Australian thoughts on (British) Terrorism

• Home
• But we’re all right! The Voice of Human Rights – The Guardian is tickled pink. They are back to their old game of confusing wrong with DEEP WRONG. Out to get someone on OUR side? But of course!
• See some of the information here taken from Palestinian TV Archives if you still insist, contrary to all evidence, that the west is evil and has ’caused’ Islamist terrorism
• Hope? Despite the name-calling and mud-slinging a conference at Vatican City attended by Muslim scholars, Pope Benedict and Roman Catholic officials aims for a joint crisis management plan

Comment at end

30th October, 2008

AL QAEDA – JIHAD – FOREST FIRES – PAEDOPHILE/JIHAD WEBSITES – INTERNATIONAL – BRITISH TRIALS

[FROM THIS BLOG OWNER. PLEASE NOTE: What follows are the thoughts of John Miller as published at EuropeNews. Please go there to interact with him. I do not agree with ALL of his thoughts, especially on Iraq and WMDs, but I enjoyed the article and feel it deserves no interference from me.]

This Australian site – Islamist Monitor has some lengthy information on recent and ongoing British terrorism trials. That wasn’t the ONLY reason I am using it here. With the proliferation of emphasis on the web of American and British websites of this type there is a general consensus amongst terrorism deniers that American and British authorities are fantasising for their own political ends. It is worth knowing that other countries too have deep concerns. The writer looks at the use of the internet and paedophilia/terror links, as well as recent threats to start forest fires.

This thought should ring bells for us in Britain too:“There would appear to be something very strange in this country where once a person is successful in obtaining Australian citizenship and swears an oath of allegiance, yet does not assimilate and rejects the host culture, he/she enjoyed the benefits of freedom of speech, expression, assembly and everything that Islamic fundamentalism rejects.”

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Are We Losing the Battle Against Terrorism? (click for source)

Islamist Monitor, Australia October 30 2008, by John Miller

I’m extremely grateful for the positive feedback following the publication on this site of my previous article which took a cursory look at the symmetry between terrorist trials in London and Melbourne. And in this post, I will attempt a situation report (Sitrep) on the current situation regarding the so-called war on terror.

This is a longer article than usual but I believe that the circumstances are right for an examination of where we stand in the fight against terrorism, especially as the jury for the second major terrorist trial resulting from Operation Pendennis (2005) is currently being selected in Sydney and the trial itself will probably commence early next year.

At the outset, I would like to explain that I have always thought that the concept of a global war on terror (GWOT) as announced by President Bush following 9/11 was an understandable mistake. I remain unconvinced about the attack on Iraq and the evidence presented that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. However, there was no credible link between the Iraqi dictator and 9/11. I have spent countless hours looking at all the public source information possible and listening to the whispers that typically emanate from the intelligence community.

With regret, there are many professions that one can never escape from to a golf course, a quiet fishing spot or unlikely vacations. Therefore, once an intelligence officer (and I mean a person who has made a career in intelligence work rather than a person who has served in an intelligence body as part of a career path) always an intelligence officer. It’s in the blood: it’s in my blood will stop when I shuffle from this mortal coil. I wish to stress at this stage that my work rests on publicly available sources; an analytic mind and experience.

We cannot turn back the clock and start again. Navel-gazing and soul-searching on the matter is little more than a distraction from real intelligence work and falls into category of 20/20 hindsight or as my American friends would say Monday morning quarterbacking. However, as Santayana observed inter alia that those who do not heed the lessons of the past are damned to repeat them.

What we have learned from the unholy mess following 9/11 are a number of key factors which I will present in brief and no particular order of significance:

1. Western security and intelligence services were not prepared for worldwide terrorist activity. Following the end of the Cold War, a “peace dividend” was demanded of these services and a considerable amount of expertise was lost. However, international terrorism was not considered a major issue: the priorities were on counterintelligence and counterespionage and protective security arrangements and even then cuts were deep and savage.

Western security and intelligence agencies are still not prepared for worldwide terrorist activity

2. The single most appalling factor selected from among many was that there was a shortage of translators, especially Arabic, who could be trusted and as Arabic in one form or another is the lingua franca of Islamic terrorism this was a distinct weakness, which is held by some to still exist. At one stage, neither the FBI nor the CIA had Arabic translators on the staff. Security checking of translators and their reliability is a major problem in counter-terrorism. Blame allocation is not a productive activity: but it is necessary to identify and learn from the errors. That may result in disciplinary action – difficult but once again, necessary.

