Die Serie "London Bombing" ist eine Sammlung relevanter Artikel und Nachrichten aus verschiedenen Quellen. Das hier veröffentlichte Material dient als Grundlage weiterer Diskussionen und Vertiefung in die Bombenanschläge in London. Die Serie besteht aus vier Teilen und steht mit dem letzten Teil als PDF Datei zum Download zur Verfügung.

► UK Intelligence in the Spotlight
► Scotland Yard Alerted Israel
► London Bombs - Berlusconi
► Israel Was Warned
► Netanyahu Changed Plans
► Timers Used in Blasts
► How Europe Is Trying
► Multitude of Suspects
► Sleeper Cell or Home Grown?
► Terror Alert Downgraded
► London Bombs Tied to Madrid
► Terrorism Expert Analyzes
► Israel Warned
► British Seek Moroccan Man
► Change in Al Qaeda’s Strategy?

UK INTELLIGENCE IN SPOTLIGHT OVER LONDON BOMBS
► Reuters / by Mark Trevelyan, aAdditional reporting by Jon Boyle in Paris
► Yahoo News
► CCISS / by Martin Rudner /

Jul 8 2005 ► Jul 8. The bombers who spread death and chaos across London's transport network slipped under the radar of police and intelligence services who said there was no advance warning of the capital's worst militant attack.
Security analysts said it was far too early to apportion blame to the intelligence community over an operation that some suspected was the work of a small, autonomous group of local militants inspired by al Qaeda.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke confirmed media reports that intelligence chiefs had reduced the threat level from al Qaeda from "severe - general" to "substantial" as recently as last month following Britain's general election. But he said even if the alert level had been higher, it was unlikely the bombers could have been stopped.

"At the end of the day we are looking for needles in a very large haystack, the city of London," Clarke said.
"We're obviously looking very, very carefully at all our intelligence to see whether anything was missed, but in fact we don't believe anything was missed and it simply came out of the blue."

But Anthony Glees, an intelligence specialist at Brunel University, said questions would be asked as to why the threat level was reduced shortly before Britain was due to host a Group of Eight summit of the world's most powerful leaders.

"They did downgrade the threat even though it was objectively quite clearly a time of heightened political interest. I think questions will be asked about it," he said.
At least 37 people were killed as explosions ripped apart three underground trains and a bus on Thursday morning, just as G8 leaders were getting down to summit business in Scotland.

INTELLIGENCE REFORM
Britain has reformed its security structures to wage the war on terrorism, creating a new body -- the Joint Terrorism Analysis Center -- to bring together the domestic, foreign and military intelligence services, the GCHQ communications interception center and the police. Spain and Australia are among countries that have adopted similar models.

In common with other European nations, British officials have been expressing increasing concern about the threat from home-grown militants, acting autonomously and without traceable links to known suspects.
Home Office Minister Hazel Blears told a conference earlier this year that the previous focus on a threat from foreign nationals had given way to awareness of a "growing engagement in terrorism from British citizens as well."
Small cells that do not rely on financial or technical support or orders from outside are harder to intercept using the kinds of measures that authorities have emphasized since the Sept. 11 attacks, such as closer scrutiny of money transfers and tighter immigration and border controls.
"If you have people who are very prudent about contact, who communicate little, who avoid traveling to Iraq or Afghanistan or Pakistan, who avoid frequenting mosques which are too closely watched, those kind of people have every chance of slipping through the net," said security analyst Claude Moniquet.

He said the type of operation carried out in London required local knowledge: "This is not something that could be done by someone who arrived from abroad a month ago. It's clearly an attack prepared quite some time ago by people on the spot."

It was the third recent occasion that European intelligence services had been caught by surprise, following last year's Madrid bombings and the murder of a Dutch film-maker by a suspected Islamic radical last November.
Although most of the Madrid suspects were foreign nationals, especially from Morocco, they were living in Spain and apparently did not rely significantly on logistical support, cash or instructions from abroad.
In the Netherlands, the accused killer of film-maker Theo van Gogh was linked to a radical Islamist group, again of mainly Moroccan descent. But the cell appeared to operate as a self-contained unit, not part of a Europe-wide militant network.

"To combat the groups you either need to turn a member, which is time consuming and difficult, or penetrate the group," said Eric Denece, head of the French Intelligence Research Center.

"The people we're confronting have time on their side. They will try 20 times, 30 times, in 99 percent of the cases we'll succeed in preventing their operations. But there will always be one that slips through the net."

ISRAEL OFFICIAL:SCOTLAND YARD ALERTED ISRAEL PRE-BLAST
► AP
► Dow Jones Newswires
► Spy News newsletter and discussion list / by Mario Profaca

Jul 8 2005 ► Jul 7. British police told the Israeli Embassy in London minutes before Thursday's explosions that they had received warnings of possible terror attacks in the city, a senior Israeli official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the nature of his position.

