US intelligence officials warned Britain that the alleged leader of the July 7 suicide bombings in London had been in touch with extremists who were plotting to blow up synagogues in the United States, a new book claims.
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The One Per cent Doctrine by Ron Suskind says Sidique Khan, of the four suicide bombers who killed 52 people in London, was banned from flying to the United States in 2003, according to excerpts of the book published Monday in The Times newspaper.
The book says Dan Coleman, who led the US Federal Bureau of Investigation's probe of al-Qaida, had seen files reporting Khan's telephone and e-mail contacts with U.S.-based militants beginning in 2002.
A report released last month by the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee said there had been a missed opportunity to investigate Khan in two British intelligence operations in 2003 and 2004.
In contact with person who plotted to assassinate Bush
The report said Khan and a second London bomber, Shezad Tanweer, were "on the peripheries" of an "important and substantial" inquiry into another plot in 2004. But authorities believed they were trying to raise money for radicals - rather than training for an attack.
"As there were more pressing priorities at the time, including the need to disrupt known plans to attack the UK, it was decided not to investigate them further or seek to identify them," the report said.
Suskind's book says Khan made at least two trips to the United States in connection with a plot to attack synagogues, and that the US Central Intelligence Agency shared its information with British intelligence.
E-mails intercepted by the US National Security Agency showed Khan was in contact with Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, who was sentenced to 30 years in prison in the United States in March after being convicted of plotting to assassinate US President George W. Bush, conspiring to hijack aircraft and providing support to al-Qaeda.
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