3. Terrorism is basically asymmetrical warfare. It does not resemble the great wars such as World War I and World War II when nations were at war with other nations or other military engagements such as the Korean War, the Malayan emergency or the Vietnam War. There appears to be no identifiable physical command structure to be taken out. The US experience in Iraq is roughly analogous to the Soviet experience in Afghanistan and it appears unlikely that the military has learned any real lessons until late in the day. The greatest danger lies in the re-taking of Afghanistan by the Taliban and projection of its power into Pakistan.

4. In many respects, security and intelligence services have had to learn by doing. Apart from 9/11, the Bali bombings, 7/7 in the UK and bombings in Madrid, India and other places around the globe the initiative has generally been with the terrorists. This is the Achilles’ heel of all counter-terrorism operations and places a high value on specialization in C-T work.

5. With the benefit of examination, a significant number of terrorist plots have been discovered before they can be enacted and while it is abundantly clear that good police work is in the forefront of uncovering various conspiracies and nipping them in the bud before serious damage is done: intelligence jargon for this action is called prophylactic. Following the 7/7 bombings in London, a senior Metropolitan Police officer bowdlerized the words of an IRA bomber: “We were lucky; we have to be lucky every time, they only have to be lucky once.” This is a salutary lesson to all concerned. It is the closest thing to an eternal truth that is to be found in counter-terrorism.

6. Reducing matters to a local level, we can see a number of problems that exist overseas being repeated in Australia either by design or neglect. And there is little point in beating about the bush (no pun intended). These will be discussed below but one of the greatest problems concerns a policy that was never submitted to the Australian people at an election but imposed on the country, namely that of multiculturalism.

7. To the discomfiture of a great many people, the Howard government’s anti-terrorism legislation is variously depicted in the media and elite circles as illicit, draconian, ill-conceived, anti-democratic and a veritable thesaurus of negative terms. I admit to some personal misgivings about the legislation but it is notable that the criticism comes mainly from those who might be termed the usual suspects i.e. the anti-American left and so-called radical chic. The legislation is currently under review. To an extent not acknowledged by critics, the legislation and action by the authorities has until today prevented an attack on Australian soil. I have often made the statement that our elites (and possibly the wider public) will only take terrorism seriously when TV programs are interrupted to show pictures of body bags and blood being hosed from walls.

8. The Australian intelligence community, as it is now called, embraces a considerable number of separate agencies which work together against the terrorist threat. Some are responsible for collection of intelligence by electronic and technical means and do not, generally speaking, have people working in the field. In the event of an emergency, the first forces to react would be the state police, followed in short order by the Australian Federal Police and ASIO and when necessary, elements of the Australian Defence Forces. For those with an interest, conducting an Internet search reveals a certain amount of information about those organizations and how they operate. It is both specious reasoning and operationally hazardous to reveal details

9. It is blindingly obvious that ASIO and the AFP do not enjoy the same degree of respect and trust accorded similar organizations overseas. The problem with ASIO is essentially historical and grounded in the politics of its establishment in 1949 and a certain amount of notoriety attached to the Petrov affair; completely unfounded suspicions about ASIO being involved with the CIA and the dismissal of the Whitlam government; the Combe-Ivanov affair and a number of Royal Commissions, some of the findings of which were justified and others totally the opposite but not in the eyes of ASIO’s enemies. The AFP has suffered a severe crisis of confidence that largely results from so-called bungled cases. The cause célèbre was that of Dr. Mohamed Haneef, who was arrested under anti-terrorism legislation and detained further under the Immigration Act before being cleared and released. More than any other, the Haneef case became the target of Haneef those opposed to anti-terrorist legislation, government concerns about national security and a belief in civil rights that transcends what I would regard as normal and respectable limits. While rigorous scrutiny of the authorities by the media and professional bodies is a fundamental democratic right, the crude hatchet job done on the AFP and its Commissioner in the ABC program Four Corners of 27 October cast little in the way of light and exposed to great deal of heat: it was manifestly unfair to the AFP as a whole.