Israel was holding an economic conference near the scene of one of the explosions. Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was supposed to attend, but the attacks occurred before he arrived.

Just before the blasts, Scotland Yard called the security officer at the Israeli Embassy and said warnings of possible attacks had been received, the official said. He did not say whether British police made any link to the economic conference.

Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said he wasn't aware of any Israeli casualties
The Israeli ambassador to London, Zvi Hefetz, said Thursday that the embassy was in a state of emergency following the explosions in London, with no one allowed to enter or leave.

Danny Biran, an Israeli Foreign Ministry official, said all phone lines to the embassy were down.
The ministry has set up a situation room to deal with hundreds of phone calls from concerned relatives. Thousands of Israelis are living in London or visiting the city at this time, Biran said.

Amir Gilad, a Netanyahu aide, told Israel Radio that Netanyahu's entourage was receiving updates all morning from British security officials, and "we have also asked to change our plans."

Netanyahu had been scheduled to stay in London until Sunday, but that could change, Gilad said.

LONDON BOMBS
Al-Qaeda Figure Warns Of Score To Settle With Berlusconi
► AKI

Jul 8 2005 ► Jul 8. One day after the attacks in London, a leading member of al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia has warned that they still have a score to settle with Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. The threat, signed by Lewis Atiyallah - well-known for his contributions to the Saudi al-Qaeda magazine Sawt Al-Jihad - comes in a document entitled: 'Blair, this is an epic war', published on the Internet on Friday.

It follows another statement on Thursday from a previously unknown group, the Secret Organisation Group of al-Qaeda of Jihad Organisation in Europe, which said it was behind the blast, and threatened both Italy and Denmark.
"Yes, Blair is right, it is an epic battle and not partial, as your American allies claim" Atiyallah's statement reads, "and if you want proof, look at the new weapon used by the mujahadeen in Iraq, who kidnap your children and Western followers." The message goes on to mention "when the mujahadeen kidnapped four Italians", referring to the four security guards kidnapped in Iraq in April 2004, one of whom, Fabrizio Quattrocchi, was killed by his captors.

"One of their [the kidnappers] requests was that Berlusconi should apologise for the violation of the rights of Islam and Muslims. This is an old debt that Berlusconi still hasn't paid: on that occasion the Iraqis decided to talk in the name of Islam and Muslims to make Berlusconi pay his debts for the blood of their children spilt by Italians. This is an example to show how the epic war and Iraqi situation will settle many scores."

While the four Italian security guards were being held hostage, via statements issued on the Internet the suspected kidnappers called on the Italian premier to apologise for his controversial comment following the September 11 attacks in America, that Western civilisation is superior to Islam.

"Without any help or prompting, or leadership and logistical support the mujahadeen carried out the plan fearlessly," Atiyallah also said in the statement, which hypothesises the war in Iraq as the reason for the London attacks. "The next [attack] to come will be worse," Atiyallah threatens, announcing that there will be "a huge explosion". He goes on to say, "The American generals consider the situation under control, while Tony Blair affirms that this is an epic battle: this is true and the moment has come to settle scores with the whole of the West over Iraq."

ISRAEL WAS WARNED AHEAD OF FIRST BLAST
► Arutz Sheva

Jul 8 2005 ► Jul 8. Army Radio quoting unconfirmed reliable sources reported a short time ago that Scotland Yard had intelligence warnings of the attacks a short time before they occurred.

The Israeli Embassy in London was notified in advance, resulting in Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu remaining in his hotel room rather than make his way to the hotel adjacent to the site of the first explosion, a Liverpool Street train station, where he was to address an economic summit.

At present, train and bus service in London have been suspended following the series of attacks. No terrorist organization has claimed responsibility at this time.
Israeli officials stress the advanced Scotland Yard warning does not in any way indicate Israel was the target in the series of apparent terror attacks

NETANYAHU CHANGED PLANS DUE TO PRE-ATTACKS WARNING
► Al Jazeera

Jul 8 2005 ► Jul 7. It's been reported that Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided not to attend an economic conference in London after the Israeli embassy received a pre-attack warning.

A top Israel foreign ministry official said that the British police informed the Israeli embassy in London of possible attacks minutes before Thursday's attacks.

Netanyahu was supposed to attend an economic conference in a hotel over the London subway stop where one of today's explosions took place, and the warning promoted him to change plans and stay in his hotel room instead, government officials said.

The foreign ministry official, who demanded anonymity, said that Scotland Yard called the security officer at the Israeli embassy and told him that they received warnings of possible attacks minutes before today's first blast.
But he didn’t say whether British police linked the attacks to the economic conference.

Israel's Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom denied that the embassy received any warnings, saying that only " There was no early information about terrorist attacks."
He also confirmed that Netanyahu had planned to attend the conference, but said that "after the first explosion our finance minister received a request not to go anywhere," Shalom said.

