Al Qaeda: So close to home

There are significant currents stirring in Britain's Muslim community. No one is suggesting that Osama bin Laden's movement has succeeded in recruiting huge numbers of volunteers in this country. But the extent of al Qaeda penetration, being unravelled each day by security forces here and in America, has provoked serious cause for concern in the intelligence services.

In the aftermath of the 11 September attacks, the Government and Scotland Yard were anxious not to cause alarm or provoke potential conflict with Muslims. They sought to play down the threat posed by al Qaeda in this country. There was no specific warning to Britain and the extremists who had announced they were flying to Afghanistan to fight against the allies were dismissed as a few hotheads we were assured.

Now, however, each new disclosure strengthens the belief that we are harbouring a terrorist presence as dangerous as any of of those exposed in Germany, Spain and France.

What is now emerging is that, of all the baffling questions to spring from the events of 11 September, one especially continues to haunt Britain's intelligence services. Why were so many active terrorists and their mentors allowed to operate in this country without apparent let or hindrance?

One answer seems to be that the police, at least, did not know they were here. Scotland Yard's assistant commissioner, David Veness, says an estimated 100 individuals with suspected links to Bin Laden are based in Britain. Privately, senior officers say this figure, which has only just emerged, surprised them.

This in itself is astonishing. Foreign security agencies - including the Americans and Europeans - have been warning for years about the presence of extremist elements in Britain.

Take the case of Richard Reid, the 28-year-old Briton who tried to detonate explosives stuffed into his shoes aboard an American Airlines flight. When Reid was identified as a British citizen the initial reaction was that he was a deranged loner; a misfit with a crazed personal agenda. It has now emerged that US intelligence officials believe Reid was a fully fledged al Qaeda operative who undertook a reconnaissance mission for Bin Laden's organisation, examining possible future targets for terrorist attacks.

This news should not have come as a surprise to MI5. Reid's links to al Qaeda go back to at least 1998 and have their origin in a location known for years as a haven for Bin Laden sympathisers - the Finsbury Park Mosque.

It is inconceivable that the intelligence services did not monitor activities at the mosque and the movements of key people, including its leading cleric Abu Hamza, who has made no secret of his admiration for Bin Laden. Close scrutiny of personalities connected to the mosque creates a trail that leads directly to individuals allegedly involved with the 11 September hijackers. It also clearly discloses the importance of Britain for Bin Laden's top men.

A key player is Algerian Djamal Beghal, an Islamic fundamentalist who has been named to the security services as al Qaeda's operations director in Europe. He is known to have received instructions personally from Bin Laden during a trip to Afghanistan in July 2000. It has emerged that Bin Laden greeted him like a brother and presented him with gifts of incense and prayer beads.

Beghal, 36, lived in Brixton with his wife and two children and was known to the security services in Europe and the US. His movements were closely followed and he was arrested in Dubai as he tried to return to Britain following his briefing from Bin Laden. But when western intelligence services moved against Beghal they appeared to have overlooked his known contacts, with potentially appalling consequences.

Richard Reid and Beghal both lived in Brixton and attended a mosque near Brixton police station. It is believed they were both members of an al Qaeda cell based in south London that also included Zacarias Moussaoui, a French Moroccan student who lived in London for nine years and who is now in custody in America on suspicion of being the 20th man in the 11 September hijack gang.

Beghal moved to Leicester and continued recruiting. Among his recruits were Tunisian-born footballer-Nizar Trabelsi and Kamel Daoudi, a computer expert whose skills were used to send coded messages. Daoudi was arrested in Leicester two weeks after the US attacks.

Beghal and Reid were seen together on numerous occasions at the Finsbury Park mosque from 1998 onwards, and - given the intelligence service's interest in Beghal - it seems surprising security agents did not pick up on his close associate, Reid. Nor, it seems, did they make much of the two men's apparent link to the militant Islamic cleric Abu Qatada.

Reid and Beghal were frequent visitors to Qatada's sessions at the Four Feathers Youth Club based in Baker Street. Qatada provided a meeting place for young muslims, among whom were men believed to have been targeted by Beghal as potential recruits.

Qatada has consistently denied any al Qaeda involvement, although he has expressed "respect" for Bin Laden. But what do the security services really make of him? He lives with his family in Acton, although he has not been seen at the address for some time. He is a Palestinian born in Bethlehem, now 42, who came to Britain in 1993 and was granted asylum and benefits of more than £400 a week.

Shortly after the atrocities in New York and Washington, a bank account controlled by him containing £180,000 was frozen by British authorities. The timing of this move suggests Qatada had not previously aroused serious suspicion. But the process of scrutiny now reveals that the security forces have known for years about an alleged terrorist background and links to Bin Laden.

He was sentenced to life imprisonment in his absence in Jordan for alleged involvement in bombing attacks, including at least one on a cinema. Britain refused to extradite him to Jordan because the country has the death penalty. Spanish investigators believe they can link Qatada directly to the 11 September gang.

Judge Baltazar Garzon - the man who once wanted to extradite General Augusto Pinochet from Britain to Spain - issued a judicial decree in Madrid last November naming Qatada as an associate of al Qaeda figures suspected of helping the hijackers. Judge Garzon, who has questioned 11 men arrested in Spain for alleged al Qaeda involvement, named Qatada as "the spiritual head of the Mujahideen in Britain". He said he had regular contact with Madrid-based cleric Abu Dahdah who, he said, was "directly linked to the preparation and carrying out of the attacks".

As more people are scooped into the ever-widening net spread to catch al Qaeda suspects, it has become clear that the Americans are making extensive use of one of the most powerful weapons in their antiterrorist arsenal - electronic eavesdropping-Britain plays a crucial part in this, through the listening station at Menwith Hill in Yorkshire and the GCHQ spy base at Cheltenham. It is understood that electronic eavesdropping enabled French police to recently arrest a leading al Qaeda suspect who had been on the run for nearly three years. Algerian-born Said Laidouni was picked up in Paris on Christmas Eve after the CIA intercepted a telephone call he had made. Laidoini is currently being questioned in France, notably about his contacts in Britain. He was heading for London aboard a Eurostar train in February 1999 when he was first arrested. He disappeared after being granted bail.

According to Ibrahim Khayat, a senior writer on the London based Al-Hayatt newspaper, there are probably 1,000 Islamic extremists in Britain and probably 100 militant activists. But he says: "It is important not to imagine that these people's views are represented in the wider community. They are not part of the mainstream and, in a Muslim population of two or three million, they are a negligible minority."

Hendon's Labour MP Andrew Dismore, in a powerful speech to the House of Commons five days after the American hijack attacks, named individuals and organisations known to be recruiting British youngsters for Islamic terrorist groups. It has now emerged that at least 20 Britons suspected of fighting for al Qaeda or the Taliban are being held in Afghanistan or Pakistan, with three detained at the US base in Guantanamo, Cuba.

In calling for a crackdown on Islamic extremists, Mr Dismore made it clear they had been operating in Britain and had been known about for years. Inevitably, this begs the question - why did it take this long to act?