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Technorati Tags: ziauddin sardar, forest gate, terrorism, new statesman

Zia Sardar in the current edition of the New Statesman on the folly of "intelligence-led" police operations:

Don't be fooled by the mantra that intelligence is an extremely difficult business, prone to absurdly wide margins of error. If that were so, Britain would have lost the Second World War. The remarkable success of British intelligence, including counter-intelligence, during that war proves that we can produce reasonable - say, 25 or even 50 per cent - rates of success.

Intelligence may be difficult to gather but it is not impossible to get right. It must follow certain simple rules and principles. One has to ask some fundamental questions. Is the source reliable? Clearly a source that has been tortured is going to tell you whatever you want to hear. If you are going to recruit your source from a mosque, you have to make sure he doesn't harbour grudges against certain members of the group that you are targeting - which is probably what happened in the Forest Gate case. Can the source's evidence be corroborated? The official excuse that the police have to act on every single tip-off, however dodgy the source, without bothering to corroborate it, is not only ridiculous, but dangerously so. Intelligence, to be intelligence, has to be based on more than one source. And then, to increase the margin of success, one has to check out the intelligence, using proper surveillance.

His conclusions are that these "intelligence-led" jobs are often the fruit of political expediency, often involving people who entered into conspiracies at the instigation of the informers themselves. The whole article can be read once per day only, other than by subscribers.

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According to this report in today's Independent, the source of the "intelligence" for the Forest Gate raid was a prisoner in Belmarsh with an IQ of 69:

In what could prove to be highly embarrassing for the police and security services, the 22-year-old man, who has an IQ of just 69, was the trigger behind the dawn raid this month, according to the Sunday Mirror.

The former waiter, a childhood friend of the two brothers who were arrested during the raid two weeks ago, was jailed for six years in January for terror offences.

The paper has been told that it was after friends of Mohammed Abdul Kahar, 23, and Abul Koyair, 20, visited the man in top-security Belmarsh prison that the brothers were put under surveillance.

The brothers reportedly laughed off the fact that they were being followed by the security services. New information passed to the services, said to include detailed drawings of a suicide vest, led to Operation Volga and the early morning moves to arrest the pair, the paper claims.

Friends of the brothers told the paper they believe the man was the trigger for the operation that culminated in 250 police officers descending on their home.

So, perhaps the gullibility which commonly affects people with very low intelligence might have been a factor in his being persuaded to tell whatever he told about the brothers that led to the raid? I mean, how can anyone take something such a person says seriously anyway? (More: Osama, Bradford Muslim, Londonist.)

Posted by Indigo Jo at 10:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

Here is what Nick Cohen has to say about a demonstration I attended outside Scotland Yard (London police HQ) last Sunday in response to the bungled Forest Gate raid. He is suggesting that everyone wants Muslims to be up in arms about the incident:

An anti-police demonstration was given huge advance publicity in the media, but in the event, only a hundred or so people turned up, many of whom were white Islamists from the Socialist Workers party. Since then, nothing.

I really feel the British Muslim community is letting everyone down. The papers, the broadcasters, the Liberal Democrats and the Trots are all desperate for a display of fury, but the stubborn Muslims refuse to oblige.

Sorry Nick, but as one who was there I can say that the majority of attendees by far were Muslims. Yes, the usual contingent of Marxists of various hues, or perhaps I should say tones, was in attendance, some of them trying to push bits of paper under our noses (though interestingly, I didn't see any copies of Socialist Worker), but most of the demonstrators were Muslims who were demonstrating against attacks on Muslims.

As for the "since then, nothing" bit, there is another demo planned for today in Plashet Park, which is as it happens very near to Forest Gate. The likely reason why last Sunday's event was not as well-attended as some might have hoped (though it was a couple of hundred at least, not just 100) was that the local community had decided to make their views known at Plashet Park. (More: Kitty Killer.)

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BBC NEWS | UK | In quotes: Terror raid brothers

Abdul Kahar: As soon as I turn around I just see an orange spark and a big bang.

