MI5 spied on only one in 20 terror suspects

Published on Tuesday 19 May 2009 22:07

BRITAIN'S Security Service and counter-terrorism police did not have enough resources to identify the ringleader of the 7 July atrocities in London before the attacks took place, a long-awaited report has revealed.

Westminster's intelligence and security committee (ISC) concluded yesterday that MI5 and Special Branch officers should not be blamed for failing to link Mohammad Sidique Khan to the deadly plot – despite the fact he had crossed their radar several times in the years preceding the 2005 attacks.

But the findings of the heavily censored second report have intensified calls for a public inquiry into the events leading up to the attacks, which left 52 people dead.

The report contained unprecedented detail of what MI5 and police knew about Khan – or a suspect who would later be identified as Khan – in the preceding years.

It also revealed MI5 and MI6 had contacted the committee at the end of last year to claim another man may have been involved in the 7 July attacks. MPs said he had been linked to another terror suspect and several extremist groups and may have worked as a "facilitator" for Khan, a teaching assistant from Leeds, and Shehzad Tanweer, another of the four bombers.

The MPs' report said officers had been right not to dig further into Khan's background, despite watching him meet extremist plotters, because they had no evidence to suggest he posed a threat to national security.

At the time, over-stretched investigators had been swamped with information as they tackled a plot to detonate fertiliser bombs at shopping centres and nightclubs, the report said.

But it branded the fact MI5 could provide "reasonable" surveillance coverage of only about one in 20 terror suspects in 2004 as "astounding" and disclosed 54 "essential" targets were not being watched at all. Coverage of more than 60 per cent of targets was either "inadequate" or "none", the report said.

The report was finally published after three men were acquitted of helping the bombers prepare for the attacks.

After its publication, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the decisions that left Islamic extremist Khan free on the streets were "understandable and reasonable".

He said there was no evidence to support allegations about missed clues and that the fertiliser plot, known as Operation Crevice, had taken precedence. He said: "The review shows that there is no evidence to support various allegations about clues or ignored warnings."

But campaigners accused MI5 of "running rings" around MPs and of wanting survivors to "shut up and go away". They renewed their plea for a full independent inquiry.

Rachel North, from the 7/7 Inquiry campaign group said the report "didn't deliver" what survivors and relatives of those who died had been looking for.

"Watching the faces of some of the families this morning, watching the ISC press conference and reading the report, and finding so little had changed over such a long period of time, was indeed heartbreaking.

"It does look a lot like MI5 ran rings around the MPs," she said.

Fifty-two people died when the four suicide bombers detonated home-made explosives in rucksacks on three Tube trains and a bus on the morning of 7 July, 2005.

The committee revealed Khan had been photographed by a West Yorkshire Police surveillance team watching a suspected terrorist training camp in 2001.

He was also watched, photographed and overheard by police on several occasions in 2003 and 2004, as officers followed the fertiliser plot mastermind Omar Khyam.

But Khan was discounted as MI5 was swamped with leads relating to Khyam, including more than 4,000 telephone contacts and 1,154 links to vehicles.

The fateful decision was made after analysts overheard Khan and Tanweer discussing fraud on a bug planted at Khyam's home.

The 100-page report revealed a photograph of Khan taken in 2001 was only identified during a trawl of archived information in the weeks after the 2005 attacks. And ten clusters of secure e-mails exchanged between MI5 and West Yorkshire Police mentioning one individual were identified as referring to Khan.

Resources were so stretched agents could not even assess whether "desirable" targets should be examined more closely unless they were plotting an attack, the report found.

"They had to prioritise even within this essential group. Therefore a 'desirable' target did not even get close to attracting a share of the limited resources available," the ISC said.

Committee chairman Kim Howells said the blame for not stopping the attacks could not be laid at the door of MI5 and that following people like Khan could have diverted resources from other key inquiries.

He said the agency of 3,500 people would need hundreds of thousands of security and intelligence officers to provide comprehensive intelligence coverage. There were also, rightly, "legal constraints" on who could be investigated and for what reasons, he said.

