Britain's involvement in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan contributed to the terrorist attacks in London, a respected independent think tank on foreign affairs, the Chatham House organization, said yesterday.
According to the body, which includes leading academics and former civil servants among its members, the key problem in the UK for preventing terrorism is that the country is "riding as a pillion passenger with the United States in the war against terror."
It says Britain's ability to wage counter-terrorism measures has also been hampered because the US is always in the driving seat in deciding policy initiatives.
PHOTO: EPA
The report says the security services -- diverted by fighting the IRA over Northern Ireland and the rise of animal activists committing terrorist acts -- failed to give priority in the early 1990s to monitoring Islamist terror activists setting up in Britain, so "the British authorities did not fully appreciate the threat from al-Qaeda."
In the most politically sensitive finding, Chatham House, which used to be known as the Royal Institute of International Affairs, concludes that there is "no doubt" that the invasion of Iraq has "given a boost to the al-Qaeda network" in "propaganda, recruitment and fund raising," while providing an ideal targeting and training area for terrorists.
"Riding pillion with a powerful ally has proved costly in terms of British and US military lives, Iraqi lives, military expenditure and the damage caused to the counterterrorism campaign."
This finding runs directly counter to the line from Downing Street, which has sought to detach Iraq from the London attacks.
On Saturday, Tony Blair said the fanatics who struck in London and launched other attacks around the world were driven by an "evil ideology" rather than opposition to any policy, and that it would be a "misunderstanding of a catastrophic order" to think that if we changed our behavior they would change theirs.
"Their cause is not founded on an injustice. It is founded on a belief, one whose fanaticism is such that it can't be moderated, can't be remedied. It has to be stood up to."
The dispute over the role of Iraq in the motivation of the bombers came as the debate grew over proposed new terror laws in Britain. The Tories will today offer Charles Clarke, the home secretary, the chance to speed up new terror laws, provided that the government delays proposals to revise the controversial control orders system for detaining suspect terrorists until next year.
David Davis, the shadow home secretary, will ask the government to bring forward full details of one of the most divisive parts of the new legislation -- the indirect incitement to terrorism offense -- by a month to September, so MPs and human rights groups such as Liberty can study them properly.
ENDEAVOR MANTA: The ship is programmed to automatically return to its designated home port and would self-destruct if seized by another party The Endeavor Manta, Taiwan’s first military-specification uncrewed surface vehicle (USV) tailor-made to operate in the Taiwan Strait in a bid to bolster the nation’s asymmetric combat capabilities made its first appearance at Kaohsiung’s Singda Harbor yesterday. Taking inspiration from Ukraine’s navy, which is using USVs to force Russia’s Black Sea fleet to take shelter within its own ports, CSBC Taiwan (台灣國際造船) established a research and development unit on USVs last year, CSBC chairman Huang Cheng-hung (黃正弘) said. With the exception of the satellite guidance system and the outboard motors — which were purchased from foreign companies that were not affiliated with Chinese-funded
PERMIT REVOKED: The influencer at a news conference said the National Immigration Agency was infringing on human rights and persecuting Chinese spouses Chinese influencer “Yaya in Taiwan” (亞亞在台灣) yesterday evening voluntarily left Taiwan, despite saying yesterday morning that she had “no intention” of leaving after her residence permit was revoked over her comments on Taiwan being “unified” with China by military force. The Ministry of the Interior yesterday had said that it could forcibly deport the influencer at midnight, but was considering taking a more flexible approach and beginning procedures this morning. The influencer, whose given name is Liu Zhenya (劉振亞), departed on a 8:45pm flight from Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) to Fuzhou, China. Liu held a news conference at the airport at 7pm,
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —