It was a testament to al Qaeda's media savvy, as well as its
depravity, that the organization was unwilling to leave marking the
first anniversary of the 2005 London subway bombings only to the
relatives of its 52 victims.
On the eve of the anniversary, the terror group stole headlines
worldwide by releasing a video separately featuring Osama bin
Laden's deputy, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, and one of the London bombers,
Shehzad Tanweer, whose device killed seven others in a carriage en
route to Aldgate station. In the video, Tanweer offered the now
familiar al-Qaeda message of self-pitying justification for the
murders and promises of further attacks.
Of greater significance was the new evidence the video provided of
links between al Qaeda and the British Muslims who carried out the
bombings. The video followed a past al-Qaeda production released
last September featuring another of the four bombers, Mohammed
Sidique Khan. It also bore the al-Sahab logo, a signature of
al-Qaeda videos, and featured Al-Zawahiri. Even the BBC concluded
that "the evidence pointing to a major role for al Qaeda is
mounting."
But even before the new video was released, what was most
extraordinary -- and revealing -- was the keenness of some to deny
such links even in the face of masses of evidence. An early report
confessing no certainty by British security services about the
extent, if any, of al-Qaeda involvement in the London attacks was
hastily seized upon to this end. If the threat from militant Islam
could not with credibility be blamed upon British (or American or
Israeli) foreign policy, then downplaying it and minimizing the
sophistication of its organization became the priority.
In fact, the evidence of links has long been substantial,
compromised only by the thoughtless ambiguity of the bombers in not
ensuring the survival of a few al-Qaeda membership cards as they
blew to pieces themselves and dozens of innocents.
Three of the four bombers had been investigated by British security
services on suspicion -- obviously correct, in retrospect -- of
terrorist sympathies and involvement. Mohammed Sidique Khan and
Shehzad Tanweer, the apparent masterminds of the plan to murder
Londoners on July 7, 2005, have links going far beyond the al-Qaeda
videos in which they appear.
Attracting the notice of the security services multiple times, Khan
became known for his regular attendance at a fitness center in
Beeston, England so notorious as a home for Islamic extremists that
it is nicknamed the "al-Qaeda gym" (attendance he had in common
with Tanweer and Hasib Hussain, another London bomber).
Khan and Tanweer visited Pakistan numerous times after Sept. 11,
2001 -- including Karachi, a new Mecca for Muslim fanatics -- and
began planning for the London bombings on the last of those trips.
Britain's Intelligence and Security Committee concluded that the
two had likely been in contact with al Qaeda on these trips and
received terrorist training. One al-Qaeda aide recognized Khan from
a "terror summit" held in tribal areas of the country in 2004.
Other trips included a visit to Israel shortly before two
British-born Pakistanis committed a suicide bombing, the planning
for which Khan may have aided.
According to Pakistani intelligence officials, Shehzad Tanweer met
in 2003 with Osama Nazir, a member of the al-Qaeda-linked Army of
Mohammed group known best for bombing an Islamabad church in 2002.
Another meeting reportedly took place in early 2005 between Tanweer
and Zeeshan Sidiqui. Sidiqui left his London home in 1999 to
become, as a note to his parents explained, a "holy warrior." He
currently resides in a prison in Pakistan's capital for links to
many of al Qaeda's most notorious figures. Tanweer may also in 2005
have met with the leader of the outlawed group Jaish-e-Muhammed,
another organization with probable links to al Qaeda.
The sophistication of the London operation implies that the purpose
of all these visits was more than a meet-and-greet. The complexity
of the bomb suggested to experts that a practiced bomb maker had
been involved. The bombers also knew to buy expensive fridges for
the run-down apartment in which the bombs were assembled, to keep
the materials cool. The apartment received multiple calls from
public phone boxes in Pakistan, suggesting probable support from al
Qaeda in Pakistan. The British government noted the awesome
effectiveness of the devices used as important in distinguishing
between amateur and more professional efforts. Even al Qaeda itself
seems willing to remove reasonable doubt from the equation,
repeatedly claiming responsibility for the London bombings.
Refusal to draw the appropriate conclusions about al Qaeda's
involvement in these attacks, whatever form it ultimately took,
reveals as much about the mindsets of those who issue such denials
as it does about the evidence to the contrary. For those determined
to see the war on terror scaled back, it is simply politically
easier, whatever the balance of evidence, to minimize al Qaeda's
global reach than to recognize that it is a worldwide phenomenon
requiring a foreign policy and military response.
If instead the bombers were acting alone, aided only by the
profundity of their objections to perceived injustices committed by
the British state, then the attacks can be called upon more easily
as proof not of the need for robustness of foreign policy, but of
the need for appeasement of boisterous Islamic groups within
Britain.
To these opponents of the war on terror, who would rather see
individual appeasements of domestic Muslim extremists the world
over than a united effort to annihilate this extremism whenever it
takes on a violent form, admitting the evidence that Islamic
terrorism is a genuinely global problem is utterly
detrimental.
At some point the question must be asked: How many more of these
videos must be released before Western liberals can acknowledge al
Qaeda to be posing the threat that screams from its every statement
and attack?
Peter Cuthbertson, who recently graduated from the University of Essex, is an intern in the Thatcher Center for Freedom at The Heritage Foundation (heritage.org).