THE LONDON BOMBINGS - AN INDEPENDENT ENQUIRY

A Review of Nafeez Ahmed’s new book

‘7/7: The Inside Story of the London Bombings’ was the bold title of Mr Nafeez Ahmed’s public address given on August 16th in a London Muslim centre. It was ambitious, and indeed some were heard to murmur at the end that he had not really given any definite answers. Over central issues he remains agnostic. He summarised main themes of his book, which combines devastating critique of police obfuscation over the ‘clues’ and the incoherence of the story they have given, with a belief that somewhere out there, in Europe or maybe Pakistan, ‘Al-Qaeda’ elements plotted and masterminded the event.

But surely, one wants to cry out, if the bombs really were placed under the carriage, as he more than half suggests, and if the police have been telling us absolute baloney for a year over the trains which the four lads are alleged to have caught from Luton, then does not this argue for a source more within British intelligence for the event? He has clearly shown any discerning reader that all the competent bomb-experts in Europe and America first proclaimed (a) that remote-control detonators were used, and then (b) that military-grade explosives were used - and then in mid-July the story changed with no detonators and a home-made explosive called TATP brewed up in a bath, etc. as if all the former conclusions were simply ’inoperative.’ We surely expect Nafeez to conclude that someone is just making up the script on the hoof. But he doesn’t.

Nafeez uses the big words like ’Truth’ in his book titles, and I sometimes feel he writes his books a bit too quickly. Is he avoiding such conclusions merely because they would lose him his publisher? Surely not. Permit me to repeat, what he told Keith Mothersson, that he had wanted to put ‘alleged bombers’ in his book, but his publisher told him that he would not publish it if it had any finger of accusation pointed at British Intelligence. So the four accused became simply ’the bombers.’ He didn’t do this in his talk however, and the speech he read out has to be the best statement anyone has yet made on the subject of July 7th. (But, his book did do this for the July 21st suspects, who remain, thankfully, ‘the alleged bus bomber,’ etc).

The very second sentence of his book - gets it wrong. He has the first blast going off at 8.51 am, at Aldgate east station, whereas it was as far as one can ascertain, at 8.49 am. So why do two minutes matter? Eleven minutes to nine … but maybe that was just the kind of ‘conspiracy-theory’ Nafeez was concerned to avoid? The only possible response to this, is that a true book about July 7th is yet to be written. A member of our 9/11 group in the audience asked him, afterwards, about the terror-drill rehearsal conducted by Peter Powers: his talk had not mentioned it and neither had his book! We there get a hundred pages about terror-networks around the world (by brown-skinned persons) , but nothing about the centrally-relevant terror-drill performed on the morning of July 7th (by white-skinned persons) relating to the very same railway-stations as were attacked.

I’m tempted to say, that Nafeez needs to read Ruppert’s classic ’Crossing the Rubicon’ for the definitive account of how the war-games and terror drills of September 11th metamorphosed into the real thing, but am painfully aware that this might not help a young man into the 2nd year of his PhD and lecturing at Brighton on Political Science. I think (and hope) that he has got a big future, and, if the talk he gave did not quite satisfy anyone, he remains the one figure in the great debate who is respected by all the different sides. ‘Even minor details of the official account remain absurdly impossible’ (ie that released in May of this year) - but tell us Nafeez, why would they have mudded up all these details, if the truth is to be found in these far-flung international ’terror’ networks?

Public Enquiry

The most significant feature of his book may be its clear call for a public enquiry. We do here appreciate hearing the view of a Muslim intellectual. His presence at the CAMPAAC (Campaign Against Criminalizing Communities) group working towards a public enquiry, on which several members of our group are present, will surely help it to succeed. Persons with radically incompatible views are sitting round the same table, and Nafeez’ urbane presence helps to reassure the organisers that a balanced and scholarly view may prevail over invective.

After discussing the official reports from anonymous government sources released this summer, his book concludes: ‘These two documents are little more than an insult to the intelligence of the British people. More than ever, it proves beyond doubt that an independent public enquiry into the London bombings and the events surrounding them is absolutely essential to discovery precisely whet happened on 7/7, how and why; and to ensure that the fundamental reforms necessary to rehabilitate the British national security systems are implemented.’ Hear, hear! Let us hope that momentum towards such a non-partisan public enquiry can continue to develop, and it surely can provided that the factions with differing views can have the humility to acknowledge, like Nafeez, that none of us know exactly what happened on that day.

The Fiendish Threat

We learn about Muslim ‘terrorists’ dedicated to a ‘Jihad’ in which civilians including women and children are fair game, and who expected an event in the summer of 2005, though strangely they were not arrested by the police after their quite public proclamations. The trouble here, is that they did not have much to do with Leeds, and their connection was rather with the Finsbury Park mosque. The author assures us rather casually that Mohammed Khan ‘is known to have frequented’ this mosque. The dates of this are not made clear, but (p.82) a period prior to January 2003 seems indicated. Khan was then working full-time at Hillside Primary school, had just got married, was known as a very public figure in terms of his work for Hamara Healthy Living Centre (which Tony Benn had come up to visit not long before, to inaugurate), and with his pal Tanweer their ‘Mullah group’ was acquiring a local reputation for getting youngsters off narcotic-addiction, which involved organising outdoor expeditions such as boating and mountain-climbing. Is Nafeez sure that Khan would really have had the time or inclination to drive all the way down to Finsbury Park to listen to some ranting mullah? Can he reconcile that with one of the most marked characteristics of Khan as recalled by the many who knew him, namely his lack of interest in religion? The Radio 4 program ‘Biography of a Bomber’ was the most detailed investigation of Khan’s life we are likely to hear about, and none of the persons there interviewed gave any hint that Khan had commuted down to Finsbury Park. We require more corroboration than the mere word of a journalist, which is all that Nafeez offers us, before we will accept that the Leeds suspects were ever sitting in the Finsbury Park mosque.

