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| Terror Networks & Islam |
| Bombings, Intelligence, and Speculation |
| 2005-07-26 |
| Speculating about issues that have to do with Intelligence can be a slippery slope. Nevertheless there are a few points relating to both the Sharm sl-Sheikh and London bombings which deserve some degree of contemplation. Ihab al-Sherif, Egypt's envoy to Iraq arrived in Baghdad in the beginning of June. On june 12th security officials in Israel were warning that "terror cells, which apparently are linked to al-Qaeda, will attempt to attack tourist hubs along Sinai's beaches via truck or car bombs and suicide bombers" (www.ynetnews.com). The intelligence was so solid that Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said Israelis who enter Sinai 'would be making a big mistake,' and Almagor Terror Victims Association an Israeli advocacy group was requesting the government to close the border and prohibit Israelis from going to Sinai. Ihab al-Sherif, as we know, was kidnapped by a purported al-Qaida-linked group in Iraq. Before he was executed he was videotaped explaining the divisions of Sinai 'under the Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement', pointing out an area that "stretches from Taba to Sharm el-Sheikh" in which Israelis and other foreigners may travel without a visa, adding "You can say it represents about 20 percent of Sinai. " While, sure, one need not necessarily kidnap an ambassador to find this out, it is not actually in the Camp David Accords (which affirm Egyptian sovereignty over the peninsula), and the group has released the videotape for broadcast as apparently a justification for both their killing of al-Sherif and for the bombings in Sharm el-Sheikh. While the kidnapping of Ihab el-Sherif is not obviously related to the bombings, nor is it necessarily obvious that his assignment to Iraq intensified the Israeli Intelligence community's expectation of attacks in Sinai, it is by no means illogical. One thing that is not speculation at all is that, in this instance, Israeli Intelligence was uncannily accurate, and this seems often to be the case. The exactness about both the type and timeframe of the attacks cause the earlier reports (Associated Press, Stratfor.com) that Israeli Intelligence also anticipated the July 7th London bombings to deserve slightly more scrutiny. There is further reason to suppose that the Israelis may have had information about the planned London bombings, given that the man believed to have blown himself up on the Underground train at Edgeware Road visited Israel two years ago, staying only one day. A one-time, one-day visit, in and of itself, would attract the attention of Israeli Intelligence. Two months after his brief visit, two other Britons attempted to carry out suicide bombings inside Israel, one of them successfully, while the other failed to detonate his explosives, ran away, and was found dead in the sea a week later. On the same day of the attack and attempted attack, Israel released to the press the passport photos of Asif Hanif and Omar Sharif. Hanif was identified as the one who blew himself into a milion pieces, Sharif was the one who fled. How these identifications were made so immediately, and why the Israelis had copies of their passports on hand, literally within an hour of the incidents, must have to do with aspects of forensics well beyond my grasp. Also eluding my comprehension is what Omar Sharif could possibly have been doing for a week in Israel before deciding to drown himself. The well-known Israeli interrogation tactic of âwaterboardingâ (whereby the suspect is held underwater to the point of near-drowning), however leaves the door open to speculate that Sharif was neither successful in his attack, nor in his escape. He was quite possibly apprehended, questioned, and, as regularly happens in waterboarding, did not survive his iterrogation. While the above scenario is certainly questionable, to suppose that Israel would have intensely investigated the lives and connections of Asif Hanif and Omar Sharif, in London and elsewhere, is not open to question. Just as with their information about the Sharm el-Sheikh bombings, Israel gathers Intelligence based both on leads and likelihoods; the leads and likelihoods appear to exist for Israel in relation to the London attacks, there is no reason to suppose then, that the intelligence did not also exist. |
| Posted by:Cleremble Elmearong3190 |
| #2 Poorly written opinion.... I didn't consider moving it Debka et.al. Dept. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-07-26 10:10 |
| #1 Yep! It was BS! |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-07-26 10:09 |