Story of find in Afghan cave 'was made up' to justify sending marines
Peter Beaumont and Ed Vulliamy in New York Sunday March 24, 2002 The Observer
Britain was accused last night of falsely claiming that al-Qaeda terrorists had built a 'biological and chemical weapons' laboratory in Afghanistan to justify the deployment of 1,700 Royal Marines to fight there. (...) ---------------------------------------------- The US-UK "see no evil" policy for Islamic terrorists endures: ---------------------------------------------- http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia_china/story.jsp?dir=71&story=277891 &host=3&printable=1
UK 'ignores' al-Qa'ida suicide plane plot
Indian police say a pilot has confessed to planning attack on Parliament but Scotland Yard doesn't want to know
By Nick Meo in Delhi and Andrew Johnson
24 March 2002
An al-Qa'ida plot to crash an airliner into Parliament is being "swept under the carpet" by Scotland Yard, one of India's most senior policemen has claimed.
On Tuesday, Mohammed Afroz, 24, a trainee pilot, will be taken from a top-security Bombay prison to be charged in court with masterminding a plan to hijack a Manchester-bound aircraft and fly it into the House of Commons on 11 September.
According to the Indian authorities, the plot was abandoned when security was stepped up in the hours after the terror attacks on America. Six days later Mr Afroz, who was studying at the Cabair flight school in Bedfordshire, returned to India and was arrested at a Bombay hotel.
Indian police, who travelled to Britain to investigate the alleged suicide plot, have now criticised their British counterparts for not doing more to investigate Mr Afroz. They insist he was part of an underground Islamic terror ring in the UK. They also accuse Scotland Yard of refusing to arrest two British Asians claimed to be al-Qa'ida operatives.
"I feel this matter needs to be taken more seriously by the British police," said Bombay's most senior policeman, Commissioner M N Singh, who led a team to Britain last month. "I believe what Afroz says, based on the evidence from his passport of frequent travels and training in flight schools in Britain, America and Australia. If somebody wants to put it under the carpet, that's their choice. I don't want to. He has made a full confession in court and he is clearly not insane " (...) ---------------------------------------------- And now that the US biowar scientist who sent the Anthrax letters has been found but can't be touched, we get yet another spin story. So convenient that there's no body for a postmortem, isn't it? ---------------------------------------------- http://www.observer.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4380597,00.html New evidence hints at hijack link to anthrax attacks
{ Terrorism crisis - Observer special}
Ed Vulliamy in New York Sunday March 24, 2002 The Observer
The stongest evidence connecting the 11 September hijackers to last year's wave of anthrax attacks emerged yesterday, with the revelation that one of them suffered from an apparent anthrax-induced wound months before the attacks. (...)