‘Electronically Supervised’ Terrorist Arrested Near Olympic Site
If
a court case made public in Great Britain last week is anything to go
by, the battle to prevent a terrorist attack at this summer’s Olympic
Games in London may have been lost years ago thanks to the British legal
system.British newspapers revealed last week that a suspected Islamist terrorist, well-known to the security services and living under court-ordered restrictions, appeared in court last month charged with breaking the ban on going near the Olympic site where events are due to begin July 27. The 24-year-old man of Somali origin, identified in court only as CF, was apprehended at Stratford Station, the main transit point for the Olympic Park in East London, after he had crossed the Park on five occasions last April and May, defying a court order that specifically states he may not use this London Overground rail route. It is believed the man may have been carrying out a reconnaissance mission.
“Stratford Station is beside the Westfield shopping centre which people will go through to get into the Olympic Park, where most of the events are to be held,” reports the Telegraph, a British newspaper. “The area is heavily protected and regarded by security services and police as among the most significant targets for terrorists.”The biggest surprise in this case, however, is not that the man was likely planning to stage a terrorist attack at the Olympic venue – after all, that is what terrorists do – but rather, with his record of terrorist activities, one is left dumbfounded he isn’t sitting in a jail cell somewhere, at least for the duration of the 2012 Games.
“The 24 year-old has previously tried to get to Afghanistan, allegedly for terrorist training, and is suspected of fighting for the Somali Islamist terrorist group al Shabaab… He is accused of trying to recruit Britons to the cause,” relates the Telegraph. The Daily Mail pads out CF’s terrorist resume, adding he “is linked to a group of six British nationals who received terror training from Saleh Nabhan, the al Qaeda leader killed in a raid by American Navy seals in 2009.”
CF has also likely received terrorist training in Somalia with al Shabaab, an al-Qaeda-allied group. Besides that disturbing piece of biographical information, court documents state “CF wanted to ‘re-engage in terrorism-related activities, either in the UK or Somalia’, and is ‘determined to continue to adhere to his Islamist agenda’.” In other words, CF is a life-time jihadist. Another terrorist suspect, identified in court as CC, is also involved in the Olympic Park case. CC was also in Somalia where he had planned “to attack Western interests in Somaliland” – a break-away state from Somalia.
But what probably disturbed the British public most about CF’s terrorist past was the information contained in British Home Secretary documents. They stated that when CF attempted to travel to Afghanistan in 2008 to fight in the jihad, he intended “to take part in suicide operations.” The British have already had an excruciating experience with demonic suicide bombers on its soil and know full well the horror involved. On July 7, 2005, four home-grown Islamist suicide bombers blew themselves up on three subway trains and a double-decker bus, killing 52 people and wounding 700. As a result, the fact that a known, potentially homicidal Islamic radical with an inclination for “suicide operations” was running around largely unsupervised in Great Britain, and near the Olympic site at that, must have been an incredible shock for many, to say the least.
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