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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Brits’ intelligence service coming under criticism

Beth Gardiner Associated Press

LONDON – Criticism of the British government grew Monday over the revelation that the vaunted domestic intelligence service did not detain one of the London attackers last year after linking him to a suspect in an alleged plot by other Britons of Pakistani descent to explode a truck bomb in the capital.

The MI5 intelligence agency found itself under fire as new information emerged Monday about the bombers’ connection with Pakistan: Two of the suspects traveled together to Karachi last November and returned to London in February. A third suspect went to the same city last July.

The British intelligence service reportedly did not find Mohammad Sidique Khan – who was checked out in connection with the alleged bomb plot last year – to be a threat to national security and failed to put him under surveillance.

The Home Office declined to comment on the suggestion that agents had dropped a crucial lead or on reports that a Briton of Pakistani origin suspected of links to al Qaeda had entered Britain two to three weeks before the London attack and had flown out the day before.

Meanwhile, the government reacted sharply to a report by two leading think tanks that said Britain’s alliance with the United States in the Iraq war has put it at risk of terrorist attack.

The Royal Institute of International Affairs and the Economic and Social Research Council said the situation in Iraq has given “a boost to the al Qaeda network’s propaganda, recruitment and fund raising” and provided an ideal training ground for terrorists.

“The terrorists have struck across the world – in countries allied with the United States, backing the war in Iraq and in countries which had nothing whatever to do with the war in Iraq,” Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said.

Despite criticism of British intelligence, the government has not launched any investigations into why the security services did not pick up the London bombers before July 7, when the attackers blew up three London subway trains and a double-decker bus, killing 56 people.

Charles Falconer, the lord chancellor, said a primary focus should first be “getting to the root of that evil ideology that is driving this terrorism.

“Now is not the time for any form of inquiry,” he told the BBC.