Mark Curtis and Nafeez Ahmed
Insurge Intelligence
(This briefing will be updated as more evidence emerges. Sources are
overwhelmingly from mainstream media, except where clearly stated).
A PDF version of this briefing is available here
Introduction
The evidence suggests that the barbaric Manchester bombing, which killed
22 innocent people on May 22nd, is a case of blowback on British
citizens arising at least partly from the overt and covert actions of
British governments. The British state therefore has a serious case to
answer. We focus primarily here on UK policies towards Libya but also
touch on some of those related to Iraq and Syria.
Summary
In summary, the evidence so far shows that there are six inter-related aspects of blowback:
- Salman Abedi and his father were members of a Libyan dissident
group — the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) — covertly supported by
the UK to assassinate Qadafi in 1996. At this time, the LIFG was an affiliate of Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda and LIFG leaders had various connections to this terror network.
- Members of the LIFG were facilitated by the British 'security
services' to travel to Libya to fight Qadafi in 2011. Both Salman Abedi
and his father, Ramadan, were among those who travelled to fight at this
time (although there is no evidence that their travel was personally
facilitated or encouraged by the security services).
- A large number of LIFG fighters in Libya in 2011 had earlier fought alongside the Islamic State of Iraq — the
al-Qaeda entity which later established a presence in Syria and became
the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). These fighters were among
those recruited into the British-backed anti-Qadafi rebellion.
- UK covert action in Libya in 2011 included approval of and support
to Qatar's arming and backing of opposition forces, which included
support to hardline Islamist groups; this fuelled jihadism in Libya.
- One of the groups armed/supported by Qatar in 2011 was the February
17th Martyrs Brigade which, some reports suggest, was the organisation
which Ramadan Abedi joined in 2011 to fight Qadafi.
- Qatar's arms supplies to Libya in 2011 also found their way to
Islamist fighters in Syria, including groups affiliated with al-Qaeda
and ISIS.
Conclusions
The evidence points to the LIFG being seen by the UK as a proxy militia to promote its foreign policy objectives.
Whitehall also saw Qatar as a proxy to provide boots on the ground in
Libya in 2011, even as it empowered hardline Islamist groups.
Both David Cameron, then Prime Minister, and Theresa May — who was Home
Secretary in 2011 when Libyan radicals were encouraged to fight
Qadafi — clearly have serious questions to answer. We believe an
independent public enquiry is urgently needed.
The evidence suggests that British actions in three different theatres — Libya, Iraq and Syria — cannot be viewed in isolation:
- In Libya, US and UK led intervention destroyed the
functioning state and created a vacuum allowing hardline Islamist
fighters to consolidate their foothold in the country. This paved the
way for the empowerment of ISIS. The direct line between Libyan and
Syrian Islamist rebels fuelled jihadism in both countries.
- In Iraq, US and UK led intervention also destroyed the
existing state infrastructure and fuelled an Islamist insurgency which
incubated al-Qaeda in Iraq and culminated in the emergence of ISIS.
- In Syria, US and UK covert action, again in partnership with
Gulf states such as Qatar, and Turkey, has had the effect of augmenting
the role of al-Qaeda in the rebel movement.
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John Pilger
Counterpunch
The unsayable in Britain's general election campaign is this. The causes of the Manchester atrocity, in which 22 mostly young people were murdered by a jihadist, are being suppressed to protect the secrets of British foreign policy.
Critical questions - such as why the security service MI5 maintained terrorist "assets" in Manchester and why the government did not warn the public of the threat in their midst - remain unanswered, deflected by the promise of an internal "review".
The alleged suicide bomber, Salman Abedi, was part of an extremist group, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, that thrived in Manchester and was cultivated and used by MI5 for more than 20 years.