However, Amir Gilad, a Netanyahu aide, told Israel Radio that Netanyahu's entourage was receiving updates all morning from British security officials, and "we have also asked to change our plans."

Netanyahu had been scheduled to stay in London until Sunday, but that could change, Gilad said.

TIMERS USED IN BLASTS - PARALLELS TO MADRID ARE FOUND
► New York Times / by Don Van Natta Jr. and Elaine Sciolino

Jul 8 2005 ► Jul 7. Investigators searching for clues in the attacks here said Thursday that the three bombs used in the subway apparently were detonated by timers, not suicide bombers, and that a fourth device may have been intended for a target other than the city bus that it destroyed.
Senior police officials said they had not received a message claiming responsibility for the attacks from any group, and had made no arrests. But officials immediately drew parallels between the London bombings and the ones that struck commuter trains in Madrid 16 months ago, which were carried out by a Qaeda-inspired cell.

By Thursday night, there were far more questions than answers confronting Scotland Yard. One official said none of the scores of suspected terrorists being watched closely in England appeared to be involved.

Police and intelligence officials acknowledged that they were taken completely by surprise by the coordinated bombings, even though they had been anticipating a terrorist attack for years.

The officials said there was no warning or even a hint that an attack was imminent among the blizzard of intelligence accumulated in recent days by the Metropolitan Police and by MI5, the domestic intelligence services.

"There was no intelligence in our possession that these attacks were going to take place today," said Brian Paddick, deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. "We were given no warning from any organization that this was going to happen."

Since Sept. 11, 2001, senior police officials have warned that a large-scale terror attack in Britain was not a matter of if but when, a prediction repeated by a senior police official late last month.

The Joint Terrorist Analysis Center even reduced the threat level of a terrorist attack from "severe-general" to "substantial" early last month. There are seven levels to the security scale, with severe-general the third most severe and substantial the fourth.

The threat levels are not made public, but they reflect the intelligence on potential attacks and help officials to make decisions about staff levels. The alert level was not raised to coincide with the opening of the Group of 8 summit meeting in Scotland, officials said.

Mr. Paddick and other police officials denied that the lower ranking affected the level of the emergency response to the bombings on Thursday. He also rejected the suggestion that the ranking reflected a conclusion that the terrorist threat had eased here.

"We felt it was appropriate, bearing in mind all the intelligence that we were in possession of," he said. "We are content that the security system was appropriate, notwithstanding the G-8 summit that was happening in Scotland."

Michael Mates, a senior member of Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee, said, "There was certainly a heightened awareness this week, although it's likely that resources were a bit more focused on the G-8 summit."
Upon his return to London on Thursday afternoon, Prime Minister Tony Blair vowed that the authorities would mount "the most intense police and security investigation to bring those responsible to justice."

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the explosions bore "the hallmarks of an Al Qaeda-related attack," but police officials stopped short of assigning any blame to a particular group.
A group calling itself the Secret Organization of Al Qaeda in Europe announced on a Web site that it was responsible for the bombings. The announcement also threatened Italy and Denmark, which have provided troops to the American-led coalition fighting in Iraq.

The authenticity of the message could not be confirmed, and several experts said they strongly doubted that it was authentic.

American intelligence officials said they had begun a detailed review of data gathered in recent weeks to search for possible clues. "Everybody's going back and looking over their reporting to see if we overlooked anything or failed to share it," one senior intelligence official said.

Counterterrorism officials in London said they were still trying to determine the type of explosives that were used. One official speculated that the No. 30 bus whose roof was blown off at 9:47 a.m. in Bloomsbury was demolished accidentally by a suicide bomber. But another theory gaining momentum was that the bomb exploded prematurely as a bomber was carrying it to an intended target, several American and British counterterrorism officials said.
The officials said that the three subway bombs appeared to have been detonated by timers, not cellphones or other remote triggers. The bombs on the trains were believed to be package bombs and are believed to have been left by the attackers who fled before they went off.

Officials refused to confirm or deny reports that two unexploded package bombs were recovered from trains. A senior American intelligence official said the British had conducted "at least one controlled explosion" of a suspicious package found after the attacks, but he said he could not confirm that the package was another bomb.

The bombings in Madrid and London were separated by 16 months, and the ones in Madrid were set off by cell phones. But the attacks bear eerie similarities and grim lessons for counterterrorism officials.

"Madrid carried terror to the heart of Europe, but we never believed we would be a lonely, unique case," Jorge Dezcallar, who was the head of Spain's foreign intelligence service at the time of the Madrid attacks, said in a telephone interview. "We just had the bad luck of being chosen as the first target, but not the last. London, like Madrid, proves how vulnerable we are."

Like Madrid, the attacks on London were aimed not at symbols of power like Big Ben or Westminster Abbey but at the mundane: ordinary workers making their way to work at the busiest time of the day. In Madrid, 191 people were killed by the 10 bombs that ripped through four commuter trains during the morning rush hour.

