LONDON - As British security agencies are facing a nightmarish new threat in the wake of last week's self-bombing in Israel by two Britons in Israel, a leading Islamic leader said on Sunday, May 4, there are still other 50 ready to stage similar attacks

"The number is getting close to 50," said Hassan Butt, who in the past has spoken on behalf of al-Muhajiroun, who was described by The Sunday Times as a leading Islamic cleric here.

Butt said he believed "about 20" of them "were absolutely serious" about blowing themselves up in Israel.

British anti-terrorist police have arrested six people in relation to last week's bomb attack in Israel in which one British Muslim rammed himself into a Tel Aviv night club, killing three people and injuring dozen others while the other would-be bomber was on the run after as his explosive belt failed to set off.

The attack came few days before Israeli occupation forces gunned down James Miller, a freelance British television journalist while filming demolition of Palestinian houses in the southern town of Rafah in the Gaza Strip.



Following the Wednesday attack, the first in which British citizens are involved against Israeli targets, British security agencies are facing a nightmarish new threat as sources close to British Interior ministry, MI5 and Special Branch, admit that the pair of attackers were unknown to both agencies. Nor do they know how many other disaffected British Muslims might be prepared to carry out attacks in the Jewish state.

The fear is that if the two attackers had chosen a target in Britain, they would have gone undetected, the Independent said.

A man was arrested in London on Saturday, May 3, joining two men and two women arrested late Friday, May 2, in the central county of Derbyshire and one woman arrested in the nearby county of Nottinghamshire.

Newspapers here said those detained were relatives of the two bombing suspects, although police refused to confirm this.

All six were arrested under section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000 which relates to those suspected of being involved in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.

Furthermore, British security chiefs knew that the two Britons were connected to Islamic “extremists”, but decided they were not potential terrorists, the London newspaper Daily Telegraph said.

MI5 officers investigating terrorism activities did not place the two British suspects under constant surveillance because it was believed they were only on the fringes of al-Muhajiroun, a radical organisation based in Britain which had hailed Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network as a hero.

Security services knew for several years that Omar Khan Sharif, the escaped would-be self-bomber, was attending al-Muhajiroun meetings in his home town of Derby, central England, as well as group meetings in west London, MI5 officers told the Telegraph.

They said Sharif was also connected to the Finsbury Park mosque in north London -- the target in January 2003 of a major police raid that followed the discovery of traces of ricin, a deadly toxin, in a flat elsewhere in the capital.



In another related development, leaflets published in Britain urging Muslims to become self-bombers have been found in long-occupied Palestinian territories. The discovery fuels fears that Britain has become a haven for extremists.

Now Israeli authorities have demanded that Britain launch an immediate investigation into al-Sunnah, the organization based at Birmingham's Centre for Islamic Studies, which published the leaflets, The Observer said.

One leaflet published just before the outbreak of war against Iraq on March 20 urges Muslims to become martyrs in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine. Supporters are asked to send donations to a bank account at one of its branches in Birmingham.

The al-Sunnah group is known for its hard-core stance over the occupation of Palestine and the involvement of Western governments in the support of Israel. However, the organization has had a generally low profile in Britain - until now, added the British daily.

Al-Sunnah publishes books, leaflets and a monthly magazine that is distributed across the Muslim world including the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza strip.

“When this sudden explosion of American-Zionist violence is aiming to eradicate a nation's existence, eliminating its vitality and sites of resistance, the only way to protect this nation is through acts of martyrdom,” read one leaflet.

The Centre for Islamic Studies refused to comment.

Peace activists from the International Solidarity Movement came under renewed pressure to leave the occupied territories on Saturday after allegations that the British bombers had attended an ISM memorial on Friday, April 25, in honor of Rachel Corrie, an activist killed by Israeli forces. ISM last night said activists Hanif and Sharif appeared to be 'typical Brits'.

Corrie, 23, died when a military bulldozer ran over her in the town of Rafah, few weeks before Thomas Hurndall, a 21-year-old British activist, was pronounced clinically dead after being hit in the head and critically wounded by Israeli sniper fire in Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell announced that Syria had begun closing the offices of what he called anti-Israeli groups in Damascus, where it is thought the two British bombers may have been recruited.

But Palestinian groups said that they would not give up resistance acts until Israel’s occupation of their land and continued aggressions against innocent Palestinians stop.