Network believed behind bombings
LONDON – When the bomb he tried to detonate aboard a London Tube train failed to explode, police say Osman Hussain jumped out a carriage window, ran along the track, then hopped through back yards before melting into the city’s bustle.
After going underground for five days, Hussain boarded a train at Waterloo station. Then he slipped away, traveling from London through France to Rome.
His ability to escape a massive British dragnet, coupled with the arrest of another suspect in Zambia with al-Qaida ties, raised fears about the global reach of today’s terrorists.
“The way people fanned out after the bombings, it’s brought it home to people … that it is part of a kind of a network, interconnected – all the fingerprints are there,” said Michael Cox, a professor at London’s Royal Institute of International Affairs. “They’d have to have a much wider support base than just those who are active suicide bombers.”
Hussain, an Ethiopian-born Briton, was captured Friday at his brother Remzi Isaac’s house in Rome, where police traced him through his use of a relative’s cell phone. He admitted to a role in the attack but said it was only intended to be an attention-grabbing strike, not a deadly one, a legal expert familiar with the investigation told the Associated Press in Rome.
He also told investigators the bombers were motivated by anger over the U.S.-led war in Iraq, but said his cell was not linked to either al-Qaida or the cell that carried out the deadly July 7 suicide bombings, Italian media reported.
The arrest sparked more than a dozen raids in the country, as Italian authorities tried to determine if any attacks on Italy were being plotted.
In addition to Hussain, at least two of the other July 21 suspects were of East African origin, and Italian Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu said the country was watching the area closely.
Though officials have not yet said they found links between the July 7 attacks that killed 56 people, including four attackers, and the failed attacks exactly two weeks later – both of which targeted three subway trains and a bus – police chief Sir Ian Blair said there was a “resonance” between the two.
If it turns out both events had a single mastermind and a common bombmaker, experience shows they probably would have fled Britain before the attacks, said Alex Standish, editor of Jane’s Intelligence Digest.
“They’ll go to ground in areas that they will not be conspicuous,” Standish said. “Most European Union countries have a significant Muslim population where these guys can just sit there and fade into the background.”
Britain was seeking Hussain’s extradition and said it was seeking the return of one of its citizens detained in Zambia.
Though the Foreign Office has not released the person’s name, it is widely reported to be Haroon Rashid Aswat, who Zambian officials have said was being questioned about 20 phone calls he allegedly made to some of the men suspected in the July 7 attacks.
If the attacks of July 7 and July 21 are linked, they show a worrying degree of preparation by a person or people making use of homegrown radicals from two distinct ethnic groups – with three of the four July 7 bombers of Pakistani origin, and at least three of the July 21 suspects with East African roots, Standish said.
That ensured that when police focus was on the Pakistani community after the July 7 attacks, the East African group could still move freely.
“It seems a very sophisticated level of planning went into it,” Standish said. “What will the next one be – from Kashmir? From Nigeria? From Southeast Asia? From Saudi? – We just don’t know.”