The effect in both cities was to paralyze the ordinary workings of the city. British authorities announced that every inch of every subway train in London would be examined to insure that no more explosives had been planted, just as the Spanish authorities examined every commuter train.

"The explosions were designed to elicit panic among the people," Gen. Hamidou Laanigri, Morocco's chief of security, said in a telephone interview. "That is always the logic of terrorism: to get the maximum attention and impact."

Another similarity is that politics may have played a role in the timing. Thursday was the first day of the Group of 8 talks, led by Mr. Blair at Gleneagles, near Edinburgh. The bombings in Madrid came three days ahead of a close national election.

Both Spain and Britain sent troops to aid the American-led war in Iraq and the military attack in Afghanistan, although it is not known whether support for American foreign policies played a role in the London attack.

British and Spanish intelligence services are operating on the assumption that a network with allegiance to Al Qaeda, either Arabs or one of the emerging Pakistani groups in Europe, was responsible for the London attacks, several intelligence officials said.

"It is still too early to definitively say who carried out these attacks," said Matt Levitt, a former F.B.I. agent and now a senior fellow and director of terrorism studies at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "But as the investigation into the London bombings proceeds, authorities should not be surprised if the evidence reveals a more critical link to the Madrid attacks."

Senior counterterrorism officials say Al Qaeda had evolved from a structured, hierarchical group to a decentralized organization that relies on small independent groups to carry out "Al Qaeda-inspired attacks."

"There have been a lot of attempts" in London, said Baltasar Garzón, a Spanish judge who has investigated Al Qaeda for years. "And in this case, they finally hit some of the easiest targets with these trains. Their only real obstacle to this kind of action is getting the explosives. Once they have them, it's very easy to attack targets like Sunday trains."
Mr. Mates, of the Intelligence and Security Committee, said it had been only a matter of time before a coordinated attack struck London. He said the authorities had thwarted at least three coordinated attacks in London since 9/11. "We've caught and prevented those who were trying to get through and stopped them," he said.

Britain has considerable experience investigating bombs and identifying those responsible, based on years of attacks in London and in Northern Ireland by the Irish Republican Army.

Since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Osama bin Laden and other groups have threatened to attack Britain in retaliation for its support of the United States. Last April, Mr. bin Laden demanded that Britain and other American allies pull out of Iraq by July 15, 2004. The deadline passed without incident.

Counterterrorism officials have said they worried that the prime target was the 142-year-old Underground, the world's busiest subway system, which ferries three million people each day. The subway and most public streets are monitored by a vast network of closed-circuit television cameras, whose images were being reviewed Thursday by investigators.

Officials said they were confident that the forensic investigation collected at the four sites would yield clues that might help them identify and arrest those responsible for the attacks. They also hoped to recover DNA samples from bombs and body fragments. All those arrested in Britain must provide DNA samples even if they do not face criminal charges.

HOW EUROPE IS TRYING TO BATTLE ONGOING THREAT
► The Christian Science Monitor / by Peter Ford [ and Dan Murphy, Cairo]

Jul 8 2005 ► Jul 8. For several years, the British prime minister and senior officials of his police force had been warning that a terrorist attack on London was "inevitable."
On Thursday, the "inevitable" struck, killing at least 33 people and wounding 360. Sixteen months after similar bombs killed 191 commuters in Madrid, London appeared also to be paying the price for Britain's alliance with the United States in Iraq.

"London is the capital of one of the oldest imperial powers, and of one of the powers that invaded Iraq," says Joachim Krause, a terrorism expert at Kiel University in Germany. "There seem to be many reasons to target it."

An unverified claim of responsibility for the four deadly blasts from the "Secret Organization Group of Al Qaeda of Jihad Organization in Europe" called the attack "revenge against the British Zionist crusader government in retaliation for the massacres Britain is committing in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Mr. Blair responded that "our determination to defend our values and our way of life is greater than their determination to cause death and destruction to innocent people in a desire to impose extremism on the world."
"The international intelligence community has been talking for some time about potential blowback from the Iraqi conflict," says Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism expert at St. Andrews University in Scotland.

"The French say they know of about 100 of their people who have traveled to Iraq, and 70 or 80 British nationals are thought to have been there," he adds.

The claim of responsibility, posted on a jihadist website, warned "the governments of Denmark and Italy and all the crusader governments that they will be punished in the same way if they do not withdraw their troops from Iraq and Afghanistan."

But that does not mean other European governments can breathe any more easily, says a senior French official recently involved in antiterror measures who spoke on condition of anonymity. "No political position protects you from these sorts of people," he warns. "To them we are all crusaders, and there is an infinite world of threats. No country can say they face no threat."

Though the group saying it had carried out the London blasts had not previously been heard of, terrorist experts suggest they might be the work of an ad hoc grouping of Islamist jihadis such as perpetrated the Madrid bombings.
In that case, recalls Dr. Ranstorp, "a complex constellation of groups coalesced around one individual."

