Conflict Blotter

I’m in Amman on something of a fishing expedition for information connected to last Saturday’s London/Glasgow bungled terror attacks. There are still way more questions than answers and everyone is racing to try to piece together what happened, who was involved, how they were connected, etc.

The big unanswered question is where the center of gravity in this attack lays. Who was the mastermind? I’ve heard indirectly since arriving in Amman a few hours ago that intelligence officials here say direction came from Iraq.

British and US intelligence officials seem to be harboring similar suspicions.
The NY Times has this:

Officials in Washington said that one angle investigators are pursuing is the possibility that the attacks in Britain had their origins not in Pakistan’s tribal areas, where most large-scale Al Qaeda attacks are believed to be hatched, but inside Iraq.

LA Times reports:

Some British investigators believe the group behind the bombs had a link to or contact with extremist networks in the Iraq region, said a European anti-terrorism official in touch with British counterparts. The British investigators suspect that at least some of the doctors received direction and possibly training from a network such as Al Qaeda groups operating in Iraq, Syria and neighboring countries, the anti-terrorism official said.

“Scotland Yard think they got orders from Iraq,” said the official, who asked to remain anonymous because of the investigation. “I personally think they were recruited and manipulated by people in the Iraq region. But it’s too early to say.”

Writes the Scotsman:

It is understood that British intelligence is searching for links with Ansar al-Islam, a militant group based in northern Iraq and loosely linked to al-Qaeda, who have previously operated in Britain.

Bilal Abdullah, the Baghdad schooled doctor in the passenger seat of the Jeep Cherokee that rammed into Glasgow airport, seems so far to be the most outwardly radicalized suspect. He reportedly broke crucifixes in his Baghdad high school and was about to be reprimanded at the hospital where he worked for browsing Arabic Web sites. The Guardian reported his mother feared to take off her hijab in his presence. Bilal’s reportedly had ties to Mohammad Asha’s family in Amman, but Asha’s brother and father emphatically denied having heard of Bilal or his family when I met with them tonight.