Al-Qaeda bomber was agent for British intelligence

Published on 26/04/2011 17:09

AN AL-QAEDA militant accused of carrying out a bombing campaign across Pakistan in 2002 was a British agent, according to the latest Wikileaks revelations.

Adil Hadi al-Jazairi Bin Hamlili is suspected of being behind a murderous campaign which saw Christian churches and a luxury hotel targeted.

The claim about Hamlili was made in secret reports on detainees at the US military's Guantanamo Bay prison camp which have turned up on the controversial Wikileaks website.

The latest files have provided much more detailed evidence of some of the people held in the notorious prison camp set up in Cuba by the Bush administration.

Files indicate that at least 35 terrorists incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay went to fight against the West after being radicalised by extremist preachers in the UK.

Abu Qatada and Abu Hamza are identified in the documents as key recruiters responsible for sending dozens of extremists from throughout the world to Pakistan and Afghanistan via London mosques.

But the focus was on the potential double-agent Hamlili, an Algerian citizen, captured in Pakistan in 2003, who was described by interrogators as a "facilitator, courier, kidnapper, and assassin for al-Qaida".

However, the Americans also believed he had "withheld important information from the Canadian Secret Intelligence Service and British Secret Intelligence Service … and (was] a threat to US and allied personnel in Afghanistan and Pakistan".

The secret documents about detainees at Guantanamo Bay have also revealed new information about some of the men the US believes to be terrorists, according to reports about the files.

• Reports claim UK is a hotspot for al-Qaeda recruiting

The records contain details of the more than 700 detainee interrogations and evidence the US had collected against these suspected terrorists, according to media outlets.

The files - know as detainee assessment briefs (DABs) - describe the intelligence value of the detainees and whether they would be a threat to the US if released. To date, 604 detainees have been transferred out of Guantanamo while 172 remain locked up.

The disclosures are likely to provide human rights activists with additional ammunition that some cases against inmates appear to be based on flawed evidence.

However, the DABs show certain inmates were more dangerous than previously known to the public and could complicate efforts by the US to transfer detainees out of the controversial prison that President Barack Obama has failed to close.

The dossiers provide new insight into some of the prison's most notorious detainees, such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

According to the New York Times, Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, commanded a Maryland resident to kill Pakistan's former president Pervez Musharraf.

Another high-value detainee, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, bragged that he outranked Mohammed who was then considered the terrorist group's number three.

Nashiri faces charges before a military commission for his suspected role in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole. The files claimed that Nashiri was also consumed with jihad and believed women were a distraction.

He was so "dedicated to jihad that he reportedly received injections to promote impotence and recommended the injections to others so more time could be spent on the jihad", according to Nashiri's file.

US officials said the documents "may or may not represent the current view of a given detainee" and criticised the decision by media organisations to publish the "sensitive information".

"It is unfortunate that several news organisations have made the decision to publish numerous documents obtained illegally by WikiLeaks concerning the Guantanamo detention facility," said ambassador Daniel Fried, the Obama administration's special envoy on detainee issues, and Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell.