MI5 targets four Met police officers
‘working as Al Qaeda spies’

Last updated at 09:04am on 10th March 2008

Warning: Terror moles reportedly work in the Met

Four police officers in Britain’s top force are reportedly under close secret service surveillance after being identified as Al Qaeda spies, it emerged today.

MI5 are said to have homed in on the “sleeper” agents passing secrets from Scotland Yard to the terror group only in recent weeks.

The suspected spies are believed to have used methods similar to those employed by the IRA in the 1970s as they infiltrated the police and the Army in Northern Ireland.

Bombed: Police began searching for spies after July 7 attacks

All four are understood to be Asians living in London and are feared to have links both with Islamic extremists in Britain and worldwide terror groups – including Al Qaeda training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

MI5 chiefs reportedly believe the suspected moles have been planted as sleepers – agents under deep cover – to keep Al Qaeda informed of anti-terror raids planned by London’s Metropolitan Police.

They are said to fear the four could have already accessed sensitive information about secret operations to root out terror cells planning further attacks in the UK.

Scotland Yard refused to discuss allegations that a sleeper cell of Al Qaeda spies is being kept under secret service surveillance after infiltrating the Metropolitan Police.

According to the News of the World, in the past few weeks MI5 agents have identified four officers suspected of passing secrets from the force.

All four are allegedly Asians living in London and are feared to have links with Islamic extremists in Britain and worldwide terrorist organisations.

MI5 bosses reportedly fear the moles may have been planted to keep Al Qaeda informed of anti-terror raids, and may have already accessed sensitive information about ongoing operations.

Secret service agents are said to be monitoring the suspects, who work at different London police stations. A Yard spokesman said: “All police officers and police staff, upon joining the Metropolitan Police Service and during their careers undergo a range of security checks.

“These are robust and vary accordingly to the type and sensitivity of the individual postings.

“We take matters of security very seriously and if any issues arise about individuals, they may be subject to further assessment.

“This could lead to restrictions being put in place relating to where an individual may work within the organisation or could lead to their dismissal.”

“If there are people within the police force feeding information to terror groups this needs to be stopped.

“Since the names came to light there has been a non-stop effort to find out everything about their backgrounds.”

The officers’ names apparently emerged during a low-profile investigation into police force infiltration which has been going on since the July 2005 London bombings.

Last year MI5 believed there were up to eight police staff—uniform and civilians with links to extremist groups.

Now agents, helped by anti-terror police, are understood to be watching the four suspects – who work at different police stations around London – around the clock while searching for the vital evidence needed to make arrests.

The officers’ every move at work is being monitored along with their phone calls, it was claimed.

Homeland security agents are reportedly sifting through their bank account transactions.

MI5 experts are also understood to be building a family tree for each one and trying to put together a picture of their links to their home countries.

Their names are being cross-referred with lists of men who have been to terror training camps in Pakistan or Afghanistan.

What is clear is that the infiltration methods used by the officers under suspicion bear hallmarks of the IRA in the past.

The police source said: “The IRA tried to infiltrate and they succeeded to a certain extent.

“By just slipping under the radar it takes suspicion away from you.

“If you are a young Pakistani of English origin and you feel you want to do something for the cause of Islam, what better way than to join the enemy and attack from within?”

MI5 believes other sleeper cells are trying to infiltrate public services across Britain in order to gain vital intelligence.

Even exiled cleric Omar Bakri has revealed how Islamic extremists were working at the heart of the NHS and other vital services.

Failed asylum seeker Omar Altimimi was jailed for nine years last July for keeping manuals on detonating car bombs.

Before his conviction he had applied to work as a cleaner for Greater Manchester police.

Numbers of officers from ethnic minorities have risen since the Met was accused of being institutionally racist in the Stephen Lawrence public inquiry report.

MP Patrick Mercer, Tory terrorism advisor, said: “This discovery by MI5 comes as no surprise to me.

“Recruiting ethnic people into key public sector organisations – in place to protect us – is a risk.

“Our vetting procedures have to be toughened before it’s too late.”

