British Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday called for a hearts and minds struggle against the "evil ideology" of al-Qaeda as the death toll from last week's London suicide bombings rose to 55.
Parents of one of bombers said he may have been brainwashed and appealed for new leads in a fast-moving investigation which has so far linked Britain, Egypt and Pakistan.
Pakistani security services detained two men overnight in the city of Lahore on suspicion of links with one of the four British Muslims who blew themselves up on July 7 on three London underground trains and a bus.
Blair called for a battle of ideas against what he called "the fanatical beliefs and perversion of religion" behind the London attacks and others around the world by the militant Islamist al-Qaeda network.
He said the opponent was an "evil ideology" and a strain within Islam that was altogether removed from the "essential decency and truth" of that religion.
"It is not a clash of civilizations -- all civilized people, Muslim or other, feel revulsion at it. But it is a global struggle. It is a battle of ideas and hearts and minds, both within Islam and outside it," Blair said.
"Why, if it is the cause of Muslims that concerns them, do they kill so many with such callous indifference?" he said.
As the death toll from Western Europe's first suicide bombings rose to 55, families of the attackers released statements expressing grief 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," the parents of Mohammad Sidique Khan said.
"We urge people with the tiniest piece of information to come forward in order to expose these terror networks which target and groom our sons to carry out such evils," they said.
Khan, a primary school teaching assistant, was a 30-year-old married man with a daughter. He had visited the British parliament last year and met a Cabinet minister during a trip with his school.
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 Lahore on suspicion of links with another of the bombers, Shehzad Tanweer, bringing the total number of arrests in Pakistan to six.
Tanweer had visited Faisalabad and Lahore during two trips to Pakistan over the last two years. Security agents yesterday questioned teachers, students and other staff of a madrassah, or Islamic school, in Lahore which Tanweer was thought to have visited, which has connections with Jaish-e-Mohammad (Army of Mohammad), a group linked to al-Qaeda.
Two others bombers visited Pakistan last year, two top security officials said yesterday. Khan and Tanweer came together last November, arriving at Karachi Airport, and returned to Britain in early February, the officials said on condition of anonymity.
Hasib Hussain, 18, came separately last year, also to Karachi, and went back to Britain shortly afterwards, the officials added.
Meanwhile, in Egypt, Interior Minister Habib el-Adli told the al-Gomhuria newspaper that a biochemist, Magdy Elnashar, was not a member of al-Qaeda, and that Western and Arab media had drawn hasty conclusions about the arrested man.
Elnashar, 33, left England for a 45-day holiday before the bombings and intended to return, an Interior Ministry source said. He had denied any knowledge of the attacks.
also see story:
New anti-terror measures proposed by UK leadership
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
‘COMING MENACINGLY’: The CDC advised wearing a mask when visiting hospitals or long-term care centers, on public transportation and in crowded indoor venues Hospital visits for COVID-19 last week increased by 113 percent to 41,402, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, as it encouraged people to wear a mask in three public settings to prevent infection. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said weekly hospital visits for COVID-19 have been increasing for seven consecutive weeks, and 102 severe COVID-19 cases and 19 deaths were confirmed last week, both the highest weekly numbers this year. CDC physician Lee Tsung-han (李宗翰) said the youngest person hospitalized due to the disease this year was reported last week, a one-month-old baby, who does not