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Flights Of Fancy

by | 9th, August 2004

‘IF you’ve got a picture of Gordon Brown on your computer, now might be the best time to delete it – the security forces frown upon such things.

Terrorist Target magazine’s Mr August

Muhammed Naeem Noor Khan must wish that he hadn’t found the Chancellor so fiendishly attractive and instead downloaded a photo of Anthea Turner or Osama bin Laden for his screen saver.

But hindsight is a wonderful thing, and the Guardian reports that at the time of Khan’s arrest in Lahore, Pakistan, last month he did indeed have a photo of the Chancellor on his PC.

What he was doing with such a snapshot on his computer is open to debate. But we can make a safe guess that it was being used for something less than wholesome.

It was seized by the US authorities along with 51 discs, on which are contained such things as photos of public and private heliports, helicopter controls, helicopter doors and helicopter cockpits.

It could be that Khan and his gang were using the helicopters to cover up their deeply sensual appreciation of Mr Brown – employing the helicopter shots in much the same way that a copy of Aviation Monthly can be wrapped around a top-shelf title.

Or it could all point to something yet more terrible. But if it does, the Independent says that David Blunkett is not telling.

The Home Secretary’s reluctance to tell us more about Khan’s computers and the 12 suspects who were recently arrested in the UK – and are currently being questioned about their possible links to terror – seems odd to the Conservatives.

David Davis, the shadow Home Secretary, says: “For the Government to suggest they cannot tell us about the security risks or the level of terrorist threats without giving the public confidential information is pure rubbish.”

Not so, says Blunkett, who penned his response to such accusations in yesterday’s Observer.

In it, Blunkett writes how he has not said more because speaking would only be feeding the media in “a slack news period”.

“Is that really the job of a senior cabinet minister in charge of counter-terrorism?” he asks. “To feed the media? To increase concern? To have something to say, whatever it is, to satisfy the insatiable desire to hear somebody say something?“

Before we can all really consider his article, he tells us the answer: “Of course not. This is arrant nonsense.”

So let’s not worry – no news is good news. And read in the Times that when Tony Blair arrives in Italy from Barbados next week, he’ll be jetting into a country “in the grip of near hysteria”.

Apparently, the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigade, a group linked to al-Qaeda, have warned that they will unleash “unimaginable hell” on Italy unless Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi withdraws Italy’s 3,000 troops from Iraq by August 15 – the date of the Ferragosto festival.

Perhaps if this vile threat is made horribly real, Blunkett will then tell us more. Only, the danger is that his bulletin will be buried on a day when the papers are to busy to notice.’



Posted: 9th, August 2004 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink