From: Robert Stuart

Sent: Thu 17/08/2017 16:14

To: emily.thornberry.mp@parliament.uk

Subject: BBC Panorama team embedded with jihadi group co-founded by senior bin Laden courier

Dear Emily

I have been researching the BBC Panorama programme Saving Syria’s Children since it was broadcast in September 2013.

It was recently noted that a vehicle in the convoy transporting BBC reporter Ian Pannell and cameraman Darren Conway bore the logo of Salafist jihadi group Ahrar al-Sham. I have written about the matter, including images and full references, here.

In December 2013 The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) reported that a “leading figure” in Ahrar al-Sham (its co-founder according to Stanford University) was Abu Khalid al-Suri, real name Mohamed Bahaiah. The FDD report observes that Spanish authorities had identified Bahaiah as Osama bin Laden’s “chief courier between Europe and Afghanistan” and “think he may have delivered surveillance tapes of the World Trade Center and other American landmarks to al Qaeda’s senior leadership in Afghanistan in early 1998.”

According to Human Rights Watch Ahrar al-Sham was, along with groups including Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, one of “the key fundraisers, organizers, planners, and executors” of an attack in the Latakia countryside on 4 August 2013 in which at least 190 civilians were killed and over 200 – “the vast majority women and children” – were kidnapped. Filming for Saving Syria’s Children commenced on 23 August 2013, less than three weeks later.