London Bomb Suspects Stood Out as Radicals - Los Angeles Times

One has to wonder if the Western Liberal tradition and Captialism doesn't work too well in some ways.

The first set of London bombers were 3 out of 4 from if not wealthy, then at least middle class families.

The second set were just the opposite. Largely criminals and grifters, several of them had 5-6 different identities, with which they were able to bilk the British social services system for large amounts of money. They received welfare checks, rent subsidies, child support subsidies, free medical care in the NHS and heavens only knows what else.

These people were PAID to kill native British citizens. They received gobs of government largesse and what did they have to do for a living? Absolutely nothing, above and beyond plan how they were going to murder innocent civilians, having no gainful employment.

They had plenty of cash available to purchase and peddle Islamic hate literature. Having no steady jobs, they were able to spend plenty of time at the Finsbury Park mosque where so many other Islamist murderers received instruction, including Richard Reid the shoe bomber and Zacharias Moussaui, the 20th hijacker. British authorities knew what was going on in that mosque. One can only see so many banners hung out at fundamentalist gatherings with such wonderful sentiments as "Sharia is the future of Britain", and not have SOME idea of what was transpiring inside.

Abu Hamza al-Masri, the one time leader of the Finsbury Park mosque is cooling his heels in a British jail on 14 anti-terrorism charges for soliciting murder etc. However, his Sharia law group and its website at www.shareea.org are still in operation, so in effect even though he's been arrested, he hasn't been silenced and continues to spew his hate worldwide. While he's still in prison, his wife is drawing British welfare checks and get this: he even has a special nurse, at British taxpayer expense, to wipe his butt, since he has two hooks for hands which he lost in Afghanistan fighting the Russians.

What's wrong with this picture?

So lets get this straight:

The 5 people who attempted the second group of murders in London, shouldn't have been in the country. They got in by lying about being Somali immigrants which get special immigration treatment in Britain (for what God forsaken reason is beyond me).

At least one of them improperly received British citizenship, even though he had a record for crimes committed in Britain.

They had 5-6 different id's which they used to bilk the British social services system.

They received welfare checks.

They received rent subsidies.

They made absolutely zero attempts to hide their islamist feelings.

And yet they got away with it.

Yes, the Western Liberal system is broken.

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London Bomb Suspects Stood Out as Radicals

By Jeffrey Fleishman and Sebastian Rotella, Times Staff Writers

LONDON — They first became known to the world as blurry images from subway cameras. But the men accused of attempting to bomb London's transit system July 21 had clearly defined their militancy in the months leading up to the failed attacks.

The suspects had sharpened their radicalism in the streets, mosques and housing projects of rough ethnic neighborhoods, investigators, witnesses and friends say. They were brazen voices in an unsuspecting city, marginalized East Africans who lived by their wits, dabbling in street crime and reportedly manipulating the immigration and welfare systems. During workouts at a West London gym, they channeled their private rage into public diatribes.

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Brothers Ramzi and Wharbi Mohammed sold Islamic literature and recited religious verses on a gritty North Kensington street of antiques stores and cafes, skirmishing with a shop owner who chased them away. Hamdi Issac, now jailed in Rome, belonged to a gang of extremists who waged a belligerent campaign to take over a mosque in South London. Roommates Muktar Said Ibrahim and Yasin Hassan Omar were loud militants, praising Osama bin Laden to neighbors at the rundown building where Ibrahim is accused of preparing five backpack bombs.

Their agitation allegedly gave way to action after July 7, when four young British Muslims, three from the northern city of Leeds, ignited bombs on three subway cars and a bus, killing themselves and 52 others. Issac claims that his group struck two weeks later in an improvised, independent tribute to the dead bombers. Despite similar methods and targets, British authorities say they have found no link between the two plots.

In any case, those who had run-ins with the July 21 suspects remember aggressive rhetoric rooted in anger against Britain's support of U.S. policy in Iraq. During interrogations in Italy, Issac has returned obsessively to the war in Iraq, a senior Italian anti-terrorism official said.

"He's calm — he seems scared," said the Italian official, who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons. "He's open, gentle, polite; he doesn't get mad even when you provoke him. But when you ask him why he did it, he starts with the speech about Iraq: They are killing women and children, no one's doing anything about it, on and on. That's when you can see there has been a brainwashing."

The men's outspokenness reflects the unpredictability of potential jihadis. The 19 hijackers involved in Sept. 11, for example, masked their deadly intentions by trying to blend into Western society. Militants in Europe in other cases have been less discreet: Before setting off to fight and die with militants in Iraq last year, a group of young Parisian jihadis first caught the attention of police with aggressive behavior at street protests against banning Islamic head scarves in schools.

The suspects in the attempted London bombings were also preoccupied with other things: They dedicated themselves to ripping off the state, authorities say. They resided in public housing, collected unemployment and welfare benefits and used multiple identities to bilk the government for large sums, investigators say.

"These were people who came as refugees, were made welcome and treated properly," said a British official who asked to remain anonymous. "And they decided to abuse the social security system to a huge degree."

Months before the failed attacks, the Mohammed brothers strolled amid the shopkeepers and cafe owners on Golborne Road in North Kensington, a stretch of dusty awnings, shops and Moroccan grills where incense whirls with scents of mint tea and fish on ice. Golborne is a testament to the neighborhood's shifting ethnic dynamic: The Portuguese who first migrated here have given way to Moroccans and East Africans and, according to residents, rising crime.

Ramzi and Wharbi set up a tarp-covered stall on the corner of Golborne and Wornington roads, half a block from the clattering cups at Lisboa Patisserie, where the men often relaxed over coffee.

"They were handing out Islamic literature, and I had a kind of altercation with them," said a neighborhood antiques dealer, who feared retribution and gave his name only as Jerome. "There were four or five of them. They spoke in Arabic and English. I thought they were being unbearable and intense and I asked them to leave. They had had the stall for months and didn't have a license."

The brothers moved down the street and eventually disappeared. Ramzi, 23, lived about two miles away in Dalgarno Gardens, a maze of brick buildings that shadow drug dealers and working-class families.

"Ramzi was a cool guy," said Jamal Kamiri, sitting the other day on a bench behind Ramzi's apartment. "When I was younger, he used to play football with us. He used to carry a 9-millimeter pistol, but guns are common here and he wasn't a troublemaker. He carried it for protection.

"Ramzi disappeared for about nine weeks in 2003. I don't know where he went. When he came back, he was more religious. He started carrying the Koran and dressed in more traditional clothing like those long Pakistani shirts."

The Mohammed brothers are now in jail. Wharbi is charged as an accomplice.

On July 21, the short, sturdily built Ramzi was photographed wearing a New York sweatshirt while sprinting away from the scene of the attempted bombing at the Oval subway station in South London, police say.

Issac, the suspect being held in Rome, lived in a ground-floor two-bedroom apartment near that station.

Neighbors remember Issac, 27, as a muscular man with a long beard who wore Islamic robes even while riding his mountain bike in the predominantly black Stockwell area. He regularly made the long trek to the Finsbury Park Mosque in North London, a notorious crossroads for multiethnic terrorist networks, according to Issac's confession in Rome.

When London police cracked down on the mosque in 2003, Issac set his sights on his own neighborhood. He joined a group of about 20 militants who had left Finsbury Park and tried to take over a mosque in Stockwell, said Toaha Qureshi, a mosque trustee.