At that time I flew into the wall. As I flew into the wall, I slipped down. As I slipped down, I was on the floor. I look to my right, on my chest I see blood coming down my chest and I see a hole in my chest.

At that moment, I knew I was shot, but the first thing I was thinking is that there's an armed robbery taking place.

... I was begging: 'Please, please, I cannot move.'

He just kicked me in my face, and he kept on saying: 'Shut the fuck up. Stay here.'

I thought they were going to shoot me again or shoot my brother.

Abul Koyair: Actually me myself, I applied to be a police officer, a community police officer, recently.

They gave me a confirmation letter, which I received from them.

My family was behind me in what I wanted to do, and now I think all their views has changed.

They don't want me to be associated anywhere near police. I feel that my mum, my dad they don't trust polices anymore.

Note: one of the Guildford Four, Carole Richardson, actually rode round the streets of the London suburb she was living in with police who were investigating a crime in which she was the victim just weeks before her arrest on trumped-up terrorism charges. Seems like they still can't judge the behaviour of someone who should be on the run from the police ...

Abdul Kahar: At the beginning, I was more curious. I wanted to know the reason why I got arrested.

I knew it was something to do with terrorism. I asked the officer in charge of the police: 'Can you tell me, what have I done?'

They mentioned a few names of terrorist organisations. I didn't recognise any of them until they mentioned al-Qaeda.

Then they said: 'Are you a member of Jemaah Islamiah?' They kept on telling me I'm a member of a few things.

Then at the end they go: 'I know it's going to be a daft question, but are you a member of a white organisation, the Ku Klux Klan?'

I didn't even have time to laugh. I thought: 'These people are thinking I'm a white terrorist now', and they wasn't even joking.

(More: Osama Saeed, Pickled Politics.)

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STOP PRESS: the Forest Gate brothers have been released

Plus: in this week's New Statesman, former editor Peter Wilby on the contradictory stories of the events last Friday:

The brothers who lived there were planning a terrorist attack using cyanide, sarin, anthrax, or bubonic plague germs. The noxious substance would be released from a vest or a canister. It would be a suicide attack or a remote-controlled explosion. The "bomb" was inside the house or "out there". Its use was imminent or it was nowhere near completion. The information came from an MI5 informant or a police informant. The police operation was code-named Volga or Volgo.

Officers entered the house by smashing a window or battering down the front door. One brother was shot by the police (either after a warning or not after a warning, and either after a scuffle or not after a scuffle), or he was shot by the other brother. The shot came from a Glock pistol or a Heckler & Koch sub-machine gun. Both brothers had criminal records or they didn't.

Posted by Indigo Jo at 9:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The family of the two men arrested in the raid a week ago are urging Muslims not to take part in a march organised by "al-Ghurabaa", an off-shoot of al-Muhajiroun, according to this report in today's Guardian. Ghurabaa spokesman Abu Musa believes about 100 people will turn up to "voice the anger and concern at the targeting of Muslims"; the family have issued a statement, to be read out in mosques after today's jumu'ah prayers, urging Muslims to boycott the march, and attend a demonstration outside Scotland Yard this Sunday, which is organised by the Muslim Association of Britain, the 1990 Trust, Respect, who have distanced themselves from Yvonne Ridley's "don't co-operate" rhetoric, and other well-known Muslim organisations.

Posted by Indigo Jo at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It now appears that the raid on a house in Forest Gate, east London, last Friday resulted in nothing suspicious being found and was based on false intelligence, as today's papers are reporting. To quote from this morning's Guardian:

One official, with knowledge why police acted and what had been found from days of searching, said the intelligence had been acted on correctly, but added last night: "There is no viable device at that house. There is no device being constructed, or chemicals. There does not appear to be anything there or anywhere else."

As lawyers for the two arrested men continued to protest their innocence, it emerged that the man who had passed the specific information that led to the raid in which a man was shot last Friday was a police informant who had been providing intelligence about the activities of alleged Islamist militants for several weeks.

Continue reading "Forest Gate raid: another disaster" »

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