Former Republican Senator Rick Santorum made the grand crusade against “Islamic fascism” the central focus of his unsuccessful 2006 re-election effort.
On numerous occasions the preening Keystone State solon – who couldn’t glance at a mirror without seeing Churchill’s bulldog demeanor glowering back at him – insisted that it was the “destiny” of “this generation” to fight an apocalyptic war against radical Islam. Unlike his more equivocal comrades in the Republican branch of the War Party, Santorum made it clear that his preferred “exit strategy” for Iraq would be to invade (or at least bomb) Iran.
A terror suspect involved in bomb attacks on London and Glasgow was a known associate of a senior al-Qaeda figure caught plotting to blow up passenger jets four years ago. Kafeel Ahmed, an Indian doctor, knew one of the terror group’s most high-profile bomb makers in Europe, according to senior security sources.
Ahmed, 27, who remains critically ill in hospital after the failed car bomb attack last weekend on Glasgow Airport, was involved with convicted terrorist Abbas Boutrab when he was planning to target airliners.
He met Boutrab in Belfast while studying for a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering at Queen’s University between 2001 and 2004. The disclosure will raise fresh questions over the extent of information held by MI5 on suspects involved in the attempted car bomb attacks on London and Glasgow.
A secret military operation in early 2005 to capture senior members of Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas was aborted at the last minute after top Bush administration officials decided it was too risky and could jeopardize relations with Pakistan, according to intelligence and military officials.
The target was a meeting of Qaeda leaders that intelligence officials thought included Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden’s top deputy and the man believed to run the terrorist group’s operations.
But the mission was called off after Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, rejected an 11th-hour appeal by Porter J. Goss, then the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, officials said. Members of a Navy Seals unit in parachute gear had already boarded C-130 cargo planes in Afghanistan when the mission was canceled, said a former senior intelligence official involved in the planning.
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