Did Saudis warn Brits about 7/7 attacks?
Saudi security forces say they intercepted phone calls about an attack and told British.
Saudi Arabia said it officially warned Britain of an "
an imminent terrorist attack on London just weeks ahead of the July 7 bombings." The
Guardian/Observer reported on Sunday that calls from Kareem al-Majati, at the time a top Al Qaeda leader in Saudi Arabia (and killed in a shoot out with security forces a few weeks before the London attacks), were traced to an "active cell" in the United Kingdom. Mr. Majati was "believed to have masterminded the May 2003 attacks on Casablanca and has also been named in connection with the March 2004 Madrid," the
Observer reported.
The Saudi official said: 'It was clear to us that there was a terror group planning an attack in the UK. We passed all this information on to both MI5 and MI6 at the time. We are now investigating whether these calls were directly to the London bombers. It is our conclusion that either these were linked or that a completely different terror network is still at large in Britain.'
British officials denied that they received
any advance intelligence "that could have prevented the July 7 bombings."
The
Sunday Telegraph reported that Majati and Younis Mohammed Ibrahim al-Hayari, Al Qaeda's top leader in Saudi Arabia (who was also recently killed in a gunbattle with police) made "money transfers and
used coded text messages" to communicate with a cell in Britain before the July 7 attacks. The
Telegraph also reported that Scotland Yard "was investigating evidence that the two waves [including the second, failed wave on July 21] of terrorist attacks in London were also planned in Saudi Arabia."
In an exclusive interview, Prince Turki al-Faisal, the Saudi ambassador to London, said this week that his country had warned Britain less than four months ago that such an attack was pending. Scotland Yard is investigating who received the coded messages and money – transferred from Saudi to Britain via businesses at both ends before July this year. A Saudi security adviser said: "We are trying to establish whether the money was directly linked to the individuals who carried out either the first or the second sets of bombings in London. "The messages and the money transfers were highly professional. They were using SIM cards for six hours and then throwing them away."
Last week, the
Sunday Telegraph reported that one of the suspects in the failed July 21 bombings had
called a number in Saudi Arabia "shortly before his arrest."
The
Gulf Daily News reports that British aid victim groups were "irate" after the government announced that the families of those killed in the July attacks would
receive a maximum benefit of $20,000 (US), or around 11,000 British pounds, a figure roughly one percent of the total received by American familes of 9/11 victims. Families of the victims of last year's train bombings in Madrid received a maximum of $170,000.
Meanwhile the
BBC reported Sunday that the US embassy in Saudi Arabia had been closed down for two days because of
terrorist threats against American buildings.
Embassy officials made the unusual, but not unprecedented, decision to close the embassy in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, and its consulates in Dhahran and Jidda on Monday and Tuesday, in response to intelligence suggesting an attack was imminent, an embassy press officer said. The embassy also repeated advice to American citizens to be especially vigilant and to take appropriate steps to increase their security.
The Times Online reported Monday that Britain and Australia have
issued travel warnings about Saudi Arabia because of "credible threats" that westerners there are going to be targeted by terrorists.
Reuters reported that the British believe militants are in
final stage of planning the attacks. Australia believes that the main target will be
residential housing.
The revised travel advice [on the British embassy's website in Saudi Arabia] cautions: "There are credible reports that terrorists are planning further attacks in the near future. There is a continuing high threat of terrorism in Saudi Arabia. We continue to believe that terrorists are planning further attacks, including against Westerners and places associated with Westerners in Saudi Arabia." Saudi officials said as of Monday they had "no details on any threats."
Finally, Saudi officials announced Monday that they had discovered a "
large arms cache" in an artesian well on a deserted farm near Medina in the western part of the country. The find included more than 150 sticks of dynamite and detonators.
Also...
•
Travel warning issued for south Turkey (
Jerusalem Post)
•
Which Muslims make the A-list? (
Arab News)
•
Fans taunted over London bombings (
BBC)
•
Of the many deaths in Iraq, one mother's loss becomes a problem for the president (
New York Times)
• Feedback appreciated. E-mail
Tom Regan
.
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