Britain will not give one inch to terrorists, vows defiant Blair

BRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair said yesterday that Britain would not “give one inch” to terrorists on his policy on Iraq and the Middle East.

Meanwhile police said two suspects in last week’s failed bombings were immigrants from Somalia and Eritrea.

Mr Blair made his comments after a rare meeting with opposition party leaders to discuss new anti-terror legislation aimed at preventing a repeat of the July 7 suicide bombings that killed 56 people, including four attackers.

The opposition, however, had reservations about increasing the time to hold such suspects, saying it could erode civil liberties.

At his monthly news conference, Mr Blair said the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US were for him a “wake up call” about the nature of the threat from Islamic terrorism.

He warned that too many around the world had taken notice for a short time and then “turned over and went back to sleep again”.

“London is being tested but standing firm,” Mr Blair said.

Asked whether the British-backed and US-led invasion of Iraq had fuelled terrorist attacks around the world and in London, Mr Blair said “there was no excuse or justification” for their actions of the bombers.

“Whatever excuse or justification these people use, I do not believe we should give one inch to them, not in this country and the way we live our lives here, not in Iraq, not in Afghanistan, not in our support for two states, Israel and Palestine, not in our support for the alliances we choose including with America. Not one inch should we give to these people,” he said.

“September 11 for me was a wake-up call,” he said. “Do you know what I think the problem is? A lot of the world woke up for a short time and then turned over and went back to sleep again.”

The Home Office said one of the suspects in the July 21 bombings, Yasin Hassan Omar, 24, had arrived in Britain in 1992 from Somalia. He is suspected of trying to blow up a subway train near Warren Street station.

Muktar Said Ibrahim, also known as Muktar Mohammed Said, 27, who is suspected of trying to bomb a bus, is a naturalised British citizen who arrived from Eritrea in 1992.

Detectives now fear there were five would-be suicide attackers on July 21.

As well as the devices found on the number 26 bus and the Tube train at Warren Street there were defective bombs on trains at Shepherd’s Bush and Oval.

The fifth bomb was dumped on open ground at Little Wormwood Scrubs, west London, suggesting that the final member of the suicide team may have lost his nerve. Detectives have no evidence they have left the country and believe they may all be hiding in a safe house in the capital.

There have been no publicly confirmed sightings of the four bombers, who were captured on CCTV, since 1.05pm last Thursday when Ibrahim was seen getting off the 26 bus he had tried to blow up in Hackney Road, east London.

Police explosives experts were examining suspicious material found in a north London apartment connected to both Omar and Ibrahim, and a police spokeswoman said a car had been impounded nearby.

A spokeswoman for the London borough of Enfield Council, said that Omar had been the registered tenant in the apartment since 1999, receiving £75 (109) a week in housing benefits until May. Police also were questioning five people arrested in connection with the July 21 attacks. The bombs, which failed to fully detonate, were stored in clear plastic food containers and put into dark-colored bags or backpacks.

Peter Clarke, head of the Metropolitan Police anti-terrorist squad, said those four bombs were similar to another found abandoned in a park Saturday, raising fears a fifth bomber was on the loose. After meeting with Mr Blair, opposition leaders said they did not believe they would have to reconvene Parliament in summer, instead of October as planned, to discuss new terrorism legislation.

The proposals under discussion would outlaw “indirect incitement” of terrorism, including praising those who carry out attacks, to counter extremist Islamist clerics accused of radicalising disaffected Muslim youth in Britain.

The law also would make it illegal to receive training in terrorist techniques in Britain or abroad, or to plan an attack and activities such as acquiring bomb-making instructions on the internet.