"It's very similar to the attacks carried out by North African extremist groups like the one in Madrid," says Evan Kohlmann, author of "Al Qaeda's Jihad in Europe." "As the number of dead rises, it becomes more and more likely that it was carried out by an existing Islamic extremist group" with planning experience and training.

The group appears to have taken into account not only the fact that world attention would be focused on Britain as G-8 leaders met for their annual summit, but also that British police and intelligence agencies had turned their attention to the summit site in Scotland, and away from London.
European governments have taken a number of steps since 9/11 to defend themselves better against terrorist attacks, but all of them have focused on improving police and intelligence capabilities rather than seeing their work as a "war on terror," as Washington has declared.

The European Union has named an "antiterror czar," Guy de Vries, who is paying as much attention to preventive political and social measures to stop the next generation of European Muslims from joining the jihadist cause as he is to current crises.

The EU has also established a "situation center" in which intelligence and police officials from different nations monitor different antiterrorist operations and share information. In Paris, US Central Intelligence Agency officers work with European and other counterparts at a secret center known as "Alliance Base" to plan antiterrorist operations, according to a recent report in The Washington Post.

But this is a far cry from genuine continental cooperation, says the French official. "Intelligence services get information according to their own systems of alliances, and they exploit it for their own interests," the French official complains. "Intelligence meetings are more often than not bilateral, and you cannot say that there is a common European strategy against terrorism."

National intelligence-gathering agencies, on the other hand, are cooperating better with each other than in the past, and overcoming traditional rivalries. The British government has set up a Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, billed as a "one-stop-shop" fed with intelligence from all Britain's secret services, and the French, German, and Spanish authorities have established similar organizations.

European judicial authorities, however, are having difficulty translating intelligence into evidence, as they begin to prosecute Islamist terrorist suspects. The German government was obliged to deport a Moroccan man back home last month when its case against him collapsed in court, and the largest-ever trial in Europe of suspected Islamist terrorists ended in Madrid this week after unearthing little hard evidence linking any of the 24 defendants to any crime.

AL QAEDA LINK HIDES MULTITUDE OF SUSPECTS
► Telegraph / by Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor
Jul 8 2005

► Jul 8. Who was responsible? Reports that a group linked to al-Qa'eda was claiming responsibility for the London bombings tells us very little.

There are many fundamentalist organisations that fly under Osama bin Laden's flag of convenience and some of them have bases or off-shoots in London.

Suspects are kept under surveillance by MI5 and the police Special Branch. But one thing appeared clear last night: there was not an inkling of intelligence that this attack was about to happen, even though one had long been feared.
Only a few weeks ago, the state of terrorist alert was lowered from "severe general", the second highest, to "substantial", which means the threat remained but it was not known where it was coming from or against whom it was targeted.

For many years before September 11, 2001, Britain's capital was known derisively throughout the world as Londinistan because of the preponderance of extremist groups that had set down roots, publishing tracts and newsletters and providing financial and propaganda support to overseas activists such as Hamas.

At least a dozen international terrorist organisations and their British-based supporters are banned under a proscribed list introduced in the wake of September 11.
They range from Middle Eastern groups such as Hamas and Hizbollah to the Peruvian Shining Path organisation and the Japanese Aum Supreme Truth movement, a religious cult that released poison gas into the Tokyo underground system.

Organisations can be proscribed if they "commit or participate in acts of terrorism, prepare for terrorism, promote or encourage terrorism or are otherwise engaged in terrorism".

Any group added to the list can mount a challenge before a new independent tribunal called the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission, which has still to be established.

Once a group is on the list it becomes an offence to be a member, to support it financially, to display its emblems in public or to share a platform at a meeting of three people or more, with someone belonging to such an organisation.
The intention of this legislation was to ensure that Britain could not be used as a base for the planning and preparation of terrorism here or abroad. But its introduction was accompanied by the sound of stable doors being closed after the horse had bolted.

Britain has long offered a haven to exiled dissidents and in recent years has become an international centre for Islamic militancy. Experts also doubted whether the new law would have much impact on British-based groups since they can change their names and could be driven underground.
For many years prior to September 11, politicians maintained that Britain must not be allowed to become a haven for international terrorists. But it has and, arguably, still is. More than half a dozen governments have filed diplomatic protests with the Foreign Office about the presence of such groups.

They included Egypt, whose President Hosni Mubarak even denounced Britain for "protecting killers". His principal complaint was that supporters of extremist groups that wanted to overthrow the government in Cairo were operating out of London.

Among them are leaders of al-Gama'at al-Islamiya (Islamic Group), which in November 1997 carried out a massacre of tourists in Luxor in which 62 people, including Britons, died. Several members of the group were, or still are, living in Britain, some as political refugees.

After the Luxor massacre, the Egyptian government posted a list of 14 men it said were linked to terrorism. Seven were living in London.