10. From examination of a considerable number of terrorist cases in courts around the world, there appears to be what we might term a standard defence case. Basically, all the rights and privileges accorded to the citizen of a country apply in the courtroom, even if the defendants refuse to recognize the legitimacy of the court and the law of the land. Defence counsels set out to undermine the prosecution case on a number of fronts. Firstly, where a case has been nipped in the bud by timely arrests, the defence will state that those concerned were skylarking/playing games; even though they might have purchased explosive making materials (usually fertilizer bombs) this is dismissed as circumstantial; the Crown case usually rests on what the defence describes as hearsay and if an informant is involved, no stone is left unturned to prove that he/she is either mentally deranged, morally deficient, acting for monetary gain or with malice aforethought towards the defendants and finally, defence counsel knows no scruples when it comes to playing the race card.

11. Australia cannot afford a siege mentality to develop among its intelligence organizations. Like it or lump it, Australia is involved in a worldwide struggle against Islamic fundamentalists, whom I choose to call jihadists or if I’m being less generous, Islamofacists largely as a descriptive term. However, it is extremely important to note that the vicious grip of the political correctness (PC) movement in the US and the UK in particular is trying to uncouple the extremists from the Islamic context. In a remarkably foolish manner, they are aping what Dr. Mervyn Bendle has more than aptly described in his views on critical terrorist studies as the postmodernist/deconstructionist view of removing or deconstructing the actors from the situation. (see 10 above)

12. The world of intelligence is bedeviled by jargon and a new form of hybrid intelligence-politico-speak, much of which sadly is derived from economics and business courses. And it happens on a global scale. Hence, we read of reports going to the Australian government from the intelligence services talking of an al-Qaeda franchise in much the same way as a businessman might talk about a Harvey Norman or Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise! Sorry readers but it’s not the same bloody thing. al-Qaeda does not hand out franchises and we should avoid sloppy thinking. The same may be said of the fabled phenomenon of the “homegrown” terrorist. In my view, the intelligence communities have chosen unwisely to use this description. If a person migrates to Australia (or any other country) and becomes a citizen, works or draws Social Security but does not integrate and becomes radicalized and joins a bombing plot, then that Pickering is not homegrown. It is an imported species like weeds or introduced plants that infest our countryside.

13. A number of homegrown terrorist cases stand out: in the US, Theodore John Kaczynski the Illinois-born, mathematics genius and manifest writer, known as the Unabomber (now serving a life in prison without parole) and Timothy James McVeigh, the so-called Oklahoma City (OKC) bomber, who was executed on 11 June 2001. In Australia many years ago, we had the Bunbury bomber who detonated an explosive device at a wood chip mill in Western Australia without loss of life and the 1978 Ananda Marga sect bombers in Sydney who killed a policeman and two refuse collectors. To many people, arguing about language might appear to be splitting hairs but nomenclature is extremely important, especially when dealing with terrorists from different backgrounds but with the same lethal intent.

14. A current and somewhat unnecessarily protracted debate is being carried out in academic journals and those with a focus on terrorism on whether al-Qaeda has been decapitated (the implication being that it is less effective) or dispersed by design. In practical terms, it would have been far better to have taken out an identifiable command structure, located in Afghanistan or Pakistan but a dispersed force, operating on the basis of cell structures, is far more dangerous by virtue of its hydra-headed nature.

15. It is an obvious but lamentable fact that politicians and the security authorities have sought political advantage from various terrorist cases. This is not restricted to Australia and has been noted frequently overseas. I take an extremely dim view of publicity being given to ongoing investigations, let alone leaking details of operations before they take place.
I recently chanced upon a blog site which purports to be the work of Richard Dawkins (he of The God Delusion) in which it was stated that on any given day in the UK or Western world a terrorism trial was in progress. The blog may be found at the RICHARDDAWKINS.NET site under the subheadings Reason, Politics and Current Affairs

It is not my intention to in any way cast aspersions on the leading UK academic and man of letters and the website is not particularly sinister, more naïve. A chance encounter had led me to the site and I invite readers to make their own judgments. However, it came about because I was interested in the current trial of two of the survivors of the bomb attacks in the UK in London and Glasgow in June 2007, which I intended to present as one of a number of cases to demonstrate some of the points raised above.

