Haroon Rashid Aswat - John Loftus Claims London Bombings 'Mastermind' Is MI6 Double Agent

Haroon Rashid Aswat
John Loftus Live On Fox TV
Claims London 7/7 Bombings 'Mastermind' Is MI6 Double Agent
www.nlpwessex.org/loftusmi6aswat.htm
Claims Radical Al-Muhajiroun Group
Used By British Intelligence In Kosovo In 1990s

"The videotape of the suicide bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan has switched the focus of the London bombings away from the establishment view of brainwashed, murderous individuals and highlighted a starker political reality. While there can be no justification for horrific killings of this kind, they need to be understood against the ferment of the last decade radicalising Muslim youth of Pakistani origin living in Europe. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, the US funded large numbers of jihadists through Pakistan's secret intelligence service, the ISI. Later the US wanted to raise another jihadi corps, again using proxies, to help Bosnian Muslims fight to weaken the Serb government's hold on Yugoslavia. Those they turned to included Pakistanis in Britain. According to a recent report by the Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation, a contingent was also sent by the Pakistani government, then led by Benazir Bhutto, at the request of the Clinton administration. This contingent was formed from the Harkat-ul- Ansar (HUA) terrorist group and trained by the ISI. The report estimates that about 200 Pakistani Muslims living in the UK went to Pakistan, trained in HUA camps and joined the HUA's contingent in Bosnia. Most significantly, this was 'with the full knowledge and complicity of the British and American intelligence agencies'. As the 2002 Dutch government report on Bosnia makes clear, the US provided a green light to groups on the state department list of terrorist organisations, including the Lebanese-based Hizbullah, to operate in Bosnia - an episode that calls into question the credibility of the subsequent 'war on terror'. For nearly a decade the US helped Islamist insurgents linked to Chechnya, Iran and Saudi Arabia destabilise the former Yugoslavia. The insurgents were also allowed to move further east to Kosovo. By the end of the fighting in Bosnia there were tens of thousands of Islamist insurgents in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo; many then moved west to Austria, Germany and Switzerland. Less well known is evidence of the British government's relationship with a wider Islamist terrorist network. During an interview on Fox TV this summer, the former US federal prosecutor John Loftus reported that British intelligence had used the al-Muhajiroun group in London to recruit Islamist militants with British passports for the war against the Serbs in Kosovo. Since July Scotland Yard has been interested in an alleged member of al-Muhajiroun, Haroon Rashid Aswat, who some sources have suggested could have been behind the London bombings. According to Loftus, Aswat was detained in Pakistan after leaving Britain, but was released after 24 hours. He was subsequently returned to Britain from Zambia, but has been detained solely for extradition to the US, not for questioning about the London bombings. Loftus claimed that Aswat is a British-backed double agent, pursued by the police but protected by MI6."
Britain now faces its own blowback
Guardian, 10 September 2005

