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Saudis "warned" London about 7/7 attacks

Antony Barnett, Martin Bright and Jason Burke

Focus of investigation shifts back to Pakistan

LONDON/PARIS: Specific details of a plot to bomb the London Underground train network (the Tube) involving a terror cell of four persons were passed to British intelligence (MI6) last December, raising fresh questions about whether the 7 July atrocity could have been averted.

The plot involved a Saudi Islamist militant who fought with militants in Iraq and was financed by a Libyan businessman with links to Islamist extremists in the U.K.

Highly-placed Saudi security sources have passed to the London-based Observer newspaper details of the plot to bomb the Tube in the first six months of 2005.

The news coincides with the release of a video of Mohammad Sidique Khan, the suspected ringleader of the 7 July cell, giving the first indication of a direct link to Al-Qaeda, which originated in Saudi Arabia. In the video, Khan praises Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Saudi intelligence claim they passed the information to the British authorities in Riyadh, the Saudi capital.

Details were also given to the CIA and FBI. British and U.S. intelligence are understood to be trying to trace the businessman.

Saudi authorities claim they obtained the information after a Saudi militant was arrested returning to the Gulf kingdom from Iraq, where he was fighting with militants. He was held after arriving with a false passport in the name of a fellow Saudi jihadi known to have been killed in Iraq. The revelation will raise serious questions about the decision to lower the threat level to Britain just three weeks before the London attacks. It will also heighten fears that the network funding Islamist extremists in Britain is directly linked to elements in the Iraqi militancy movement.

U.K. security sources have questioned the Saudi briefings, insisting they were given no specific information relating to an attack on 7 July or the individuals involved. Some believe the briefings are part of a Saudi back-covering exercise in case the British investigation eventually proves a direct link to Al-Qaeda. The Observer understands that the focus of the investigation has shifted back to Pakistan and the possibility that cell members were radicalised during trips to visit family and friends. Khan is thought to have been in Pakistan from December 2004 until early 2005.

Investigators are thought to be looking closely at possible links to a summit held by Al-Qaeda in the tribal territories of Waziristan near the border with Afghanistan in March 2004. The meeting is alleged to have drawn up a list of future targets.

- Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

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