London bomber says motivated by Iraq war, not religion

A would-be London bomber arrested by Italian police has told investigators that he and three fellows were motivated by the Iraq war and not by religious fervor, denying any link to Al-Qaeda network.

“We met each other at a muscle-building class in Notting Hill and Muktar (Said Ibrahim) showed us some DVDs with images of the war in Iraq, especially women and children killed by American and British soldiers,” Osman Hussain, suspected of attempting to blow up commuters in west London on July 21, was quoted as saying by Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper Sunday, July 31.

Hussain said films on the atrocities committed by US and British occupation soldiers in Iraq helped to foster the group’s “political conviction that it is necessary to give a signal, to do something.”

The Italian Interior Ministry confirmed that the quotes from Hussain’s interrogation in La Repubblica were authentic but declined to comment on the source of the leaks, reported the Independent Sunday.

Islam Online, 31 July 2005