“At the CIA station in Islamabad the new era arrived in the form of visiting delegations from Washington. Pentagon officers carrying satellite maps, special forces commandos offering a course in advanced explosives, and suitcase carrying congressional visitors who wanted Disney-quality tours of mujahedin camps and plenty of time to buy handwoven carpets… The visitors submitted quarterly lists of weapons needed by the mujahdedin. The CIA’s Afghan supply system depended on these formal requests. Soon the classified lists cabled in from Islamabad included antiaircraft missiles, long-range sniper rifles, night-vision goggles, delayed timing devices for plastic explosives and electronic intercept equipment. The new requests made it harder than ever to maintain plausible denial about the CIA’s role in the jihad…” – Ghost wars, the secret history of the CIA, Afghanistan and bin Laden, from the Soviet invasion to September 10, 2001 – Steve Coll.

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This explosive quote is in no way intended to imply that the recent terrorist bombings in London were either pepetrated by the CIA or their Mossad allies.

But I think we are duty bound to put everything in its right perspective and recall the unlimited assistance US covert action forces provided the mujahedin with, when the latter were combating the Soviet Occupation of Afghanistan that took place some 26 years ago.

As developments have been unfolding, practically by the hour, there is a risk that by the time this article appears in print it might have already been superceded by events.

But there are some specific recollections and observations that one simply cannot bypass or ignore:

• Gone is the notion that terrorists come from deprived areas after having spent years of living under oppression. They can be either innocuous primary school teaching assistants or even people with a tertiary degree who rather than hailing from a poor working class might even belong to the lower to middle or even the middle classes of European society.

• While in the past foreign cells were used to wage terrorism, tactics seem to have changed now, in the sense that local cells might have been used since a tactical decision could have been taken against using foreign help to reduce the chances of being discovered.

• While terrorists have the image of blood letting, muscle flexing hounds, today’s contemporary terrorist can turn out to be a gently spoken, endlessly patient guy who is immensely popular with the younger generation so much so that they called him and considered him their “buddy”.

• One cannot always rely on official police statements. This is understandable since once investigations are still underway, full disclosure of investigations carried out might prove to be counter productive in the hunt for the perpetrators involved.

• A case in point was that while certain officials were prompt to describe the persons involved as “clean skins”, it has now been emerging that two of the London bombers were known to the police while the name of one of them had even emerged during a major terrorist operation last year, even though neither were arrested nor questioned.

Investigations have never been so deep and thorough as the British security forces worked backwards by trying to trace every phone call made and e-mail linked to the three known bombers.

The same can be said for the forensic experts who seem to have carried out some brilliant work, almost as if they were characters out of a Kathy Reichs forensic thriller.

It will be intriguing to find out what was really discussed between British Home Secretary Charles Clarke and his French counterpart, presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy in view of their conflicting and contrasting statements to the press about how much British police actually knew about the bombers.

Now that we are dealing with home grown terrorists, even though the majority of Muslims in Britain are peace-loving citizens who have been amongst the victims of the bombing and who have helped unceasingly in the rescue operations undertaken, one must still admit that there is still a small nucleus of Al-Qaeda supporters which could possibly render London a stronger breeding ground for Al-Qaeda terror than any other European country. Israeli reports claim that there are some 10 to 15,000 British Muslims that actually support Al-Qaeda.

While efforts are underway to democratise the Arab world, one has to pause and wonder whether this will neutralise or fuel fundamentalism. Some analysts argue that the permissiveness that accompanies democratisation and liberalisation could actually intensify fundamentalism.

Israeli lobbies are trying to pressure Blair to openly demand that Muslim communal leaders should stand at the forefront of the struggle against Al-Qaeda while others even argue that Muslim religious leaders must issue a fatwa against Bin Laden and the leaders of his groups.

The London bombings were shocking because not only were they the first such attacks on British soil, but there seems to be a general feeling that this violent attack could pave the way for further bombings in future. I sincerely hope that I am completely mistaken.

Inspite of the British involvement in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, British society has always struck me as a tolerant society, one based on multi-racialism, multi-ethnicity and multi-culturalism. In their Foreign Office they have certain Arabists who perhaps understand the Arab world much better than other countries’ seasoned diplomats might do. But this is strictly my personal opinion.

One sincerely hopes that Muslim communities across Britain will not continue to suffer from vicious attacks from other members of society. Such actions are deplorable, mindless and irrational.

It is a good thing that a Muslim Safety Forum has been established where senior police officers and Muslim community representatives meet to thrash out security problems.

Many might not realise that Islamophobia has already been high in the UK even before the London bombings, deepening with every new report and development that surfaced linked to the attacks.

It is a good thing that the British Parliament is legislating against religious hate crimes. I was nevertheless struck by a large number of African fundamentalist Christians who were demonstrating outside the Commons in defence of perpetrating such verbal attacks further under the pretext of freedom of speech!

The phenomenon of suicide bombing needs deep studying. I am sure that the British Home Office have enough specialists to probe such a matter. Wanting to kill and die is bad enough, but leaving traces in your wake so that your name will be identified out of a sense of pride is indeed mind boggling.

It is noteworthy that though should such bombings have taken place in Rome or Madrid, the streets would have been dominated by vociferously protesting and demonstrating citizens, the only demo that seems to be planned – by the time that I have been writing this article – is one by the Muslim Council of Britain who are quite rightly considering a public demo against terror.

Tackling the causes of terrorism could easily be interpreted as finding a justification for it. Neither the Muslims themselves have considered any cause worthy of such actions, but one has to admit that certain policy decisions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel-Palestine have continued to ignite the extremists in their midst, by providing them with a pretext or “reason” for despicable actions.

The issue of international terrorist funding is not always relevant. Some press reports have suggested that the whole London operation probably cost less than one thousand Sterling!

While itself disagreeing with this viewpoint, The Jerusalem Post recently commented on how Israel is perceived abroad. “Israel is seen as part of the problem – indeed, a major part of the problem – rather than a part of the solution. It is Israel’s intransigence over the Palestinian issue, that has inflamed the Arab world, radicalised all the Muslims and permitted the hate filled Islamic extremists to take centre stage, co-opt moderate young Muslims and induce them to vent their outrage in Western capitals…”.

Even though some might consider this to be distorted logic, this perception does indeed exists. And it needs to be remedied fast, if we want to live in a safer and more secure world, whichever side of the globe we might happen to be on.

I sincerely hope that the London bombings were a one off the same way 9/11 and the Madrid bombings seem to have been.

e-mail: [email protected]

Leo Brincat is the main

opposition spokesman on Foreign Affairs and IT