Scotland Yard 'Adviser' on Terrorism Wanted on Terror Charges

Glad to see they're properly vetting their advisers.

A man wanted by Interpol for his links to an alleged terrorist organisation has been advising Scotland Yard on countering Muslim extremism, a Times investigation has discovered.

Mohamed Ali Harrath has been the subject of the Interpol red notice since 1992 because of his alleged activities in Tunisia, where he co-founded the Tunisian Islamic Front (FIT).

Tunisia has accused Mr Harrath, the chief executive officer of the Islam Channel in Britain and an adviser to the Scotland Yard Muslim Contact Unit, of seeking help from Osama bin Laden. It says that the FIT wants to establish “an Islamic state by means of armed revolutionary violence”.

Mr Harrath has been convicted in absentia of numerous criminal and terrorism-related offences by Tunisian courts and sentenced to 56 years in prison. Tunisia is an ally of the West in the fight against terrorism but is regarded by critics as a police or one-party state. Its secular Government regards those who advocate an Islamic state as a threat to its stability.

The Times has also learnt that, in evidence before Britain’s Special Immigration Appeals Commission in 2003, an MI5 witness accused the FIT of terrorism activities in France. Mr Harrath denies this, saying his movement was wrongly blamed by the French courts for founding a guerrilla network that held banned military weapons.

No one has ever produced evidence linking Mr Harrath to any terrorist activity. Despite this, he is still the subject of an Interpol red notice — its highest level of alert – as a terrorist suspect and countries are urged to arrest and extradite him. His lawyers have sought to remove the notice but in the meantime this extraordinary state of affairs remains unresolved.

Mr Harrath admitted setting up the FIT but said that it was a “nonviolent political party founded in 1986 to oppose the one-party state in Tunisia”. He stated unequivocally: “We are not extremists and we are not terrorists and we [sic] never been involved in any such activities”. However, he added that “revolution is not [necessarily] a dirty word” and “there is nothing wrong or criminal in trying to establish an Islamic state”.

Despite Mr Harrath being wanted by Interpol, Scotland Yard has appointed him as adviser to its Muslim Contact Unit on preventing extremism and terrorism. Mr Harrath told The Times that he was “regularly consulted in an advisory capacity by the Muslim Contact Unit of the British police for guidance on best practice in relation to counter-terrorism issues and combating extremism”.

Unreal. I wonder how many more of these special "advisers" they have on the payroll?

More Arrests in Scotland

We'll assume there's a reason the perps have yet to be identified. Probably don't want to offend the Muslims, as we know how delicate their feelings are. Yes, that must be it.

U.K. police make 5th terror arrest

Police searched several houses near Glasgow International Airport on Sunday in connection with a fiery attack on its main terminal and a foiled car bomb plot in London, and police arrested a fifth suspect in the case.

Britain's new prime minister, Gordon Brown, said the country was dealing with terrorists associated with al-Qaida. And Lord Stevens, Brown's new terrorism adviser, said the two attacks in Britain indicate that "al-Qaida has imported the tactics of Baghdad and Bali to the streets of the UK."

Four suspects were in police custody Sunday — and a fifth man was under guard in hospital — after a flaming Jeep crashed into a Scottish airport on Saturday and two car bomb plots were foiled in central London on Friday.

On the upside, it appears some folks in the UK are beginning to get it.

n a column in Sunday's News of the World newspaper, Lord Stevens, London's former police chief and Brown's new terrorism adviser, said: "This weekend's bomb attacks signal a major escalation in the war being waged on us by Islamic terrorists."

He said, "This week's terrorists used the same technology, the same bomb-making techniques, the same operating methods as their brothers-in-arms in both Baghdad and Bali," Indonesia.

In central London, police foiled a car bomb plot early Friday, discovering explosives packed into a Mercedes outside a nightclub near Picadilly Circus and in another car parked nearby.

Glasgow police chief Willie Rae announced the attempted attacks were connected and said a suspect device had been found on a man wrestled to the ground by officers at Glasgow airport and hospitalized in critical condition with severe burns. John Smeaton, who saw the airport attack, said the man shouted "Allah, Allah" as he was detained.

Still, the idiot "Red Ken" Livingstone apparently has a death wish. Such breathtaking stupidity.

Michelle Malkin has a further roundup.

Two Arrested in UK Terror Plots

We figure many more will be rolled up in the next couple of days, but at least it's a start. Still no identification, but two suspects have been bagged. My suspicions are they may have originated somewhere in the map above. Hint: Look toward the upper left.

UK police arrest 2 after London, Glasgow incidents

British police said on Sunday they had arrested two people in northern England in connection with an attempted car bombing in London and an incident at Glasgow airport in which a car was rammed into the building.

"Police have this evening arrested two people in connection with events in London and Scotland on the 29th and 30th of June," London's Metropolitan Police said in a statement.

The arrests were made in the county of Cheshire by counter-terrorism officers, the statement said.

Two men rammed a petrol-filled, four-wheel-drive vehicle into Glasgow airport on Saturday in what police called a terrorist attack. The men were arrested and one was taken to a hospital in critical condition with burns.

The attack came barely 36 hours after police thwarted a possible al Qaeda plot in London in which two cars loaded with fuel, gas canisters and nails were left in the centre of the capital poised to detonate.

A caller to BBC television said he had been in a car on a motorway in Cheshire when traffic had been brought to a halt by unmarked police cars in all three lanes.

The man, named as Peter Whitehead, said he saw a woman in what he called Muslim dress and two men in suits step out of a car which had pulled to the side of the motorway.

The Kiss Of Death

The Koslings and others of the Progressive stripe ignore the fact of honor killings. Therefore, as any good apparatchik knows, they don't exist. Then, lo and behold, this eeevil little thing called reality rears its ugly head (again): Victim Reported Fears To Police.

It began with a kiss on a south London street. For Banaz Mahmod, 20, and the secret lover she called "my prince, my shining one", it was a symbol of their love and the freedom they longed for.

Police are failing to protect young women at risk of being murdered by their families in so-called "honour" killings, despite a high-profile prevention scheme set up four years ago, senior officers have told the Guardian. They say a raft of measures aimed at saving lives have been shelved, delayed or ignored by Scotland Yard. Among them were plans to train frontline staff in how to spot vulnerable women and a system to ensure potential victims of "honour"-based violence were risk-assessed and properly dealt with.

The admissions came as the Metropolitan police were criticised for their handling of the case of Banaz Mahmod, a young Kurdish woman whose father and uncle were yesterday convicted of her murder. One detective, who asked not to be named, said that if the Met prevention scheme had been in place Ms Mahmod might be alive today.

He said: "We started to learn lessons and then stopped learning them as a result of political correctness.

Instead of being considerate and understanding of other cultures, the coppers were profiling, you see.

And then Banaz died and that should never have happened."

A lack of formal training for officers had also resulted in a "police station lottery", where women like Ms Mahmod were in danger of being ignored or not given adequate protection.

Another officer said: "If it were young white girls complaining that their lives were at risk, there would be an outcry."

In the Mahmod case, the Old Bailey heard that she had repeatedly told police her family was trying to kill her.

Banaz Mahmod, 20, told officers on at least four occasions between December 4 2005 and January 23 2006, about threats made. She wrote a letter, naming those she thought were plotting against her.

On New Year's Eve that year, she told them her father had tried to kill her but the officer did not take her claims seriously.

Her body was found months later on April 28 2006, crammed into a suitcase and buried in a pit, the bootlace used to strangle her still around her neck.

Although her father, uncle and two others have been convicted of her murder, it's a safe bet that the reality-based community will blame exclusively . . . .

Read it all.