Case 1: The London and Glasgow terrorist attacks of 2007.

It will be recalled that on 29 June 2007, two bombs intended to detonate outside a nightclub in London failed because of technical problems and personal bravery displayed by members of the police force and members of the public. The second attack involved driving an explosive-laden jeep into the Glasgow airport terminal, the following day, which fortunately killed only one of the bombers. However, the story is more complicated and I have done my level best to reduce it to manageable proportions for this blog.

It has been widely reported that authorities received warnings from al-Qaeda about terrorist attacks in Britain but they lacked sufficient specificity for action to be taken. However, the UK government attributed responsibility to al-Qaeda and the attacks in London and Glasgow were linked to two men on trial.

In the three days after the Glasgow airport attack, the UK authorities arrested and detained seven people and the Australian government detained Dr. Mohamed Haneef. and the Kafeel Ahmed Australian government detained Dr. Mohamed Haneef. Of the seven in British custody, Dr. Kafeel Ahmed, aka Khalid Ahmed died from injuries received during the attack on the airport; two faced trial and four others were later released without charge including the brother of the deceased. The interesting feature of the international investigation which covered a number of countries was that all those involved had connections with the medical profession, most being doctors. At the time of heightened alert and further anticipated attacks, counter-terrorism operations became known as the ‘Doctors plot.’

The current trial commenced on 9 October and involves two defendants: Dr.Bilal Abdullah , 27, born in the UK, who moved to Iraq as a child and later returned to Britain and Dr. Mohammed Asha, 26, from Jordan. Unlike previous and more recent trials, in this case the Crown had compelling evidence to offer and the Crown prosecutor was blunt in his opening address telling the court the two men were “members of an Islamic terrorist cell who hoped to leave the public “gripped by fear” over where they would strike next – playing on anxieties left by the July 7 2005 attacks in London.”

He went on to say: “Their plan was to carry out a series of attacks on the public using bombs concealed in vehicles. No warnings were to be given and the cars were to be positioned in busy urban areas. “In short, these men were intent on committing murder on an indiscriminate and a wholesale scale. In addition to the killing of the innocent, the objective of course was to seize public attention both here in this country and internationally.”

A great deal of material has already been seen in TV news footage and on the Internet but it is instructive to examine the progress of the trial so far. The degree of electronic surveillance in Britain has been estimated at one camera to every 14 people. I have seen the figure quoted on many occasions but cannot give a precise reference but it is abundantly clear that in the large cities everyone is watched.

What we can clearly say about the evidence to date is that it was extremely fortunate for the London public that the first bombs did not detonate. The court has been told that the bombs comprised gas canisters petrol and hundreds of nails, manufactured in Glasgow and driven to London. Although expert opinion agreed that there was a technical fault using a mobile phone as a detonator, one expert said there was sufficient explosive packed into two car bombs that the gas canisters could have been propelled up to half a mile away.

Although the accused have denied being involved in a terrorist act, claiming they intended merely to carry out a campaign to scare the public and raise consciousness about Iraq, (which seems very strange to me) they left wills explaining that they were planning action to take revenge for injustices against Muslims by the British in Iraq. This behavior is typical of suicide bombers. There were also letters left addressed to the leaders of the Jihad in Iraq; to Osama bin Laden and jihadists in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Palestine and other (unspecified) areas of the world. The determination of the accused was such that when the London bombs failed to detonate, plan B. was to attack Glasgow airport. In one of life’s little parodies the pair had left the scene in London by rickshaw! Needless to say, the prosecution has treated the defence case harshly, describing it as ludicrous.

Sabeel Ahmed, the brother of the terrorist who died after the Glasgow airport attack, suffering from horrific burns, was a physician employed in the British National Health Service (NHS). He was charged with; pleaded guilty to failing to tell the police about the attack. He had received an e-mail from his suicide bomber brother, which read in part: “It’s about time that we gave up our lives and our families for the sake of Islam, to please Allah.” He also instructed his brother to Kafka then mother and father and claimed that he did not read the e-mail them until the evening after the attack. In court, he admitted to failing to disclose the information and was sentenced to 18 months in jail, which meant in practice that he will shortly be released from jail and deported to India.

