Rixon Stewart – August 11, 2006
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Little more than two months ago more than 200 British police, backed by armed support units raided a house in Forest Gate, east London, in what police described as an “anti terrorist” operation.
According to police spokesman, they were acting on “specific” intelligence that suggested an “imminent terror threat.”
During the raid police shot one of the occupants of the house; allegedly,
say the two brothers staying there,
without warning.
Both men were held for extensive questioning while their residence was searched and examined for forensic evidence.
According to BBC correspondent Danny Shaw, police went looking in "every nook and cranny" for proof.
One anonymous security source told the Sun newspaper, police believed suspected militants had made a “dirty” chemical device – a conventional bomb surrounded by toxic material that could be set off by a suicide bomber.
“We are absolutely certain this device exists and could be used either by a suicide bomber or in a remote-controlled explosion,” the source is reported to have said.
Yet in the raid's aftermath absolutely nothing was found and the two men were released without charge. Nonetheless, the raid and the police’s inability to find anything incriminating raises serious questions about police “intelligence” on alleged “terrorists”. Just as it did nearly a year ago when armed police
gunned down Jean Charles de Menezes, an innocent Brazilian electrician who, police later claimed, was initially identified as a terrorist.
More to the point police pumped eight bullets into De Menzes’s head without warning. A fatal mistake, police later admitted.
Or was it? Maybe the
killing of Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, in a
London underground train last year, was really meant to heighten public anxiety about potential terror threats. Just like the raid on the Forest Gate house two months ago, police found absolutely nothing to link Jean Charles de Menezes to “terror”.
Nothing other than what police were later to admit was “faulty intelligence”.
Now we have another police operation that has uncovered a “terror plot” that would have allegedly dwarfed 911. Or so we are told.
According to Associated Press, the terrorists' plan was to detonate liquid-based based explosive devices smuggled in hand luggage on flights leaving UK airports for the US.
If successful, the plot - which US officials say has the hallmarks of al Qaida - would have been a terrorist "spectacular" on a par with 9/11.
And as anyone who has investigated the facts knows, the official story on 9/11 is a crock of crap.
British police are currently holding 24 men in connection with the plot, 19 British Muslims and 5 Pakistanis whom police describe as “facilitators”.
Police raided houses used by the suspects in London, Birmingham and High Wycombe. An elderly neighbour to the London suspects, told the BBC she was "shocked" to see police raiding the address.
"It's a lovely family that lives there. They were Asian and very friendly to everyone. If ever I needed anything I knew I could ask even though I never did."
One of those named on Friday as a suspect in the alleged suicide bomb plot, Ibrahim Savant had a regular job and loved football.
Neighbours and friends in the ethnically mixed eastern London suburb where the 25-year-old grew up said they were bewildered by his alleged involvement in the terror plot.
"We grew up together. He was a normal, average guy," said Assad, who declined to give his surname. "Everyone around here will be amazed and dismayed" at his arrest, he added.
Which implies that a "terror threat" can be posed by anyone cited by the authorities and mainstream media. For until now not a single shred of hard evidence has been produced to substantiate police claims.
So could this be another case of Western covert intelligence working together with
double agents to contrive a “terror” atrocity? Could it be that like the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes and the police “anti-Terror” raid in Forest Gate, the current “terror” scare will later be found to have been based on “faulty intelligence”? By which time events will have moved on and new developments occurred, facilitated by the current scare, which completely overshadow current events?
Whatever the answer, the timing of events relative to Israel’s rampage in Lebanon and the ranking up of tension with Iran is ominous in the extreme. For if evidence could be “found” linking the current terror scare with al Qaida and its alleged backers, it could pave the way for an an-all out attack on Iran, possibly even using nuclear weapons.
Washington’s neocons are said to be adamant that Iran be dealt with and its threat to Israel neutralised. To this end they are said to have been demanding an all-out US attack on Iran. Could the revelations about the latest “terror” be about to provide just such a pretext for an attack?
Footnote
Whatever the final outcome of events, the current "terror" scare provides a distraction from Israeli crimes being carried out in Gaza and southern Lebanon. It's also of note that while the security services allege they have uncovered an imminent threat that would have "dwarfed" 9/11, Tony Blair has remained on holiday – a measure of how real the threat was, maybe? While his deputy Prime Minister and stand in, John Prescott thanked the British public for reacting “calmly, sensibly and with great patience” to the disruption.
That the British public reacted have with such equanimity to the alleged "terror plot" is perhaps a measure of the growing awareness, not spoken of publicly but sensed privately among growing numbers, that the alleged terror threat is no more than a ruse, a ploy to manipulate public opinion. Just as the endlessly repeated claims of Saddam Hussien's Weapons of Mass Destruction turned out to be no more than a media induced mirage.
Postscript
By Saturday August 12, British Police had already released one of the suspects without charge. What's the betting that in the coming weeks virtually all, if not all the suspects arrested from the alleged "terror group" will also be released without charge?
Last updated 14/08/2006
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