Britain said it would introduce new laws to prevent Islamic radicals who glorify terrorism from entering the country, while officials said they had identified all the 56 people known to have died in the London transit bombings.
Britain's Muslim leaders demanded a judicial inquiry into what motivated the four ``homegrown'' suicide bombers who targeted three subway trains and a double-decker bus in London on July 7. In Pakistan, police said they made an ``important'' arrest in the hunt for the mastermind behind the attacks as investigators used a list of telephone numbers provided by Britain to determine who may have had contact with the suspected suicide bombers.
Three of the bombers, all Britons of Pakistani descent, traveled to Karachi, Pakistan last year and officials are trying to determine whether they received training from extremists there. British and Pakistani security officials are cooperating closely on the investigation. A point of focus in the investigation has been a religious school linked with militant groups in Lahore, Pakistan, which security officials believe was visited by suspected bomber Shahzad Tanweer, 22.
Terrorism experts have said since the bombings that examining the suspects' mobile phone records from the months before the attacks would be a crucial line of inquiry.
``In the past such inquiries have proved very fruitful in terrorist'' investigations, said Charles Shoebridge, a former counterterrorism intelligence officer.
A Pakistani intelligence official involved in the investigation said on Sunday that authorities had questioned a businessman whose mobile-telephone number was listed on the phone records of one of the alleged bombers.
Also, a mobile-phone number reportedly linked one of the suspects to an earlier, foiled terror plot. The Guardian newspaper reported the phone number of one of the men had been found by detectives investigating an alleged conspiracy last year to detonate a fertilizer bomb in London.
A senior official, who did not want to be named, said Britain also provided names of several people in Pakistan who allegedly received calls from the suicide bombers over the past year. British detectives believe the four men received help to carry out the attacks and are investigating who provided resources.
The Times and the Guardian newspapers yesterday identified a suspect arrested in Pakistan as Haroon Rashid Aswat, 30. The Times quoted unidentified intelligence sources as saying Aswat visited the home towns of all four bombers and selected targets in London.
The paper also reported that intelligence sources said there had been up to 20 calls between Aswat and two of the bombers in the days before the attacks. Aswat reportedly was once an associate of Abu Hamza al-Masri, the radical imam who is awaiting trial in Britain on charges of incitement to murder.
A ship that appears to be taking on the identity of a scrapped gas carrier exited the Strait of Hormuz on Friday, showing how strategies to get through the waterway are evolving as the Middle East war progresses. The vessel identifying as liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier Jamal left the Strait on Friday morning, ship-tracking data show. However, the same tanker was also recorded as having beached at an Indian demolition yard in October last year, where it is being broken up, according to market participants and port agent’s reports. The ship claiming to be Jamal is likely a zombie vessel that
Japan is to downgrade its description of ties with China from “one of its most important” in an annual diplomatic report, according to a draft reviewed by Reuters, as relations with Beijing worsen. This year’s Diplomatic Bluebook, which Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government is expected to approve next month, would instead describe China as an important neighbor and the relationship as “strategic” and “mutually beneficial.” The draft cites a series of confrontations with Beijing over the past year, including export controls on rare earths, radar lock-ons targeting Japanese military aircraft and increased pressure around Taiwan. The shift in tone underscores a deterioration
LAW CONSTRAINTS: The US has been pressing allies to send warships to open the Strait, but Tokyo’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution Japan could consider deploying its military for minesweeping in the Strait of Hormuz if a ceasefire is reached in the war on Iran, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Toshimitsu Motegi said yesterday. “If there were to be a complete ceasefire, hypothetically speaking, then things like minesweeping could come up,” Motegi said. “This is purely hypothetical, but if a ceasefire were established and naval mines were creating an obstacle, then I think that would be something to consider.” Japan’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution, but 2015 security legislation allows Tokyo to use its Self-Defense Forces overseas if an attack,
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) yesterday faced a regional election battle in Rhineland-Palatinate, now held by the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). Merz’s CDU has enjoyed a narrow poll lead over the SPD — their coalition partners at the national level — who have ruled the mid-sized state for 35 years. Polling third is the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which spells a greater threat to the two centrist parties in several state elections in September in the country’s ex-communist east. The picturesque state of Rhineland-Palatinate, bordering France, Belgium and Luxembourg and with a population of about 4 million,
RSS