'He kept cropping up , but not as a serious threat'

FRESH details of how Mohammad Sidique Khan crossed the police and MI5 radar have been laid bare.

Over the years, he had been watched, photographed and followed. Here are details of the information held by the authorities about him:

&#149 1993 – A man known as "Sidique Khan" is arrested and cautioned by West Yorkshire Police for assault. A police record was taken and a photograph stored. The routine criminal matter was not shared with MI5.

&#149 2001 – A group of 40 men are photographed by West Yorkshire Police surveillance officers as they attend a suspected terrorist training camp at a remote location. Khan is among them but he is not identified until several weeks after 7 July, 2005. Police admit this was a significant lead but they identified only nine of the participants.

&#149 14 April, 2003 – A West Yorkshire Police and MI5 surveillance team follow a known extremist as he is given a three-minute lift in a BMW registered to "Sidique Khan" of Gregory Street, Batley. The contact was "not considered significant".

&#149 July and August 2003 – Omar Khyam, the ringleader of the fertiliser bomb plot, makes contact with Khan by mobile phone. MI5 officers discover Khyam is calling the number for an extremist bookshop in Leeds registered to "Siddique Khan".

&#149 2 February, 2004 – Khan and conspirator Shehzad Tanweer meet Khyam and others in Crawley before driving off to the Toddington services on the M1. They are watched and photographed by surveillance officers but not identified. The two suicide bombers were also followed home to Leeds.

&#149 28 February, 2004 – Khyam is MI5's top priority after it was discovered he is planning a bomb attack. Khan and Tanweer meet him in a Crawley car park. They visit several builder's merchants, a Slough mosque and Khyam's home. They use a Honda Civic registered to "Sidique Khan".

&#149 23 March, 2004 – Surveillance officers watch Khan, whom they have yet to identify, drive Khyam from Crawley to Slough. A bug at Khyam's home captures them discussing financial fraud and travelling to Pakistan. As a result of this information, MI5 discounts Khan as a serious threat and passes information on him, including three addresses, to West Yorkshire Police.

&#149 12 August, 2004 – Terror supergrass Mohammed Babar is shown surveillance pictures of Khan. He does not identify him, despite having met him at a terrorist training camp in Pakistan the previous year.

&#149 27 January, 2005 – Police discover a hire car seen with Khyam ten months earlier was registered to "S Khan" of Thornhill Park Avenue, Dewsbury.

'Fifth-man' theory in 7/7 bombing revealed by intelligence services

THE possible existence of a fifth person involved in the 7 July attacks was revealed yesterday.

MI5 and MI6 told MPs an analysis of intelligence material showed there may have been a "facilitator" who was part of the suicide plot.

But they said the information about his existence came to light after the bombings took place.

The intelligence and security committee (ISC) report stresses there is no actual evidence that could form the basis of a prosecution.

Little detail about the individual is included in the report, and many of the passages related to the person are censored.

The intelligence suggested that he had links with both extremist groups and bombers Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shezad Tanweer.

The report said there was "no specific confirmed intelligence" that the person was either a fifth bomber or a "mastermind" behind the atrocities.

But MI5 and MI6 do think it likely that the bombings were directed by al-Qaeda groups based overseas, it states.

The report said: "In late 2008, MI5 and MI6 wrote to the committee to inform us that, in the light of recent analysis of intelligence received between the 7/7 attacks and (date redacted], they assessed that another individual may have had some involvement in the attacks of 7 July, 2005. We have previously explained in the review that such fragmentary evidence cannot provide the complete picture and cannot be completely verified. There is at this stage no evidential link.

"There is no intelligence to show that the individual was directly involved in the 7 July attacks, and uncertainty remains as to the nature and extent of the individual's role, but based on this assessment he could be considered a facilitator.

"Despite this development … there remains no specific confirmed intelligence that there was a fifth bomber or a 'mastermind' directly involved in the attacks of 7 July, 2005."

The report explicitly rejects reports that a mastermind or fifth bomber left the country shortly before the attacks.