The LIFG is proscribed by Britain as a terrorist organisation which seeks a "hardline Islamic state" in Libya and "is part of the wider global Islamist extremist movement, as inspired by al-Qaida". The "smoking gun" is that when Theresa May was Home Secretary, LIFG jihadists were allowed to travel unhindered across Europe and encouraged to engage in "battle": first to remove Mu'ammar Gadaffi in Libya, then to join al-Qaida affiliated groups in Syria.
Last year, the FBI reportedly placed Abedi on a "terrorist watch list" and warned MI5 that his group was looking for a "political target" in Britain. Why wasn't he apprehended and the network around him prevented from planning and executing the atrocity on 22 May?
These questions arise because of an FBI leak that demolished the "lone wolf" spin in the wake of the 22 May attack - thus, the panicky, uncharacteristic outrage directed at Washington from London and Donald Trump's apology.
The Manchester atrocity lifts the rock of British foreign policy to reveal its Faustian alliance with extreme Islam, especially the sect known as Wahhabism or Salafism, whose principal custodian and banker is the oil kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Britain's biggest weapons customer.
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UK Proscribed terrorist organization, Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), maintains large presence in Manchester area and is now being linked to recent blast.
As suspected and as was the case in virtually all recent terror attacks carried out in Europe – including both in France and Belgium – the suspect involved in the recent Manchester blast which killed 22 and injured scores more was previously known to British security and intelligence agencies.
The Telegraph in its article, “Salman Abedi named as the Manchester suicide bomber – what we know about him,” would report:
Salman Abedi, 22, who was reportedly known to the security services, is thought to have returned from Libya as recently as this week.
While initial reports attempted to craft a narrative focused on a a “lone wolf” attacker who organized and executed the blast himself, the nature of the improvised explosive device used and the details of the attack revealed what was certainly an operation carried out by someone who either acquired militant experience through direct contact with a terrorist organization, or was directed by a terrorist organization with extensive experience.
Joe Quinn
Sott.net
Given that Islamic terrorism has been the most influential political and social meme of the last 17 years, the motive for a 'Muslim terror attack' at a UK concert venue 2 weeks before a UK general election may be more complicated than it at first seems.
Even more suspicious is the fact that there appears to have been a deliberate set up for this event that makes it clear that the goal was to directly attack the reputation of the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Immediately after becoming the Labour party leader in 2015, the British media decided that Corbyn's history of acting as a would-be peace broker in the Northern Ireland conflict between Irish Catholics and the British state made him an easy target. In January this year, British Foreign Sec. Boris Johnson defended talking to Donald Trump by saying it was better than talking to Jeremy Corbyn who "advocated talking to the IRA".
In recent months however with election day looming, media focus on Corbyn's 'support for terrorists' took a back seat to more important domestic policies like the dire state of the UK health care system and the Conservative party plans to make it (and everything else) much worse for the British taxpayer.
Last Friday however, the British Daily Telegraph ran a story reporting that MI5 had 'opened a file' on Corbyn in the early 1990's due to his support for a united Ireland and fears that he was a 'threat to national security'. In that report, the Telegraph reminded readers that when he was interviewed by the BBC in August 2015 during his Labour party leadership campaign, he refused five times to condemn IRA violence, preferring instead to condemn all violence by all parties.
Strangely enough, two days later (last Sunday) in an interview with Sophy Ridge on Sky News, Ridge asked Corbyn five times to condemn IRA violence. In response, Corbyn reiterated what he had told the BBC two years ago, that he condemned all killing, whether by the IRA or the British state or its proxy 'loyalist' forces (an early version of 'ISIS' with a white Western twist), and refused to be coerced into singling out one party or minimizing one set of atrocities to score political points.
While this was a reasonable position to take, in the 48 hours since then, the British media has gone into overdrive to paint him as a terrorist sympathizer, with headlines like "Growing row over Jeremy Corbyn's links to the IRA as he refuses five times to condemn the militant group" and "Jeremy Corbyn refuses to condemn IRA", (despite the fact that in the Sky News interview he said "I condemn all the bombing by both the loyalists and the IRA").
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