Organisations allegedly linked to Egyptian terror movements have operated out of London under a variety of names. Algerian terrorists, too, operate in London.

France, which has been the target for terrorist attacks, has sought, often in vain, to have the alleged perpetrators extradited. In 1995, after a wave of bombings on the Metro, the French government said the campaign had been ordered from London.

It asked for the extradition of Rachid Ramda, 35, said to be the organiser of al-Ansar, a newsletter of the Algerian Armed Islamic Group, who was alleged to have passed on funds to Islamic terrorist units in France.

He is still in custody 10 years after his arrest, although Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, agreed in April to extradite him after the French issued their third warrant. However, he has lodged an appeal and remains in Britain.
The difficulties of extraditing suspects and the apparent unwillingness of the British authorities to close down their operations contributed to the country's reputation as a haven for terrorists.

One American-based security group even called for Britain to be placed on the list of countries that sponsor terrorism.
Most of the dissidents in London have either been granted political asylum or exceptional leave to remain, both of which carry some obligations not to break the law or foment trouble.

Some who were considered a threat were imprisoned, but the law lords ruled that this was discriminatory and disproportionate and the former detainees are now subject to special orders limiting their movements and contacts.
They include Abu Qatada, a London-based Muslim cleric, who has been identified as the most significant Islamic fundamentalist in Britain and an "inspiration" for terrorists.


SLEEPER CELL OR HOME GROWN TERRORISTS?
► The Times / by Sean O’Neill and Daniel McGrory
Jul 8 2005

► Jul 8. If investigators can link the explosives they are examining to terror attacks elsewhere it will give detectives vital clues in tracking the network
Identifying the type of explosives used in the four London bomb attacks could provide police with the key to tracing the terrorists who carried out the attacks.

Possible evidence was found in the hours after the blasts at Aldgate Underground station and at the scene of the bus bomb in Tavistock Place.

If the explosive type can be linked to al-Qaeda attacks elsewhere it will give detectives vital clues to the network from which the bombers stemmed.

Investigators will also be examining thousands of hours of closed-circuit television footage from street and station cameras. Police officers will try to spot suspects carrying rucksacks or holdalls on to trains and possibly leaving at another station without their luggage. The study of security film may tell officers conclusively whether they are dealing with suicide bombers or terrorists who planted their bombs and escaped, possibly to strike again.

It appears that there was no intelligence — either through undercover agents or electronic surveillance — that these attacks were likely.

The analysis of CCTV is a basic investigatory step taken in the first hours of a typical murder inquiry. Murder squad detectives have been drafted in from across London to help the Anti-Terrorist Squad.

A Scotland Yard source said of the attacks: “This is a total surprise. We have been priding ourselves on our progress in the last few years but tonight we are having to go right back to basics.

“There is no intelligence; we are just not into that world.”
Forensic science analysis of the bus bomb scene offers the inquiry team “massive potential for recovery”. The likelihood that the bomber died in the blast and the fact that it was above ground raises the chances of finding valuable evidence.

British scenes-of-crime officers are renowned for their ability to recover and preserve evidence. They will divide the area around the attack into sectors and collect every piece of material before reconstructing the scene in an aircraft hangar and making a detailed analysis.

The shattered Tube train carriages will be removed from the tunnels and taken to locations where they can be stripped down and examined.

The bombers, who no one doubts are part of an Islamist group, could have emerged via two routes. The threat that the UK authorities know most about is that which comes from Algerian and North African networks known to have based themselves in London since the 1990s. The al-Qaeda team that carried out the Madrid train bombings had these origins.

But in the past year British police have encountered growing numbers of British-born terrorist suspects — recruited and indoctrinated here but trained overseas.

Whatever their path to jihad, they are unknown to the police and security services and unless vital clues are unearthed at the crime scenes will be difficult to find. The masterminds of the attacks — who will not have risked their own lives — are likely to have left Britain days ago or to have planned them from overseas.

Scotland Yard, despite recent successes in thwarting attacks, had cautioned that one day terrorists would succeed in hitting London. Vigilance had been its mantra.
Yet counter-terrorist chiefs were caught unawares. London was not on its highest state of alert and many senior security figures had been deployed to protect the G8 summit.

There was no indication that the series of attacks was coming. Police sources said last night that known terrorist suspects in Britain were under observation at the time of the bombings and were not involved.

They suggested that the attacks were the work of totally unknown attackers. One source said: “It’s back to square one. We have to start again.”

There is little doubt, however, that they were carried out by terrorists linked to or inspired by al-Qaeda. The blasts bore the characteristics of an al-Qaeda operation: they were simple and well co-ordinated. The timing, too, was crucial to achieving maximum impact, coinciding with the G8 summit.

