British Counterterrorism: Implications for the US

By Michael Jacobson

A piece by my colleague Simon Henderson on recent terrorism-related developments in Britain.

British police have been praised for their speedy and effective efforts in thwarting terrorist attacks this month in London and Glasgow, as well as for the arrest and subsequent prosecution of four men who attempted to bomb the London transport network on July 21, 2005. Today, those bombers were each sentenced to a minimum of forty years in prison. (Two alleged accomplices, on whose guilt the jury could not agree, face a retrial.) But details of the cases and official comments suggest that Britain's vulnerabilities to al-Qaeda-style terrorism remain acute and could lead to tension with the United States.
Details of July 2005 Plot Revealed

With the conclusion of the trial, new and disturbing details have emerged. Although Eritrean-born Muktar Ibrahim tried to blow himself apart on an east London bus on July 21, 2005, he could just as easily have come to the United States under the visa-waiver program. He had become a British citizen months earlier despite a criminal record that included indecent assault, robberies, and a gang attack for which he spent five years in a youth prison. In addition, more than a year before the attempted bombing, covert police surveillance had observed him undergoing quasimilitary training in the British countryside, along with his three fellow plotters.

Upon acquiring his British passport, Ibrahim traveled to Pakistan; his ride to the airport was an Iraqi terrorist suspect being tailed by a ten-member surveillance squad from MI5, the British Security Service. He was then in Pakistan at the same time as two of the so-called "7/7 bombers," whose London suicide attacks (using homemade explosives similar to Ibrahim's) killed fifty-two people only two weeks before the July 21 attempts.

To read the rest of the piece, click here

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