 British authorities, NBC News reports, have new information suggesting the second set of accused London bombers may also be linked to Pakistan. According to Western counterterrorism officials quoted by the network, authorities now think the apparent leader of the July 21 bombing suspects travelled to Pakistan late last year. Muktar Said Ibrahim obtained a British passport last autumn. Officials say that in December he travelled from Britain to Saudi Arabia, then on to Pakistan. "It raises the possibility that they were involved with Pakistani jihadists and possibly even with Al Qaeda itself," Dan Benjamin, a terrorism analyst, is quoted as saying. That would put Ibrahim in Pakistan at the same time as two of the July 7 bombers, who were seen arriving in Karachi in November 2004.
| Purely coincidental, I'm sure. There's no proof, is there? The witnesses are all dead... |
Investigators who have evidence of the Pakistani links of the July 7 bombers are now trying to determine the extent of the other bombers' Pakistani connection. President Pervez Musharraf has rejected the projection of the London bombers as Pakistanis, saying that they were born and bred in Britain and were British, not Pakistani, citizens. It was the British government that had neglected the rise of intolerant and radical groups such as Hizbul Tehrir and Al Mohajiroun in Britain.
| I agree with Perv that both organizations should be banned, their members rounded up and deported to Antarctica. I don't agree with him that Pakland wasn't involved. |
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