Chilling video message from London bomber
The man believed to be the ringleader of the July 7th terror attacks has appeared on a video claiming the bombings were directly related to British foreign policy.
The Edgware Road bomber, Mohammad Sidique Khan, appeared on a videotape broadcast by Arabic-language TV channel al-Jazeera on Thursday night.
On the tape, the 30-year-old from Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, points the blame for the attacks directly at the British people – for electing a government that committed “atrocities” against Muslims across the world.
The chilling message came on the same day that Tory leadership hopeful Ken Clarke delivered a speech criticising the government’s role in Iraq, claming the invasion had made Britain “one of the foremost targets for Islamic extremists”.
Speaking with a distinct Yorkshire accent and wearing a red-and-white checked “keffiyeh”, Khan said: “We are at war and I am a soldier. Now you too will taste the reality of this situation.”
“Your democratically elected governments continuously perpetuate atrocities against my people and your support of them makes you directly responsible, just as I am directly responsible for protecting and avenging my Muslim brothers and sisters,” he coolly stated.
“Our words are dead until we give them life with our blood.”
The al-Jazeera broadcast is the first explicit claim of responsibility for the blasts.
On the same tape, a representative of al-Qaida implied the terror network was responsible for the July bombings in London, which killed 52 people and left 700 injured.
Khan – the suspected ringleader of the London bombers – killed six people on a Circle line train at Edgware Road.
He and his accomplices, Hasib Hussain, 18, Shehzad Tanweer, 22, and Germaine Lindsay, 19, blew up their deadly load on three separate tube trains and a bus on July 7th.
The tape also included comments from bin Laden’s purported deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri.
Al-Zawahri said the attacks were a direct response to the UK’s foreign policy in the Middle East and the rejection of the “truce” al-Qaida offered Europe in April 2004.
Scotland Yard said it would study the tape.
