23rd
April 2007
Al-Qaeda leaders in Iraq are planning
a mass-casualty strike against British and other western
targets, possibly with radioactive-dispersal weapons,
according to a secret British security intelligence
assessment.
The warning is one of two reported
since Friday from British and European counter-terrorism
officials that a reinvigorated al-Qaeda is mustering
fresh resources for a major attack on the West.
"They have got to do something soon
that is radical otherwise they start losing
credibility," a British security source told London's
Sunday Times
The newspaper reported yesterday that
al-Qaeda leaders in Iraq are planning "large-scale"
terrorist attacks on Britain and other western targets
with the help of supporters in Iran. The other western
nations were not named.
The information, from a leaked report
by Britain's Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, the
country's premier organization for assessing
international and domestic terrorist threats, appears to
provide evidence that al-Qaeda is active in Iran and has
ambitions far beyond the improvised attacks it has been
waging against British and American soldiers in Iraq,
the newspaper said.
Produced earlier this month, the
intelligence assessment quotes one al-Qaeda leader in
Iraq saying he was planning an attack on "a par with
Hiroshima and Nagasaki" in an attempt to "shake the
Roman throne," a reference to the West.
Analysts believe the reference to
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where more than 200,000 people
died in nuclear attacks on Japan at the end of the
Second World War, is unlikely to be a literal boast, the
newspaper said.
Despite aspiring to a nuclear
capability, some believe al-Qaeda is not thought to have
acquired weapons-grade material.
However,
several plots involving "dirty bombs" -- conventional
explosive devices surrounded by radioactive material --
have been foiled. What's more, an al-Qaeda leader in
Iraq last year called on nuclear scientists to apply
their knowledge of biological and radiological weapons
to "the field of jihad." (Read more at:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=aEkw8aDv7fbA
)
Also as
reported by Crusade Media in June 2006 Al Qaeda have
nuclear weapons which they purchased on the black market
and are planning to use them in an operation named the
‘American Hiroshima’. This latest message from al-Qaeda
in Iraq referring to their planned attack on “a par with
Hiroshima and Nagasaki”. (Read more at:
http://www.crusade-media.com/news1.html
)
"It could be just a reference to a
huge explosion," a counter-terrorist source, referring
to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki claims, told the
newspaper.
The assessment says al-Qaeda would
"ideally" like to carry out an attack before Prime
Minister Tony Blair steps down this summer.
It also makes it clear that senior
al-Qaeda figures in the Iraq region have been in recent
contact with operatives in Britain.
But it says there is "no indication"
an attack would specifically target Britain, "although
we are aware that AQI (al-Qaeda in Iraq) . . . networks
are active in Britain."
Details from the assessment follow a
Friday report in London's Financial Times quoting
unnamed European officials and terrorism specialists
saying al-Qaeda is reaching out from its base in
Pakistan to turn militant Islamist groups in the Middle
East and Africa into franchises charged with
intensifying attacks on western targets.
The efforts could see radical
Islamist groups use al-Qaeda expertise to switch their
attention from local targets to western interests in
their countries and abroad. "For al-Qaeda, this is a
force multiplier," a British terrorism official told the
newspaper.
The more immediate concern, however,
appears to be al-Qaeda in Iraq, backed by Iran, and its
suspected intent to stage a mass-casualty assault
against the West.
The concerns over a plot to attack
Britain before Mr. Blair steps down stem from a letter
written by Abdul al-Hadi al-Iraqi, an Iraqi Kurd and
senior al-Qaeda commander.
According to the intelligence
assessment, Mr. Hadi "stressed the need to take care to
ensure that the attack was successful and on a large
scale."
The plan was to be relayed to an
Iran-based al-Qaeda facilitator.
Al-Qaeda's attempts to expand across
the Middle East and North Africa, while still at an
early stage, follow the rebuilding of the group's core
in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan, near the Afghan
border, after six years of U.S.-led military action.
The group's central organization
appears to have reconstituted around about 20 senior
figures in farms and compounds that also act as training
camps, western officials told The Financial Times.
While there is no evidence of a
formal relationship between al-Qaeda, a Sunni group, and
Iran's Shia regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
experts suggest that Iran's leaders may be turning a
blind eye to the terrorist organization's activities.
It was revealed last year that up to
150 Britons had travelled to Iraq to fight as part of
al-Qaeda's "foreign legion." A number are thought to
have returned to Britain, after receiving terrorist
training, to form sleeper cells, according to the
newspaper.
The terrorist threat rating in
Britain has remained at "severe," meaning an attack is
"highly likely," since last August's discovery of an
alleged London-based plot to destroy a fleet of airborne
trans-Atlantic jetliners bound for the United States.