One al-Qaeda website made a claim of responsibility that some anti-terrorist experts saw as credible. It stated: “The time of revenge against the Zionist crusader British Government has come. This is in response to the butchery that Great Britain is committing in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
The similarities with the attacks in Madrid in March last year, in which 191 people died, are striking. The train bombs in Spain were a co-ordinated series of explosions aimed at commuters during the morning rush hour. The attacks in London followed a similar pattern, exploiting the vulnerability of a huge public transport system.

The bomb on the No 30 bus at Tavistock Place seemed last night to have been the work of a suicide bomber, but it was not clear whether the three devices detonated on Tube trains were “martyrdom operations” or — as in Madrid — triggered by timing devices.

Spanish security services said they had been warning Scotland Yard that London might suffer a Madrid-style attack. Spanish investigators found links between al-Qaeda operatives in Madrid and radicals who lived in North London.
Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, a Syrian al-Qaeda veteran believed to have masterminded the Madrid bombings, lived in London in the mid-1990s and is still at large. Spanish authorities have claimed that Nasar, 46, established “sleeper cells” in Britain, France and Italy that could be activated at his choosing.

Three men are in prison in London fighting extradition to Spain for their alleged roles in the bombings.
A number of other terrorist suspects linked to the Madrid attacks remain at large. One key figure is thought to have fled to London.

Another suspect, Hassan Akcha, whose two brothers are accused of being part of the bombing team, disappeared from his home in Stepney immediately after the Madrid attacks.

TERROR ALERT DOWNGRADED, THEN ATTACK CAME OUT OF THE BLEU
► Times / by Michael Evans

Jul 8 2005 ► Jul 8. The co-ordinated bombs across London yesterday came out of the blue. There had been no intelligence warning of an imminent or likely attack.
The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, which operates from the headquarters of MI5, had uncovered no evidence in recent weeks of an al-Qaeda-style plot to attack London.
The terrorist alert level had been lowered by one grading more than a month ago because it had been judged that the threat, while still high, was lower than it had been since the attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001.

MI5, which advises the Government on appropriate terrorist alerts, had recommended that the threat status could safely be reduced from “severe general” to “substantial”.
Before the attacks yesterday, Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, spoke on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme at 7.20am. He said: “We have been described by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary as the envy of the policing world in relation to counter-terrorism and I am absolutely positive that our ability is there.”

On the possibility of an attack, he added: “It is difficult to calculate whether it is inevitable that they will get through.”
Since the Bali bomb in October 2002, which killed 202 people, the Government has introduced a more complex series of threat levels because it was felt that the old system was not sufficiently flexible. There are now seven gradings, and “substantial” is fourth, behind “severe general”, “severe specific”, where there is definite intelligence, and “imminent”.

Security sources said there had been no reason to raise the alert status because it was high enough, and there had been no indications of any plot to hit London to coincide with the G8 summit in Scotland or the announcement of the host city for the 2012 Olympic Games.

The sources said it was realised that there would be accusations that the intelligence services had failed. “But we have always warned that intelligence never reveals a complete picture. It’s a cheap shot to blame the intelligence services, but nothing was known in advance of these attacks,” an official said.

One key aspect for the security and intelligence services is to try to pinpoint the precise motivation behind the attacks. Tony Blair said in his statement that the terrorists had chosen the G8 summit to launch the bombings.

However, security experts said that after the jubilation over the announcement of the Olympics for London it would be a classic strategy for alQaeda to erase that jubilation with a shock attack. “Jubilation one day and disaster the next, that’s the sort of impact these terrorists like to make,” one intelligence expert said.

The terrorist threat level had been maintained at “severe general” — the third highest — throughout the general election because of the perceived risk of a possible attack to disrupt voting. It had also been at that level for the wedding of the Prince of Wales in April.

Unlike some European countries, including France, the high threat level had remained unchanged since the September 11 attacks, because of the known ambition of al-Qaeda to hit Britain, as America’s strongest European ally.

However, the G8 summit was not considered to be an event that by itself merited raising the alert level. This would have happened only if there had been a surge in intelligence indicating that al-Qaeda or an affiliated group had begun to focus on the summit.

Reports that Israel had given notice of possible terrorist attacks in London were dismissed by the Israeli Embassy and by British security officials.

Intelligence officials said that the terrorism analysis centre would re-examine all recent secret material to see whether, with hindsight, there had been indications that might have been missed.

The centre, which has the prime responsibility for assessing intelligence on international terrorism and answers to Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, the Director-General of MI5, had been in close contact with other European agencies because of the threat to European capitals after the Madrid bombing in March last year.

There is no indication as yet that yesterday’s bombings were directly linked to the Madrid atrocities. British officials said that there were similarities in the co-ordinated attacks and indicated that some of the explosives may have been detonated by remote control, using mobile phones — again, similar to methods used in Madrid.