The Loftus Fox TV Interview

"....all these guys should be going back to an organization called Al-Muhajiroun, which means The Emigrants. It was the recruiting arm of Al-Qaeda in London; they specialized in recruiting kids whose families had emigrated to Britain but who had British passports. And they would use them for terrorist work.... the first group of course were primarily Pakistani. But what they had in common was they were all emigrant groups in Britain, recruited by this Al-Muhajiroun group. They were headed by the, Captain Hook, the imam in London the Finsbury Mosque, without the arm. He was the head of that organization. Now his assistant was a guy named Aswat, Haroon Rashid Aswat. Aswat is believed to be the mastermind of all the bombings in London... This is the guy, and what's really embarrassing is that the entire British police are out chasing him, and one wing of the British government, MI6 or the British Secret Service, has been hiding him.... He's a double agent.... Now we knew about this guy Aswat. Back in 1999 he came to America. The Justice Department wanted to indict him in Seattle because him and his buddy were trying to set up a terrorist training school in Oregon..... Well it comes out, we've just learned that the headquarters of the US Justice Department ordered the Seattle prosecutors not to touch Aswat..... apparently Aswat was working for British intelligence.... Some people say that the British intelligence fibbed to us. They told us that Aswat was dead, and that's why the New York group dropped the case. That's not what most of the Justice Department thinks. They think that it was just again covering up for this very publicly affiliated guy with Al-Muhajiroun. He was a British intelligence plant.... Now at this point, two weeks ago, the Brits know that the CIA wants to get a hold of Haroon. So what happens? He takes off again, goes right to London. He isn't arrested when he lands, he isn't arrested when he leaves. ... He's on the watch list. The only reason he could get away with that was if he was working for British intelligence. He was a wanted man.... And [he] goes to Pakistan.... The Pakistanis arrest him. They jail him. He's released within 24 hours. Back to Southern Africa, goes to Zimbabwe and is arrested in Zambia.... What ties all these cells together was, back in the late 1990s, the leaders all worked for British intelligence in Kosovo. Believe it or not, British intelligence actually hired some Al-Qaeda guys to help defend the Muslim rights in Albania and in Kosovo. That's when Al-Muhajiroun got started.....The CIA was funding the operation to defend the Muslims, British intelligence was doing the hiring and recruiting. Now we have a lot of detail on this because Captain Hook, the head of Al-Muhajiroun, [his] sidekick was Bakri Mohammed, another cleric. And back on October 16, 2001, he gave a detailed interview with al-Sharq al-Aswat, an Arabic newspaper in London, describing the relationship between British intelligence and the operations in Kosovo and Al-Muhajiroun. So that's how we get all these guys connected. It started in Kosovo...."
Interview with former US Federal Prosecutor John Loftus
Fox TV, 29 July 2005

View Loftus Interview On YouTube
Click Here
For Complete Transcript Of Fox Interview With Loftus Click Here

"The British al-Qaeda leader linked to the London terrorist attacks was being questioned by police in Pakistan last night after the discovery of mobile phone records detailing his calls with the suicide bombers. Haroon Rashid Aswat has emerged as the figure that Scotland Yard have been hunting since he flew out of Britain just hours before the attacks which killed 56 people. Aswat, 30, who is believed to come from the same West Yorkshire town as one of the bombers, arrived in Britain a fortnight before the attacks to orchestrate final planning for the atrocity. He spoke to the suicide team on his mobile phone a few hours before the four men blew themselves up and killed fifty-two other people. Intelligence sources told The Times that during his stay Aswat visited the home towns of all four bombers as well as selecting targets in London. Aswat has been known to Western intelligence services for more than three years after the FBI accused him of trying to set up al-Qaeda training camps in the US.... Aswat, who is thought to have stayed in the madrassa with two of the British suicide bombers, is being questioned over claims that one — Mohammad Sidique Khan — telephoned him on the morning of the July 7 attack. Intelligence sources claim that there were up to twenty calls between Aswat and two of the bombers in the days leading up to the bombing of three Tube trains and a double-decker bus. A senior Pakistani security source said: 'We believe this man had a crucial part to play in what happened in London.'”
Top al-Qaeda Briton called Tube bombers before attack
London Times, 21 July 2005

British Officials Rushed To Deny Links Between Aswat And London Bombings
After Loftus Interview Broadcast On Fox TV Linked Him To MI6

"Three weeks after the first London bombings, British and American security sources are giving markedly different versions of how much was known about the bombers before the attacks and who masterminded them. According to US intelligence sources, a man now being held in Zambia is Haroon Rashid Aswat, a Briton of Indian origin who has links to a convicted Al-Qaeda terrorist. They believe he assisted or masterminded the London attacks. But British investigators, examining whether telephone calls were made between the London bombers and Aswat before the attacks of 7/7, caution that the calls may have been made to a phone linked to Aswat, rather than the man himself... This weekend it appears that several calls from Aswat’s mobile telephone were made to the bombers in the days before the attacks. It is likely that the American National Security Agency — which has a powerful eavesdropping network — was monitoring the calls. If contacts between the bombers and Aswat are proved, it could be a painful blow for British security officials. In the weeks before the attacks Aswat, according to American officials, was under surveillance in South Africa and US authorities wanted to arrest him for questioning. The South Africans are believed to have relayed the request to British authorities who were reluctant to agree to him being seized because of his status as a British citizen..... Senior Whitehall officials also deny 'any knowledge' that he might be an agent for either MI5 or MI6."
Tangled web that still leaves worrying loose ends
London Times, 31 July 2005

