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London School of Economics: Hotbed of Terrorism?
The London School of Economics has nurtured at least three men linked to al-Qaeda, according to intelligence information reportedly being studied by the British police. Two of the men are linked to Kashmiri militancy and are at large, while the third was arrested in Delhi last month for alleged involvement in the December 13 attack on the Indian Parliament. The LSE connection, which has been dubbed the London School of Extremists link, was forged in the early â90s. The most prominent of the so-called LSE three is the middle-class, intellectual militant from London, Ahmed Omar Sheikh, who was released by the Indian government in the Indian Airlines Kandahar hostage swap in 1999. He is now said to be linked to last weekâs shooting outside Kolkataâs United States Information Service centre and is alleged to have been part of the financial trail leading to the chief World Trade Centre hijacker Mohammed Atta. According to The Sunday Telegraph newspaper, Sheikhâs unnamed Kashmir-sympathizing fellow LSE student played an equally important role in fuelling militancy in Kashmir by functioning as a key recruiting agent for the militant groups in 1992. The paper inaccurately names Jaish-e Mohammed as the main grouping supported by the LSEâs radical Islamists, but Jaish was not in existence at the time. The LSE campus is more likely to have supplied Harkat-ul Ansar or Al Faran, the decapitators of some foreign tourists in the mid-90s.
Wonder how much of the "link" is a coincidence of attendance, and how much has to do with what is actually taught?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2002-01-27 |
