[R-G] "Doctors' Plot"

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

The rhetoric of national security in the USA and the UK echoes the
Stalinist rhetoric about the Doctors' Plot, except this time the
alleged poisoners of the health of the state are not Jewish Zionist
doctors but Muslim Islamist ones.

The end of liberal democracy has come not through anticommunism but
Islamophobia, which most liberals and leftists of the West are unable
to counter because their estimation of Muslims is not all that
different from the public's and at the bottom of their hearts they
fear Islamism more than imperialism.  If anything, what many of them
say about Islam and Islamism aggravates Islamophobia that already
exists.

<http://in.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2007-07-04T212306Z_01_NOOTR_RTRMDNC_0_India-283197-1.xml&archived=False>
Central riddle in British bomb plot: why doctors?
Wed Jul 4, 2007 9:24 PM IST138
By Mark Trevelyan, Security Correspondent

LONDON (Reuters) - The most striking question about a suspected
Islamist militant plot in Britain is also one of the most puzzling:
why were all of the suspects medics?

Two Indians and six Arabs arrested over two failed London car bombs
and a botched attack on a Scottish airport all had connections to the
medical profession. They included at least four doctors: two Indians,
an Iraqi and a Jordanian, whose wife is also one of those held.

Police have up to four weeks to question them and none has so far been
charged with any offence.

Security sources do not entirely reject, but describe as "highly
speculative", the possibility of a "sleeper" cell of al Qaeda
operatives, infiltrated into Britain using their trusted profession as
the perfect cover.

But if that were the case, they say, why not exploit their expertise
directly to mount an attack, perhaps involving bioterrorism or access
to radiological material?

The then-head of Britain's MI5 intelligence agency warned last
November that future security threats "may include the use of
chemicals, bacteriological agents, radioactive materials and even
nuclear technology".

But there is no suggestion such materials featured in the current case.

"There seems to be no terrorist gain from their profession," one
security source said of the investigation into the two crude but
potentially viable car bombs and the ramming of a fuel-laden jeep into
an airport terminal in Glasgow, Scotland.

He said it was possible the suspects had met and become radicalised
after their arrival in Britain.

"It could be they simply met in a professional capacity and had
similar ideas and views," said Henry Wilkinson, an analyst at
consultants Janusian Security Risk Management, noting past militant
cells have often involved groups of friends or peers, of whom one
emerges as the dominant influence.

Experts said that even if medical knowledge was irrelevant to this
plot, the idea that Islamist militants could infiltrate Britain's
health system would alarm the security services.

"Doctors are ideally placed to have easy access to chemicals,
biological and even radiological material," said M.J. Gohel of the
Asia-Pacific Foundation in London.

"If all of these doctors are involved in this cell, that is very
disturbing. That is a new dimension entirely for the security
services."

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he had asked Britain's new
counter-terrorism minister to carry out an immediate review of
recruitment to Britain's National Health Service, where nearly 40
percent of doctors are foreign-trained.

But analysts said the need for improved screening extended to other
sensitive professions such as airline pilots and people working in
critical areas of national infrastructure.

"This is very hard to do. How do you screen people for their political
beliefs? Obviously it's very controversial as well, but there is
clearly a threat here," Wilkinson said.

<http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL0336389420070703>
"Doctors' plot" breaks homegrown British pattern
Tue Jul 3, 2007 9:13AM EDT

By Mark Trevelyan, Security Correspondent

LONDON (Reuters) - The alleged role of Arab and Indian doctors in what
British authorities are calling an al Qaeda-linked plot marks a
contrast with recent conspiracies led by homegrown radicals, often
with modest academic backgrounds.

Experts said the differences underline the impossibility of
constructing a profile of a "typical" Islamist militant.

All eight people detained so far in connection with two failed London
car bombs and a botched attack on a Scottish airport are doctors or
have links to the medical profession, security sources said.

Two -- including a man detained in Australia -- are from India, and
the rest from the Middle East including doctors Bilal Abdulla, who
qualified in Iraq, and Mohammed Asha, a Jordanian.

Asha had been in Britain since 2004, according to his father, and
newspaper reports said Abdulla arrived last year. None of those held
has been charged with any offence, and police have up to 28 days to
question them.

The possible involvement of foreigners in a suspected Islamist plot in
Britain would not be new -- in April 2005, for example, Algerian Kamel
Bourgass was convicted of a plot to launch attacks with poisons and
bombs. Six men of African origin are now awaiting verdicts in another
terrorism trial.

But other recent investigations have focused mainly on long-term
residents or British citizens, like the four young Muslim men who blew
themselves up on London underground trains and a bus two years ago
this week, killing 52 people.

The MI5 intelligence agency has focused intensively on homegrown
radicals in a rapid expansion which has nearly doubled its size since
2001. It has opened a series of regional branches to keep tabs on an
estimated 1,600 militant Islamists it suspects of plotting attacks in
Britain or overseas.

NO PATTERN

The current case showed how difficult it is to try to pinpoint
suspects before they strike.

"The pattern is, there is no pattern," said one security official,
denying that the strengthened domestic focus had distracted
authorities from looking at non-British nationals.

"We don't view individuals on the basis of their ethnicity or origins,
we view them on the intelligence basis of what they're up to."

The focus on Middle Eastern and Indian suspects may mark a break with
other recent British cases which have repeatedly featured links to
Pakistan. In at least three plots, leaders had traveled there to train
in al Qaeda camps or seek approval from Osama bin Laden's network for
proposed attacks in Britain.

No link to Pakistan has yet emerged in the latest case, which is also
unique for another reason -- the medical background of all the
suspects.

But the source said medical expertise did not appear central to the
plot, and it was "entirely speculative" for media to suggest they
formed an al Qaeda sleeper cell smuggled into Britain using their
profession as the perfect cover.

International experience shows a wide variety of people may be drawn
to militant Islamism, from drifters and petty criminals to affluent
individuals and those with university backgrounds.

"It's not a surprise that educated people become part of these
networks. I think it's a complete stereotype that these people are
deprived, uneducated, people below the average income line and so on,"
said Peter Neumann, security analyst at King's College, London.

"What we've seen in the past is quite a number of people especially
from the hard sciences -- chemistry, physics, doctors, engineers.
Mohamed Atta, the guy who was planning September 11, was an urban
planner."

--
Yoshie