[This is the headline over a report by Ben Borland in today’s edition of the Sunday Express. It reads in part:]
Some of the terrorists involved in the Lockerbie bombing are now fighting with Islamic State, according to a former CIA agent who worked on the original investigation.
Robert Baer said it was even possible that the failure to bring all of those responsible for the December 1988 atrocity to justice had contributed to the rise of IS.
The former Middle East case officer was speaking after Kenny MacAskill accused Iran, Syria and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) of plotting Lockerbie.
In his new book, the ex-SNP Justice Secretary says the bombing was ordered by Iran and that Libya "picked up the pieces" after German police raids broke up a PFLP-GC cell.
Two Libyans, Abdelbaset Megrahi and Lameen Fhima, were eventually put on trial and Megrahi was convicted, before being released with terminal cancer almost seven years ago.
Mr Baer, who worked for US intelligence from 1976 to 1997, said MacAskill had shown "enormous courage" in "pointing out the truth" about Lockerbie.
He backed calls for Scottish and US prosecutors to pursue PFLP-GC leader Ahmed Jibril, who the Sunday Express recently traced to the Syrian capital Damascus.
However, he added: "If they handed over Jibril and he talked he would implicate the Iranians and Syria is effectively run by Iran so it would just never happen."
Although Jibril and the PFLP-GC are now fighting with the Syrian regime against IS, Mr Baer said many former members had converted to Islamic extremism.
"Some of the earlier bombers have washed up with the Islamic State," he said. (...)
"Abu Ibrahim [the leader of the May 15 group, another offshoot of the PFLP and an initial Lockerbie suspect] has ended up with IS. He was in a safe house Baghdad in 2003 but he escaped just before we got to him."
Just weeks before Lockerbie, a German anti-terror operation codenamed Autumn Leaves raided a PFLP-GC cell led by Hafez Dalkamoni and including bomb-maker Marwan Khreesat and second-in-command Abdel Fattah Ghadanfar.
Fourteen members, including Khreesat, were released almost immediately, while Dalkamoni and Ghadanfar were jailed for several years before being deported to Syria.
The whereabouts of Dalkamoni and Ghadanfar is currently unknown, although Khreesat - who has been described as a double or even a triple agent - is living in Jordan.
Mr Baer said it was "almost certain" that terrorist bomb-makers from the 1980s had gone on to train IS fighters or become fully-fledged members of the group.
He said: "Ibrahim, Khreesat, Dalkamoni. A bunch of them have their signatures in the IS bombings in Fallujah and Baghdad." (...)
Asked if the failure to look beyond Libya in the Lockerbie investigation had contributed to the rise of IS, he replied: "That's possible but more than that we would have a better sense of justice in the world."
Mr Baer, who recently visited Syria to research a book about Islamic fundamentalism, said Jibril - who is said to have received $10million from Iran after Lockerbie - would be living in luxury.
Which commentator was it who said, years ago, "I don't suppose we'll ever find out exactly what happened at Lockerbie unless Ahmed Jibril decides to write his memoirs"?
ReplyDeleteThe only thing we know with certainty is that Megrahi and Libya had nothing to do with it but were framed by Britain and America for commercial reasons (Oil) IS is funded and armed by our friend Saudi Arabia to whom we sell lots of armanents. Does anybody believe what the CIA has to say about anything without getting a second opinion. They should stick to their drug dealing with terrorists.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing I know with certainty is that the bomb was already in the baggage container in the shed at Heathrow an hour before the connecting flight from Frankfurt landed. And that whoever it was bought these clothes, it was not Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. Everything else is speculation, no matter how well-founded.
DeleteWhatever one considers to be the politics of The Scottish Sunday Express, Editor Ben Borland has always done our cause admirably.
ReplyDeleteReally? Including the time he went on TV and declared that the bomb suitcase had begun its journey at Malta and Megrahi being there at that time was really incriminating?
DeleteEvidence successfully used to obtain a conviction cannot become malleable to implicate an enemy du jour. To clear Megrahi, not only do they have to admit to planting evidence they used to convict Libya, but by default, establish a pattern of false findings to create a political pretext for global action.
ReplyDeleteNo, it's not necessary for anyone to admit planting evidence in order for Megrahi to be cleared. Even if the provenance of every single piece of evidence is absolutely watertight, with nobody doing anything at all underhand, that evidence still proves he's innocent.
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