Relations between Britain and Pakistan in the aftermath of the London bombings were put to the test on Sunday when one of Islamabad’s most senior diplomats advised against trying to shift responsibility to his country, and blamed British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s policies in the Middle East.
As investigations intensified into possible links between the British bombers and extremists in Pakistan, its UN ambassador, Munir Akram, insisted that the London bombings were a British internal problem. As well as blaming Blair’s foreign policy, he also cited a failure by British society to integrate its Muslims.
He said: ”It is important not to pin blame on somebody else when the problem lies internally. Your policies in the Middle East, your policies in the Islamic world, that is the problem with your society and that is where the problem lies as far as this incident is concerned.”
”It would be a grave mistake to point fingers at Pakistan or anybody outside your country.”
Such outspokenness is unusual in diplomatic circles, particularly at such a sensitive time. The UN is a top posting, normally only entrusted to experienced diplomats.
Akram’s comments came as British and Pakistani investigators were examining a possible role played in the bombings by Osama Nazir, a top Pakistani militant leader with alleged links to al-Qaeda, who is being held over attacks in Pakistan. Reports claim that he admitted from jail to having met Shehzad Tanweer, one of the four London bombers.
One source close to the investigation also said that calls placed by Tanweer from his Leeds home appeared to lead to Muridke, a madrasa (religious school) near Lahore, which Tanweer may have visited during his Pakistan trips.
Although British authorities are making much of the visits by the bombers to Pakistan, the Pakistan government and security services are playing down the significance of the short time they spent there.
Akram said that even if Tanweer and his accomplices had visited Pakistan, they had not been there long enough to be turned into bombers by al-Qaeda or at the madrasas.
In an interview yesterday on the BBC’s The World This Weekend, Akram said: ”Brainwashing is a long process. You cannot brainwash somebody instantly, unless he is inclined to be brainwashed. Rather, it was the years spent in Britain that transformed them into the UK’s first suicide bombers.
”They were born in Britain, bred there, lived there, were by all accounts British lads. What motivated British lads to do this? It is not because their blood was from Pakistan. Whatever angst they had was a result of living in Britain.”
He said: ”You have to look at … what you are doing to the Muslim community and why the Muslim community is not integrating in British society.”
The British Foreign Office declined to be drawn on the issue. But Hilary Benn, the international development secretary, rejected the idea that all of the bombers had not been integrated into society. He pointed out that Mohammad Sidique Khan, had been a popular teacher.
Relations between Britain and Pakistan have been mixed, reaching a low point when Pervez Musharraf, the military leader, took power in a coup. His help to the United States in the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 encouraged the British government to restore relations.
On Sunday night Pakistani investigators were questioning a businessman after British police passed on telephone records of three of the suspected bombers to the authorities there. The number of the businessman, who has not been named, was found in one of the suspect’s records, officials said. However, a source said the businessman was a friend of Tanweer’s father.
Tanweer travelled to Pakistan in late 2003 and returned for a longer trip last year. According to investigators, he met Nazir — an alleged expert bomb-maker who acquired expertise in an Afghan training camp — during his first trip. Nazir was allegedly responsible for a series of bomb attacks in Pakistan after the US attack on Afghanistan in 2001.
Police arrested him last November, almost a year after his first apparent meeting with Tanweer. Pakistan terrorism experts suggest that Nazir was unlikely to have played the role of spiritual mentor for the young British Muslim, but could have given him advice on bomb-making.
The Pakistani authorities have arrested at least 10 suspected militants in several cities, including Faisalabad, where Tanweer allegedly met Nazir, and Lahore. On Sunday, however, the man leading the Pakistani investigation into the London bombings, Javed Iqbal Cheema, head of the interior ministry’s crisis management group, said: ”There is no connection with the London bombers. But we are cooperating closely with the British government.”
Asked if he could confirm Nazir had met Tanweer in 2003, he replied: ”It would be premature to say anything.”
British counter-terrorism experts already based at the British high commission in Islamabad are liaising with their Pakistani counterparts from the ISI, the country’s military intelligence agency. – Guardian Unlimited Â