The London Attacks and an Oregon Ranch

Picture credit: Seattle Times
Haroon Rashid Aswat was arrested two days ago in a madrassa in Pakistan. He was armed with several firearms, an explosives belt, and was carrying around $30,000 in cash. Aside from that, he carried nothing suspicious on his person. He also held a British passport and was caught before an apparent attempt to escape into Afghanistan. One of the London train bombers -- Mohammad Sidique Khan -- placed a phone call to Aswat on the morning of the attack.

British al-Qaeda leader [Haroon Rashid Aswat was] linked to the London terrorist attacks [and] was being questioned by police in Pakistan last night after the discovery of mobile phone records detailing his calls with the suicide bombers... ...He spoke to the suicide team on his mobile phone a few hours before the four men blew themselves up and killed fifty-two other people. Intelligence sources told The Times that during his stay Aswat visited the home towns of all four bombers as well as selecting targets in London... ...Aswat is believed to have had a ten-year association with militant groups and met Osama bin Laden while attending an al-Qaeda training camp at Khalden in Afghanistan.

Whaa....? How can that be? Wasn't this all caused by the invasion of Iraq? What the...?

The Seattle Times outlines some interesting U.S. connections for Aswat. In 2000, he tried to establish a terrorist training camp. In Oregon.

A suspect in the London bombings lived in a Central Seattle mosque in early 2000 after he had scouted out a possible terrorist training camp in Bly, Ore... Aswat came to the Northwest in 1999 when James Ujaama, a former Seattle activist, tried to set up a jihad training camp in rural Oregon. Ujaama was based in London, where he had become a follower of radical cleric Abu Hamza, an al-Qaida supporter. Abu Hamza sent Aswat to the United States to check out Ujaama's plans, authorities said... ...During that time, Aswat... "met potential candidates for jihad training, they established security for the Bly property through the use of guard patrols and passwords, and they and others participated in firearms training and viewed a video recording on the subject of improvised poisons," according to an indictment of Ujaama...

Once again, this report cannot possibly be correct because all of these activities predate the invasion of Iraq. And, based upon what the Left tells us, all of the recent fuss was caused by the invasion.

You can either believe the Left or you can believe in fairy tales. I, for one, prefer Mother Goose stories. Immerse yourself in the spa of wisdom and read all of the articles:

Times Online: Top al-Qaeda Briton called Tube bombers before attack
Seattle Times: London bomb suspect lived at Seattle mosque
Michelle Malkin: The FBI and the Left