Stop blaming Pakistan for UK terrorism - top diplomat

Vikram Dodd and Ian Cobain 
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 8 September 2009 23.31 BST 


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/08/pakistan-top-diplomat-terrorism-
claim
http://snurl.com/rpfc3

Senior Pakistani sources have accused Britain of failing to do enough to 
tackle home-grown terrorists and maintain they are falsely being blamed for 
harbouring extremists plotting to attack the UK.

A senior Pakistan diplomat told the Guardian that his country was being 
treated as a "whipping boy" by Britain. The terrorists, including those 
convicted on Monday for the airlines plot, were "born and brought up" in 
Britain, not Pakistan, he said.

The diplomat also stressed Pakistani intelligence tipped the UK off about 
the plot, saving 1,500 lives aboard seven transatlantic jetliners and 
thwarting al-Qaida's biggest attack on the west since 9/11.

British and US counter-terrorism officials believe that terrorists in 
Pakistan played a central role in the airlines plot. On Monday three people 
were convicted of conspiring to explode liquid bombs on planes heading from 
London to north America, and a fourth was found guilty of conspiracy to 
murder.

Counter-terrorism officials in the UK believe the plot was put together on 
Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, with a fixer linking al-Qaida with the 
terrorist cell based in London and High Wycombe. Some belonging to the cell 
went to Pakistan for training.

In a calculated move, a senior Pakistani diplomat in London hit back, saying 
: "Sometimes for our British friends the truth is bitter. We have somehow 
turned out to be a whipping boy, there is a long history to that. The 
British need to search their own house. Britain has to take responsibility 
and they have to look into the issues which are driving these youth to 
extremism, which is the third-generation British – they weren't born and 
bought up in Pakistan."

In December, the prime minister, while on a trip to Pakistan, expressed in 
public Britain's fear of terrorists being seemingly out of the reach of 
Islamabad. "Three-quarters of the most serious plots investigated by the 
British authorities have links to al-Qaida in Pakistan. Our aim must be to 
work together to do everything in our power to cut off terrorism," said 
Gordon Brown. His claim, however, angered Pakistan. The senior diplomat said 
that in seven plots no Pakistani person was involved. "Yes, a Briton of 
Pakistani origin, but a third-generation born and bought up in Britain. We 
don't agree with Brown's claims that three-quarters of these plots originate 
in Pakistan. We don't have a magic wand to turn these people into 
extremists. These people were born in Britain, taught here, bred here."

The diplomat also claimed the plotters would have succeeded in blowing up 
the planes if it had not been for Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence 
agency: "It was Pakistan that informed Britain about this plot … we tipped 
them off, it was our security agency that tipped off the British … the 
British authorities were very much indebted to Pakistan. We had a major role 
in unearthing this plot. Had it not been for Pakistan [it] would not have 
been unearthed."

The Guardian has also learned that Pakistani intelligence officials are 
alleged to have so badly tortured Rashid Rauf, believed a key figure in the 
plot, that plans to prosecute him were abandoned. Rauf could not be 
extradited because of the mistreatment, say intelligence sources who have 
spoken to Human Rights Watch, whose findings are due out this month. The 
Pakistani officials are quoted as saying that their British counterparts 
were aware of what was happening to Rauf after he was detained in August 
2006, while a UK former intelligence officer is quoted as saying that they 
did not.

Rauf, who was born in Pakistan in January 1981 and raised in Birmingham, is 
described as a key figure in al-Qaida's most ambitious conspiracy against 
the west since 9/11. Pakistani officials say he escaped from police in 
December 2007 while at a mosque in Rawalpindi. British diplomats accept this 
account, but Rauf's relatives in Birmingham and his lawyer in Islamabad 
dismiss it as utterly implausible.

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