Nafeez treats the ‘Al Qaeda terror network’ characters in great detail - the longest section of his book - and continually comes back to how they are employed by the MI5 or CIA: ‘Every leading member of al’Qaeda’s Finsbury division - Omar Bakri, Abu Hamza, Abu Qatada - has according to credible reports, a close relationship to Britain’s security services’ (p.175). A lot of this is of interest but rather doubtful relevance, as we have seen. Al-Zawahiri is the character who features on the Mohammed Khan video of September 2005, widely hyped as Bin Laden’s second-in-command. He was involved in the assassination of the Egyptian premier Anwar Sadat in 1981, after which he escaped safely to London, where the authorities refused pleas by Sadat’s family to have him extradited. He was recruited by the CIA in 1997 (p.203), appropriate for someone on the FBI‘s Most Wanted terror list.

Last year Blair justified the assault on Fallujah by explaining that ‘Zawahiri is operating there,’ i.e. his name had become a convenient one to conjure with. It’s a hall of mirrors. In the analysis of far-flung terrorist groups we learn told of certain persons who are even in touch with (gasp) Osama bin Laden. That ambiguous millionaire died in December 2001 in the Tora Bora mountains, and we do expect Nafeez to recognise lousy, fake, ISI-produced posthumous videos when he sees them.

The Joint Terrorism analysis Centre of MI5 did respond to any such assorted threats, by three weeks before 7/7 lowering their threat-risk assessment, because ‘At present there is not a group with both the current intent and the capability to attack the UK’ This was necessary in order that (the language of intent is mine, not Nafeez‘s ) London would be left ‘virtually undefended as police officers were extracted out of London to Greneagles for the G-8 summit.’ (p142). The perps didn’t want ordinary bobbies snooping around. Intelligence expert Crispin Black asked, ‘What kind of pressure was at work on the JTAC when it lowered .. Its threat level on 2 June’? He, as Nafeez put it, unfortunately failed to answer that ‘critical question.’*

I had to laugh at his account of how ‘Hasib Hussein boarded the bus in a panicked last minute decision when the pre-planning was foiled by the suspension of the Northern line that morning.’ Not a word about the mysterious re-routing of this bus to Tavistock Square as the only one so diverted, nor how a London bus driver stopped his bus in order to ask someone the way (and was then startled to look round, and see its top blow off), nor all that marvellous theatrical blood spattered around the BMA’s door, nor that ‘Outright Terror, bold and Brilliant’ for all too see: no, all that constructed theatre somehow slides out of his view, and instead what he sees is a phantom: the image of ‘the bomber,’ unseen by a single credible witness.

Police Prescience

Nafeez does an excellent job of comparing the 21/7 and 7/7 events, with the Home Secretary Clarke warning about the 21/7 event a mere two hours before they happened, warning senior colleagues of ‘another terror onslaught’ in a confidential briefing. Why, how clever of him. Also Scotland Yard somehow knew that the next event would also be on a Thursday: police chiefs independently ‘deduced the attack would probably be on a Thursday.’ On the morning of 21st just before the event, armed police raced to Farringdon Station to close in on a suspected bomber but ‘alas’ narrowly missed - i.e. they knew where it would happen, as well as when. As Nafeez comments, if they had such detailed foreknowledge as to where and when the event would happen, why was the public not warned? Benjamin Netenyahu’s well-publicised foreknowledge (by six minutes) of the 7/7 event is here ascribed to a tip by Scotland Yard, so the police apparently knew when both events were going to happen. One feels they should be invited to say a bit more about this remarkable prescience.

In the Acknowledgements Nafeez alludes to Akeela ’for her love, which keeps me alive.’ Phew, do we get to meet this Akeela? But sorry, I digress. University political-science students are going to be using this book as a reference and it seems to be on course as the only volume on the topic of which this could be said. Let’s not even mention Milan Rai’s effort here, and any forthcoming opus on the subject by a member of our group may be finding the Truth but will inevitably lack a decent publisher. Nafeez’ book does not contain anything of substance that is as such untrue, and that may be important. As his first book was plugged by Gore Vidal, this one is hailed by John Pilger, and that is quite a track record to emulate.


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* The book lacks both an index and a bibliography. Eg, ref. 270 is to 'Black, 7-7: What went wrong? Op. cit.’ and one has to comb through previous references to find this reference, which is stressful. Worse, chunks of references appear as deleted for legal reasons so it may not even be present.

by Nick Kollerstrom Phd