"Although police would not say how far they had come to finding links to those higher up the chain [in the London bombings], they sought to play down the role of Haroon Rashid Aswat.... Zambian officials have agreed to extradite Mr Aswat, whose telephone reportedly received calls from the July 7 bombers, but British officials said they were no longer interested in interrogating him."
Police shift focus to finding organisers
Financial Times, 1 August 2005

"Haroon Rashid Aswat, who grew up in West Yorkshire, was detained [in Zambia] last week for his alleged role in setting up a terror camp in the US state of Oregon, according to the Los Angeles Times. Aswat, who is being held in the capital Lusaka, is also wanted in connection with the London suicide bombings which it is believed he masterminded, according to reports. Scotland Yard has played down the claims. A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: 'In relation to the British national reported to be held in custody in Zambia, we are currently seeking consular access to them. We cannot confirm any detail of the extradition.'"
Italy considers suspect extradition
icHounslow, 1 August 2005

"British terror suspect Haroon Aswat remained in Zambian custody as the US and British governments fought over who should get custody of the man, a senior police official said. 'Each country is demanding access and extradition to their respective country but the Zambian government seems to be having difficulties on how to handle the matter,' he said."
US-UK row over Aswat
Hindustan Times, 2 August 2005

"The Fox News report raises some very serious considerations. Haroon Rachid Aswat was reportedly in London for two weeks before the July 7 attacks, 'fleeing just before the explosions'. If Haroon Rashid Aswat had been working for MI-6, as suggested by intelligence analyst John Loftus, his movements and whereabouts, including his contacts with the alleged Yorkshire bombers, might have been known to British intelligence. The nature of Haroon Aswar's links to Western intelligence agencies inevitably has a bearing on the conduct of the police investigation. The broader role of Al-Muhajiroun since its creation in the 1990s, as well as its alleged links to MI-6 requires careful review. Pakistan's ISI should not, for obvious reasons, be involved in the police investigation. In fact, Pakistan's ISI should be the object of the investigation in view of its documented links to the terror network, including Al Qaeda. More generally, the intelligence agencies including M-I6 should not be involved in the police investigation. An independent public inquiry should be launched as demanded by the Conservative opposition."
London 7/7 Terror Suspect Linked to British Intelligence?
Centre For Research On Globalization, 1 August 2005

7/7: The British Terror Paradigm by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed
Media Monitors Network, 14 July 14 2006

"On 11th May 2006 the British government published its two principal investigative reports on the London bombings, the first by the House of Commons Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), and the second being the government’s own “official account” of the bombings.

The first problem with the official account is that it’s not objective. Written entirely by an anonymous civil servant, based on unspecified official intelligence sources, and edited by the government before final release, there was little prospect that it might contain serious criticism of government policy, even if there were good grounds for such criticism.

The ISC report is similar. All members of the ISC are appointed by the Prime Minister, to whom they report directly, and who had the power to censor its contents on security grounds. Hence, its contents were subject to high-level government approval, and unlikely to offer a critical analysis of government policy.

These reports are fundamentally politicized -- that is, written in the context of obvious political constraints, which limit their scope and shape their conclusions .......

Similarly ignored is the evidence from a Times investigation that some of the four [bombers] had attended Finsbury Park mosque and were inspired by Abu Hamza’s inflammatory preaching. And further overlooked is the connection to Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, an al-Qaeda IT expert whose laptop contained details of these very plans to attack, among other targets, the London Underground. The four were associated with networks with whom Noor Khan had been communicating, which were known to British police.

