that incitement."

Michael Leiter adds that al-Qaida has also found strength in new franchises, particularly into North Africa, where it has attempted to take control of secular nationalist movements for its own ends.


US Counterterror Chief Says Europe Under Higher Terrorism Threat