Terrible TV: The U.S. is Losing the Larger War Against Terrorist Television

by Jonathan Schanzer

National Review Online

March 4, 2008

Last month, the U.S. Treasury Department smacked the Syria-based Al-Zawraa television station with the label of Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT). Treasury leveled the charge that al-Zawraa took cash from al-Qaeda and broadcast coded messages through patriotic songs to the Islamic Army of Iraq, a Sunni terrorist group that continues to attack Iraqi citizens and American soldiers. This was a small battle won in the War on Terror. However, the U.S. is losing the larger war against terrorist television.

Analyst Avi Jorisch first brought the problem to Washington’s attention with the rise of Hezbollah’s 24-hour al-Manar satellite channel, which broadcast the message “Death to America” to an estimated 15 million viewers before Jorisch’s work eventually encouraged the Treasury Department to designate the channel as an SDGT in March 2006. While al-Manar viewership has since declined, two satellite providers, Arabsat, headquartered in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and the Egypt-owned Nilesat, continue to ensure that Hezbollah TV reaches millions of Muslims around the world.

The West’s inability to remove al-Manar from the international airwaves inspired other jihadi broadcasters. In fall 2006, Hamas launched al-Aqsa television. The channel recently made headlines for using a character similar to Disney’s Mickey Mouse to glorify suicide bombing in children’s programs. Hammered by international criticism, the show’s producers killed off their jihadi rodent, but has since replaced it with a Jew-eating bunny. As is the case with al-Manar, Arabsat and Nilesat continue to allow the Hamas channel to broadcast.

While al-Qaeda doesn’t have its own satellite channel, it has its own Pakistan-based media operation, which produces videos that Arab television stations al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya are only too happy to run. The company is called al-Sahaab (the clouds) and is reportedly run by Adam Ghadan, an American member of al-Qaeda also known as “Azzam al-Amriki.” Al-Sahaab provides its final products to a third party, a media company al-Fajr (the explosion or the dawn), which distributes videos to jihadist Internet outlets around the world. These videos continue to inspire al-Qaeda supporters and other jihadists worldwide.

More recently, Ghadan’s group has upped the ante. Video messages of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri can now be downloaded to cell phones, CNN reports. When the service was first announced earlier this year, eight videos were available, including a tribute to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq who was responsible for dozens of terrorist attacks in Iraq before U.S. forces killed him in June 2006.

Then there is YouTube and Google video, sites that host millions of video shorts, most of them silly or frivolous. But they now contain thousands of videos glorifying terrorism, some even showing actual attacks. As the Guardian newspaper in the U.K. reported, “footage once available only in Baghdad shops and on jihadi message boards has appeared on video-sharing websites such as YouTube and Google Video.”

A number of the videos show gruesome attacks against U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Others show Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters launching rockets into Israel, or recruitment videos exhorting Palestinian children to join the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the Hamas military wing.

Guardians of the Internet are growing increasingly alarmed over the surfeit of jihadi videos. They have thus created videos of their own. But, as pundit Michelle Malkin notes, anti-jihadist users of the same sites have reported having their videos yanked and accounts suspended for material deemed to be Islamophobic. Indeed, Pakistan recently ordered Internet service providers to block access to a YouTube video providing a sneak peek of a Dutch film they deemed “anti-Muslim” about the Koran.

While the designations of al-Manar or al-Zawraa clearly demonstrate that the U.S. government is aware of the threat of terrorist media, new challenges continue to surface with new media. A more strategic approach to the problem is still needed.

–Jonathan Schanzer, a former U.S. Treasury intelligence analyst, is director of policy for the Jewish Policy Center and editor of inFOCUS Quarterly. He is author of Al-Qaeda’s Armies: Middle East Affiliate Groups and the Next Generation of Terror.

The ABC News story below is a disturbing example of why concerned Americans cannot just sit back and “hope” that our government is doing or will do everything it should to protect our safety and security. It is revelations like these that remind us why ACT! for America’s vision for an informed and organized citizen action network is an essential element of the long-range safety and security of our nation. When it comes to government bureaucracy, the old adage “the squeaky wheel gets the grease” is right on target. Imagine the pressure we could put on Congress, and the pressure Congress would then put on the Transportation Safety Administration, when we have 1,000,000 members who deluge Congress with calls and emails demanding that what is described below be stopped!