Why is the government downplaying these issues? An inkling of the answer may come when we look at the way security officials have dealt with the case of Haroon Rashid Aswat. Aswat, who used to be Osama bin Laden’s bodyguard, was believed by both British and US investigators to have been the key senior al-Qaeda operative who masterminded the London bombings. The connection was established through records of telephone conversations between Aswat and Sidique Khan, many of which occurred on the morning of 7th July 2005. Police officials described the contents of these conversations to the Times and other media in some detail, suggesting that Aswat had provided bomb-making expertise and other planning assistance. But British authorities quickly backtracked on these statements about Aswat’s involvement in 7/7 after revelations from US intelligence sources that Aswat was, in fact, an MI6 double agent. The revelation first came from former Justice Department prosecutor John Loftus. It has subsequently been corroborated by US and French investigators who even now continue to describe Aswat as the chief suspected 77 mastermind. Meanwhile British officials have said that they will not investigate Aswat in connection with 77.

The Aswat example seems to illustrate a wider problem here. American and French intelligence officials confirm that Aswat and his colleagues, Abu Hamza and Omar Bakri, were all used in an MI6 operation to recruit British Muslims to fight in Kosovo in the 1990s. The Anglo-American strategy of using mujahideen networks had begun in Afghanistan, continued in Azerbaijan and was imported to Europe during the Bosnian War. The operation is described in detail in Dutch intelligence files reviewed in the official Dutch inquiry into the Srebrenica genocide. The policy continued in Kosovo, and continues today in Macedonia.

British foreign policy in the Balkans meant that terrorists at home were given considerable latitude, and only this explains the reluctance of police and security services to prosecute individuals like Abu Hamza (who still has not been charged for numerous al-Qaeda linked terrorist activities in the UK). The Balkans is not the only region where British foreign policy makes use of networks affiliated to al-Qaeda. In Central Asia and Northwest Africa, British and American covert operations have collaborated with extremist Islamist terror networks in the pursuit of specific strategic and economic interests, largely to do with protecting corporate interests and controlling energy reserves. These networks are closely associated with the UK-based operatives linked to the London bombings. For example, in the summer of 2000, Yousef Bodanksy, former Director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism, reported that US and British intelligence had held a formal meeting hosted by Azerbaijan to discuss the supply of arms and funds to al-Qaeda mercenaries in the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Middle East. There are many other reliable examples of this sort of collaboration.

There is now growing acknowledgement in the international intelligence community that Britain has operated within the framework of a “Covenant of Security” with these networks. Former Downing Street intelligence adviser Crispin Black, for instance, notes that the covenant was a tacit understanding between the security services and extremist terrorist networks inside the UK that they would be permitted to do what they liked on British soil as long as they didn’t target British interests. But even this doesn’t fully explain the phenomenon at stake. Omar Bakri, for instance, told his followers over the internet in January 2005 that the covenant of security had been broken by the British government in its arrest of people like Abu Hamza, whose trial had been originally scheduled for 7th July 2005, and that therefore Britain was now a legitimate target of al-Qaeda terrorist activity. The failure of the authorities to act can only be explained in light of the fact these extremist networks were not only tolerated, but were actively protected due to their utility to British foreign policy objectives in the Balkans and elsewhere.

The danger is that the government’s overwhelming imperative to conceal these policies from the public are compromising the integrity of the criminal investigation. Many of these networks in the UK remain intact. People associated with Bakri and other UK-based operatives linked to terrorism whom I identify in my writing, and who by their own admission have undergone terrorist training and are willing to carry out attacks inside the UK, have not been pursued. Meanwhile, the clear flaws in the British national security system that made the 77 attacks possible, tied as they are to Britain’s foreign policies, have yet to be rectified.

I’ve only touched the tip of the iceberg here. The full story of the London bombings will not be fully told or understood in the absence of an independent public inquiry."

Is The Only Way To Deal With Aswat Is To Get Him Extradited To America
Where He Will Be Buried In The US Penal System Abu Hazma Style?

"Radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza lost his High Court battle today against extradition to the United States where he faces a potential jail sentence of 100 years. The decision means the hook-handed fanatic can be sent across the Atlantic to face terror charges and is likely to spend the rest of his natural life locked up for 23 hours a day in a 'super-maximum' security jail in Colorado.... Hamza was the first person to be arrested under a new, streamlined Anglo-American extradition treaty in 2004... US authorities want him to stand trial there on up to 11 terrorism charges including sending money and recruits to assist al-Qa'eda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. They allege that Hamza was involved in a global conspiracy to wage jihad against the US and other western countries. Among the most serious accusations is one that he was involved in the kidnap by Islamic radicals of 16 tourists in the Yemen in 1998. Four hostages, including three Britons, died in a rescue attempt. Hamza allegedly bought the kidnappers a satellite phone and gave them advice and assistance. US authorities also claim that he tried to set up a terrorist training camp in Bly, Oregon between 1999 and 2000.... The July 7 London bombers were among those inspired by Hamza's sermons and the would-be bombers of July 21 were regular worshippers at Finsbury Park mosque in north London where he was formerly the imam."
Abu Hamza loses US extradition appeal, faces 100-year jail sentence
Daily Telegraph, 20 June 2008

"An aide of the extremist preacher Abu Hamza has had his extradition from Britain to the US for alleged terrorism offences blocked by the European court of human rights. Removing Haroon Aswat [who has not been tried in Britain despite being a British citizen and being accused of involvement in terrorism], a UK-based terror suspect whose nationality is unknown, to an American 'supermax' high-security prison would constitute 'inhuman or degrading treatment', the Strasbourg court ruled. The decision barring his extradition from Broadmoor psychiatric hospital, where he is being held, to the US was made on account of his severe mental illness. Aswat, who has paranoid schizophrenia, has been indicted in the US as a co-conspirator in a plan to establish a jihad training camp in Oregon, along with Hamza."
Human rights court blocks extradition of UK-based terror suspect to US
Guardian, 16 April 2013

"Former British soldiers taught Abu Hamza's followers to use guns at a camp in Wales as part of an ad hoc terror training network set up by the jailed cleric, according to US intelligence agencies. But the British security services were either unconcerned or ignorant about Hamza's activities, despite warnings that he was considered a risk from foreign governments and intelligence agencies as early as 1995. Evidence collected by the American agencies shows that, as early as 1997, Hamza was organising terror camps in the Brecon Beacons, at an old monastery in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, and in Scotland, suggesting that he ran a far more extensive training network than has been officially acknowledged until now. Transcripts of interviews conducted with suspected al-Qaeda terrorists held by America in Guant�namo Bay reveal that the British ex-soldiers, some of whom fought in Bosnia, were recruited to train about 10 of Hamza's followers at the Brecon Beacons camp for three weeks in 1998. The former troops taught them to strip and clean weapons and gave them endurance training and lessons in surveillance techniques."
Hamza set up terror camps with British ex-soldiers
Observer, 12 February 2006

"SIS [MI6] operations do require muscle on occasion, but this tends to take the form of ex-special forces contractors rather than serving intelligence officers."
Psst! Want to join MI6?
Daily Telegraph, 7 January 2009

"Abu Hamza al-Masri told his followers that he was a veteran of the Balkan wars of the 1990s, in which Arab Mujahidin went to Bosnia to fight the Serbs, the Old Bailey was told yesterday. The former imam of the Finsbury Park Mosque in North London was seen talking about the Bosnian conflict on a videotape shown to the jury, believed to have been made in 1998 in Birmingham, possibly in a private house. As he urged his listeners to travel to Albania and Kosovo to support the Islamic cause, the Egyptian-born cleric recalled his own jihad experiences. He said he had advised Algerian fighters in Bosnia and argued with other Mujahidin leaders about demands that they give up their arms or leave the country at the end of the conflict."
Abu Hamza 'boasted of Bosnia action'
London Times, 17 January 2006