In various journals commenting on the doctors’ plot, there has been comment that the authorities around the Western world were alerted to the danger and there was something of a hunt for foreign doctors, especially with an Indian or Pakistani background. The case of Mohamed Haneef falls into this category, which has not been accepted well by the left-leaning members of the judiciary. It will be extremely interesting to see the final outcome of the inquiry into this case and it may be possible to comment further then.

Case 2: The Manchester affair.

In September 2008, two British citizens of Pakistani origin appeared before a court in Manchester. Rainzgeb Ahmed has been charged with directing terrorism and being a member of al-Qaeda and Habib Ahmed, charged with assisting in those acts. The Crown case stated that the three were members of an al-Qaeda active service Dr Ashacell who were in the process of planning and executing “something spectacular,” when a person believed to be al-Qaeda’s number three was killed – Rainzgeb Ahmed.

In addition, Habib is alleged to have travelled to Pakistan to receive terrorist training. The trip was described as including training in the use of explosives. Habib’s wife, Mehreen Haji appeared with the two men on the grounds that she sent £4000 to fund his training and faces two counts on arranging funding for the purposes of terrorism.

The Habibs were married by Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed, whose al-Muhajiroun was “designed to propagate radical views of Islam in the UK.” Police searching their home found documents justifying suicide bombing. On his computer, they also found evidence of a Google search for the address of the then Secretary of State for defence. And other searches for details and addresses of British Army bases and training offices, US military bases in the UK and the chain of command for the Metropolitan Police’s counter-terror unit were also discovered on his computer.

This trial is in its very early stages and although the charges are very serious, the defence case has yet to be heard. Rainzgeb Ahmed has denied being a member of al-Qaeda but admitted to being a member of an organization banned in Britain, Harkat-ul-Mujihadeen. On 25 October, the court heard that he had a contact book with phone numbers of al-Qaeda operatives, which had been carried into the UK for him by an associate whose was to help him direct al-Qaeda activities. Manchester Crown Court was also told that covert recordings in Dubai and Manchester would show that Ahmed was an important member of al-Qaeda.

The proliferation of organizations that have links to al-Qaeda are causing considerable concern for the British authorities. More details will be posted as they come to hand.

Case 3: A convert in trouble.

On 15 October 2008 at the Old Bailey in London, Nick Reilly aged 22 pleaded guilty to attempted murder and preparing to commit acts of terrorism. The court was told that Reilly was groomed on the Internet by two men who encouraged him to carry out a suicide bomb attack in a busy restaurant in Exeter. The homemade bombs packed Nick Reilywith nails were strapped to Reilly and had they detonated as planned, he would’ve been killed along with 24 customers and 11 members of staff. However, the plan failed when one of the bombs exploded in his hands as he assembled them in a toilet cubicle.

Grooming of terrorists on the Internet probably ranks as difficult to trace and follow-up as those involving paedophiles. Reilly’s mother told the court that he had been groomed from 2003, converting to Islam, changing his name to an Arabic form and becoming “radicalized and brainwashed.” By 2008, he was ready to carry out a terrorist bombing either at the restaurant or a police station.

That Reilly knew how to construct the bombs is beyond dispute and it was only a premature reaction that caused an explosion which caused him severe physical damage. The judge presiding stated that Reilly had “long nursed an ambition to become a martyr” and added:

“there is evidence from materials seized that he became increasingly drawn to violent action in support of fellow Muslims in revenge for perceived persecution and to the idea of himself, personally becoming a martyr.”

Having pleaded guilty, Reilly is due to be sentenced in late November. Naturally enough, the UK authorities are extremely interested in identifying and finding two men who groomed the hapless youth. I cannot help but feel some sympathy in this particular case. R However, my sympathy is tempered by the fact that although he could be described as clinically sub-normal, he was smart enough to visit various extremist websites and watching bomb making on YouTube. Around the world, intelligence agencies are concerned by Internet grooming of young people and women to become terrorist bombers. This rather sad case illustrates that they have grounds for concern – mad, bad, old, young, and mentally-handicapped – it means nothing to those willing to organize such heinous crimes.

