July 16th, 2005 
Brianwashed or not
With the confirmed death toll from the July 7 attacks now standing at 55, with some 700 others injured, the grief-stricken family of one of the apparent suicide bombers alleged that he had been "brainwashed" into terrorism.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20050716/wl_uk_afp/britaina ... NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl
By Mark Trevelyan
LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Saturday the "evil ideology" of al Qaeda must be pulled up by the roots as the death toll from last week's London subway and bus bombings rose to 55.
"Within Britain, we must join up with our Muslim community to take on the extremists," Blair said in a speech in London. "Worldwide, we should confront it everywhere it exists."
Speaking nine days after four British Muslims carried bombs onto underground trains and a bus and blew themselves up along with 51 rush-hour commuters, he said: "We must pull this up by the roots."
Police on Saturday released chilling CCTV pictures of the four men walking into a railway station on the morning of the bombings to take a train to London. Dressed in casual clothes and carrying backpacks, they look like young holidaymakers.
Scotland Yard police said they had yet to establish beyond doubt the bombers had intended to die in western Europe's first suicide bombing, even if alternative theories seemed unlikely.
"We've never used the phrase 'suicide bombers'. We've always been aware that among the things we need to clarify is the notion these people intended to die as well as letting off a bomb," the spokesman said.
He was responding to a report in the Daily Mirror newspaper suggesting the bombers might have been duped into believing they had time to escape after planting the devices.
Police are looking for a support network of planners, bomb-makers and financiers behind the men. They expect to find clear links to al Qaeda, the militant Islamist network behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and other bombings from Indonesia to Iraq and from Africa to Spain.
PAKISTAN, EGYPTIAN LINKS Three of the bombers were young British Muslims of Pakistani origin, while the fourth was a Jamaican-born Briton.
Pakistani security forces detained two men overnight in the eastern city of Lahore on suspicion of links with one of the men, Shehzad Tanweer, bringing the total number of arrests in Pakistan to six.
"We are interrogating whether these two people had any links with Tanweer," an intelligence official told Reuters.
Tanweer had visited Faisalabad and Lahore during two trips to Pakistan over the last two years. Pakistani intelligence sources say that in 2003 he met a man later arrested for bombing a church in the capital, Islamabad.
Officials of two security agencies on Saturday questioned teachers, students and other staff of a madrassah or Islamic school in Lahore which Tanweer was thought to have visited in 2004, though its administrator denied he had done so.
In Egypt, police have arrested a British-trained biochemist, Magdy Elnashar, and are questioning him about the attacks.
But Egyptian Interior Minister Habib el-Adli told the al-Gomhuria newspaper Elnashar was not a member of al Qaeda and that Western and Arab media had drawn hasty conclusions about the arrested man.
The 33-year-old Egyptian was a researcher at Leeds University in England, and police are carrying out extensive searches at his rented house in the city, which was home to three of the bombers.
BRAINWASHING
Families of the bombers released statements expressing sorrow and disbelief.
"We are devastated that our son may have been brainwashed into carrying out such an atrocity, since we know him as a kind and caring member of our family," said the parents of Mohammad Sidique Khan who, at 30, was the oldest of the bombers.
Two of the others were teenagers and the other was just 22.
Police searched further homes in and near Leeds, where they have now raided 10 houses.
Officers in London were given more time to question a 29-year-old man arrested in the raids on suspicion of "the commission, instigation or preparation of acts of terrorism."
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If it can't be repeated, don't say it.
Last edited by onelife, July 16th, 2005 09:03 PM (Edited 1 times)
