Region | Syria
Regime releases London bombings' mastermind
Alleged Al Qaida operative let out as a warning to US and Britain
- By Jason Lewis
- Published: 00:00 February 6, 2012
London: The alleged terrorist mastermind behind the July 7 London bombings is reported to have been freed from a Syrian jail by President Bashar Al Assad's regime.
Abu Musab Al Suri had been held in Syria for six years after being captured by the CIA in 2005 and transported to the country of his birth under its controversial extraordinary rendition programme.
But he is now said to have been released as a warning to the US and Britain about the consequences of turning their backs on Al Assad's regime as it tries to contain the uprising in the country.
Al Suri, also known as Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, was Al Qaida's operations chief in Europe and has been accused of planning the London bombings, in which four British-born terrorists detonated three bombs on the Underground and another on a bus, killing 52 people and injuring more than 700 others in 2005.
His wife Helena lives in Qatar with Al Suri's four children. She said: "I have not heard anything official or unofficial since my husband disappeared in 2004.
"I hope that one day we will be together again."
— The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2012
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