Discussion

These three cases have been highlighted to demonstrate the problems facing the UK authorities. As the Dawkins website said, not a week seems to go by without another terrorist case in court. On 15 October, newspapers around the world announced that MI5 and other UK authorities were actively seeking another group of terror suspects. A quick visit to the UK Security Service (MI5) threat homepage showed:

“The current threat level is assessed as SEVERE (As of 4 July 2007) This means there is a high likelihood of future terrorist attacks and indicates a continuing high level of threat to the UK.”

In practical terms it means that there has been no diminution of the assessed terrorist threat despite the apprehension of persons connected to the cases cited above. The 15 October reports were sheeted home to an announcement made in a debate in the House of Lords, by the minister responsible for counterterrorism, Lord Alan West. The debate was centred on the controversial plan by the British government to extend the time that suspected extremists could be held from 28 to 42 days. During his speech he said:

“Another great plot is building up again that we are monitoring,”

..and although he did not provide further details, it was surely sounding the tocsin. The British Home Office and other authorities refused to elaborate further except to issue the briefest of statements:

“There are many plots, individuals and groups under investigation. We don’t elaborate on specific plots or individuals.” (Agence France-Presse).

While there is no proven link between the statement and subsequent action, it was announced on 21 October that five men, aged 29 to 36 had been detained by the authorities under antiterrorism legislation in Britain. Those arrested are suspected of being involved in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism, according to the West Midlands Police, who rated five presidential addresses in Birmingham. A further two business properties were searched following a “long and complex operation” by the West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit. Somewhat enigmatically, a police spokeswoman stated that the arrests “were not related to any immediate plots or threat to public safety.” Although compelled to take the words at face value, there must be some suspicion that the ill-advised and badly-timed statement by Lord West had something to do with police action.

From time to time, the British authorities find it necessary to announce how many investigations are being carried out or plots uncovered in a given period. Personally, I find such activity disturbing on two grounds. Firstly, while it may be designed to show that the authorities are doing their job, there is a risk of alerting suspects and encouraging them to go underground. Secondly, it heightens the fear factor among the general public. In 2007, Jonathan Evans, head of the UK security service (MI5) said in a speech that 2000 individuals in the UK were considered a direct threat to national security because of their support for terrorism and significantly and honestly, he admitted the possibility of there being thousands more about whom the authorities know nothing.

The scale of the problem in Australia is probably less but it certainly exists and operational coverage of suspects soaks up scarce operational resources, money and manpower in an almost incomprehensible fashion. I have some idea of the costs involved and the manpower needed to cover physical surveillance of suspects, without the additional cost of technical devices and their operators. I do not believe it to be in the best interest of government or the authorities to reveal such details. However, it must be stated quite baldly that certain politicians and members of the intelligence community in just about any country you care to name have a predilection for providing “confidential briefings” or “backgrounders” to the media and other people who really have no need to know. Although Operation Pendennis appears to have been successful, having the whole affair covered by commercial TV cameras reeks of self-aggrandizement and under some circumstances could cause the loss of life.

There are two other disturbing trends worth noting briefly. The first is that the UK authorities have discovered links between Islamic fundamentalist websites and those of paedophiles. On 17 October, “investigations” by the British press found that a clear link existed between terrorist plots and hard-core child pornography. It appears that Khalisadarsecret messages are being embedded into pornographic images and the paedophile websites are being exploited to facilitate communication between terrorist groups (The Times). This trend has apparently been monitored for about two years and the difficulties distinguishing between fundamentalists engaging in personal gratification by using paedophilic websites, while at the same time using them for communication.

Lastly, the Australian summer is upon us or at least the weather is warming. A British journalist, Gordon Thomas, who has close links with the UKSIS (MI6) disclosed on 20 October that documents recovered during an operation in a remote area along the Pakistan border have revealed that Osama bin Laden wants al-Qaeda to launch a “global fireball” by lighting forest fires in Europe, the United States, Australia and South America. MI6 experts describe the documents as containing “the most worrying [plot] that the world is facing.”

Apart from the environmental disaster caused by such fires, the effect on emergency services and the insurance industry could impact on an already shaky world economy. Australia, gripped by years of drought that has left tinderbox conditions as summer now approaches, regards the threat as “terrifying” and the Attorney-General. Robert McClelland reportedly warned that there was a most urgent need for renewed vigilance against a very real and present danger.

