Arsenal fan Osama sought asylum in Britain

[lightstalker]

Daniel McGrory
September 30, 2005

Hmmm..so old Bin' was a gunners fan eh?...

HE claims to hate everything the West stands for. But it has emerged that Osama bin Laden sought asylum in Britain even as he was planning the September 11 attacks on the US.

The al-Qa'ida leader wanted to abandon his base in Sudan at the end of 1995 and asked some of his followers in London to sound out whether he would be able to move to Britain.

Then British home secretary Michael Howard recalls how his aides told him of the asylum request from the Saudi-born militant, of whom the world knew little 10 years ago.

Some of his brothers and other relatives, all members of the wealthy bin Laden construction empire, owned properties in London by the mid-1990s. The teenage bin Laden had reportedly toured Europe with his family and became an Arsenal fan.

The astonishing approach to the British authorities happened only months after bin Laden had secretly organised a terror summit in Manila in January 1995 to begin planning how hijackers would turn passenger planes into flying bombs.

By this time bin Laden had also transferred money to London for his followers to establish terror cells there and across Europe.

His name rarely appeared in the British media, even though by late 1995 his network had bombed US Army bases abroad and plotted assassination attempts against pope John Paul II and US president Bill Clinton.

Ramzi Yousef, the terrorist serving a life sentence in the US over the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing, crafted a plot to assassinate the pope in 1995 during his trip to The Philippines on the way to Australia. This attempt, funded by bin Laden through his brother-in-law Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, never got as far as a shot being fired. But police found that Yousef had stocked up on priestly costumes and rented an apartment with a view of the pope's parade route.

Mr Howard said yesterday: "In truth, I knew little about him, but we picked up information that bin Laden was very interested in coming to Britain." It was apparently a serious request.

"He already had people operating here, and who knows how history could have been rewritten if he had turned up here?"

Bin Laden never got a chance to make a formal application as Home Office officials investigated him and Mr Howard issued an immediate ban under Britain's immigration laws.

It was not until June 1998 - two months before attacks on US embassies in Africa - that bin Laden was placed on the FBI's most-wanted list. Mr Howard said: "If he had come here to plot the attacks on the twin towers and the US had subsequently asked for his extradition, then by then, under the Labour Government's laws, he could not have been sent because they refuse to extradite to a country which has the death penalty."

Bin Laden had, according to Home Office officials, used Saudi businessman Khaled al-Fawwaz to sound out his chances of moving to Britain. Fawwaz, 41, was described by security chiefs as bin Laden's "de facto ambassador" in Britain.

The CIA and MI6 first came across the former civil engineer in the 1980s, when he fought with the mujaheddin after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Bin Laden had returned to Saudi Arabia in 1989 to supposedly work in the family construction empire, but by 1991 he was under house arrest in Jeddah because of his opposition to the royal family.

In 1991 he fled to Afghanistan and then to Khartoum, where a fundamentalist Islamic regime had come to power. He lived there for five years until Sudan expelled him under pressure from the US, and he slipped back to Afghanistan.

[flipflop]

The teenage bin Laden had reportedly toured Europe with his family and became an Arsenal fan.

This proves he TOTALLY detests Israel and Jews, Arsenal are the arch enemies of Tottenham Hotspur in north London. Tottenham have such a large Jewish fanbase they are nicknamed the "Yiddoes"

Well, its a good job he took his hate crime elsewhere....

[coldharvest]

[flipflop]

[Buzzsaw]

[lightstalker]

Heres Bin' with 22 of his brothers and sisters in Sweeden while still at school..maybe hes got a swedish jersey as well?..

[britneyfan97]

ok, they've had a shit season(s) but i love 'em and will probably be at the game on the 8th.

[Mikethehack]

Osama a fan of Arsenal. I like it.
Even better that their nickname is 'The Gunners'. Wonder if they will have a new mascot with an AK-toting cuddly Osama-toy prancing around the pitch at half time.
As for Spurs, well I heard that the nickname for Jaguars (cars) in North London is the 'Jew canoe'.
Anyway,I'm off to get ready for my newest DP scenario:
Football turns religious (this is old hat in Northern Ireland and Scotland btw, hell, we even threw grenades at some games) as Ultra Orthodox Spurs fans and turbaned Arsenal casuals battle it out bedecked in their religious finest.
Football needs more minorities anyway.

[flipflop]

BFC "Spot The Ball" contest.........