The instructions for a “global fireball” were among documents recovered in the Pakistan border raid on an al-Qaida safe house. The author was Abu Musab al-Suri, who wrote the terrorist textbook, “The Global Islamic Resistance Call.”

The 50-year-old Syrian-born terrorist was seized by U.S. Special Forces in Quetta, Pakistan, in 2005. There are reports that he was flown to Egypt for interrogation by CIA officers and remains in one of Egypt’s secret prisons. However, other reports suggest that, in a deal with Syria, al-Suri has been released and is now in Baghdad planning attacks against Israel and it appears certain that he is wanted by the Spanish authorities in connection with the 2004 Madrid train bombings.

The documents recovered by the MI6 agents contain evidence that indicate he is the mastermind behind the plans for what another document calls a forest jihad. “The threat is all too real. The level of fear it would create all over the world when huge forests burn out of control would be new and terrifying,” said an intelligence officer in London.

“Until now, we have feared that the use of fire would be to attack main street stores. But forests are altogether different. There is absolutely no way we can ring-fence them or protect them in any realistic way. Half a dozen terrorists equipped with the right material can set fires at strategic points, which would add to the current hazards of already fighting a forest blaze,” said the officer.

In California, there are forests close to Los Angeles and other cities. In Greece, last summer more than 50 people died in a deliberately set blaze. Significantly the investigation into that inferno is being led by the country’s intelligence service.

Shortly before that blaze, GCHQ — Britain’s electronic surveillance agency — located an Islamic website emanating from Pakistan. It stated:

“The Koran justifies the destruction of the infidels forests because they do the same to our lands. Wherever there is summer we must prepare to launch forest jihad. The benefits of such an attack are that they will cause casualties among our enemies, create timber shortages for their buildings and strain their emergency services. That will create a way for us to launch further attacks against their infrastructure.”

The documents recovered in the MI6-led raid on the safe house also called for jihadists to use Google Earth to study forests to plan their attacks. (This material is taken from Joseph Farah’s G2 bulletin and the originator of the report, Gordon Thomas, is regarded as reliable). Google Earth was intended to be educational and informative and it proves once again, that those with hostile intent can use it for actions totally antithetical to those intended by its designers.

I have highlighted the terrorist-paedophile link because it is an extremely difficult problem to target, even with massive resources and the so-called forest jihad is almost too terrible to contemplate. There are many pyromaniacs who delight in setting bushfires during the summer in this country and most of them can be regarded as having a medical condition but the prospect of terrorists adding to their ranks means that every fire will be regarded as suspicious until proven otherwise. It is not a very pleasant prospect.

It has been said in many quarters that the struggle against fundamentalist Islamic terrorism will be a long haul. Obviously, Australia is somewhat safer than the UK and other Western countries but we know that we are on the list of targets of al-Qaeda, Jemmah Islamiya and other terrorist organizations. What we have in common with those countries is that we accept migrants from across the world. Not every Muslim is a terrorist but most terrorists are Muslim. There would appear to be something very strange in this country where once a person is successful in obtaining Australian citizenship and swears an oath of allegiance, yet does not assimilate and rejects the host culture, he/she enjoyed the benefits of freedom of speech, expression, assembly and everything that Islamic fundamentalism rejects.

At present, there are no provisions for revoking the citizenship of convicted terrorists and deporting them after they have served the appropriate jail term. It is high time that the government re-examined this question. Previous governments have had little problem in deporting those considered undesirable but as part of its review of anti-terrorism legislation, the Immigration and Citizenship Acts should be scrutinized carefully and a new approach to deportation considered. We expect migrants to come to this country and enrich the culture, not to seek to replace it with something totally alien to Western civilization and to use terrorist methods to achieve that goal. There will be those who scream about xenophobia, racism, civil rights and liberties and what is charmingly termed Islamophobia. In my opinion they have forfeited the right to be heard.

Events around the world suggest that the war against terror is having some success but Australians cannot afford to be complacent while it continues and to those who claim that it is possible to maintain a dialogue with fundamentalists, I offer one comment: the only matter they wish to discuss with us are the terms of our surrender.

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Tags: Australian terror fears forest fires, british muslim doctors, British terrorism case in court, glasgow london attacks, Islamist monitor, jihad, losing the battle against terrorism, paedophilia islamist website links