LONDON BOMBINGS TIED TO MADRID ATTACKERS?
► WND

Jul 8 2005 ► Jul 7. British intelligence officials believe today's bomb attacks on London's mass transit system might be tied to the North African-based terrorists who carried out the strikes in Madrid last year, according to a terrorism analyst. Steven Emerson told MSNBC he spoke with an intelligence official who suspected "our North African boys."
"There is an interconnected network of Algerians, of Moroccans, of Saudis operating throughout Europe," said Emerson, according to an unofficial transcript posted by The Counterterrorism Blog.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that British police have asked their European counterparts for information on a Moroccan man, Mohamed Guerbouzi, in relation to the attacks. Guerbouzi has been under investigation in Britain in connection with the Spain bombings and a 2003 suicide attack in Morocco.

Emerson also pointed out that the timing of the attack coincides with the opening of the trial of Abu Hamza al-Masri, a radical Islamic cleric in London charged with incitement. The cleric has been indicted in the U.S. on charges of trying to set up a jihad training camp in Oregon.
"The simultaneous nature of the bombings and the potential there was a suicide bomber suggests very strongly that was some type of al-Qaida offshoot of known radical Islamic groups or unknown groups, individuals at least, plotting this for a long time," Emerson said.

A group calling itself the Organization of al-Qaida Jihad in Europe claimed responsibility for the London bombings and threatened Italy, Denmark and other countries that have troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Heroic mujahedeen carried out a sacred attack in London, and here is Britain burning in fear, terror, and fright in the north, south, east and west," said a statement posted on the jihadist website Al-Qal'ah (Fortress).

The group said the attacks were in response to "massacres" carried out in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"We have repeatedly warned the government and people of Britain, and we have now fulfilled our promise and have carried out a sacred military attack in Britain," the statement said. "We continue to warn the governments of Denmark, Italy and all the Crusaders that they will meet the same punishment if they do not withdraw their troops from Iraq and Afghanistan."

Analyst Zachary Abuza, in a post on the The Counterterrorism Blog, said that while the previously unknown group may have direct ties to al-Qaida, "what is more likely is to emerge from the investigations into the London bombings is a cell that is very similar to that which perpetrated the Madrid bombings."

He described it as a "fairly autonomous cell comprised of a marginalized diaspora that had some roots to extremists in their own country, but was really acting independently."
The good news, he said, is that these independent groups are probably too small and autonomous to launch a major catastrophic attack.

"The bad news is that these groups are difficult to penetrate, and their operations, though small are still large enough to cause an unacceptable loss of life and have adverse economic implications."

Abuza pointed out that many terrorism experts assert that al-Qaida, as an organization, is defunct, with its remaining leadership cowering in root cellars.

"I think they overstate al-Qaida's demise; but they do agree that the real threat that al-Qaida poses is less as an organization and more as an ideology and inspiration," Abuza said.

In Spain last year, officials initially blamed the Basque separatist group ETA for the massive ten-bomb attack on three Madrid train stations during the morning rush hour that killed at least 200 people and wounded 1,200 only three days before the countrys general election.

But later, a letter emerged from a group called Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, which claimed responsibility for the attack on behalf of al-Qaida. The letter, which called the plot "Operation Death Trains," said: "We have succeeded in infiltrating the heart of crusader Europe and struck one of the bases of the crusader alliance."

A document posted on an Internet message board just three months before the Madrid attacks said al-Qaida planned to carry out attacks to sever Madrid from the U.S. and its other allies in the war on terror.

"We think the Spanish government will not stand more than two blows, or three at the most, before it will be forced to withdraw because of the public pressure on it," the al-Qaida document said.

"If its forces remain after these blows, the victory of the Socialist Party will be almost guaranteed - and the withdrawal of Spanish forces will be on its campaign manifesto."

That prediction was fulfilled three days after the attacks when the Socialists overcame a late deficit in the polls and ousted Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's Popular Party.
The new Prime Minister-elect Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero immediately vowed to pull out 1,300 Spanish troops in Iraq by June 30 if the United Nations "doesn't take control of Iraq."

Zapatero, who fulfilled his vow, called the Iraq war a mistake and said Spain's participation in it "has been a total error."

TERRORISM EXPERT ANALYZES LONDON ATTACKS
Emerson says transit systems will always be a challenge to defend
► MSNBC

Jul 8 2005 ► Jul 7. Shortly after the attacks on the London transit system, terrorism expert Steve Emerson joined MSNBC's Amy Robach to discuss the attacks.
To read excerpts of their conversation, continue to the text below. To watch the interview, click on the "Launch" button to the left.

Emerson, on who may be responsible and how the attacks compare to past attacks in Britain:
This is a very difficult moment for the British people. They've been through this before ... but the IRA bombings largely left immune civilians except when they tried to target British government officials.
But the M.O., the modus operandi, of the IRA was always to give warning, to evacuate. Clearly, no warning was given here. The simultaneous nature of the bombing and the possibility of a suicide bomber suggests very strongly that it was some type of al-Qaida or some kind of al-Qaida offshoot of known radical Islamic groups or other unknown groups or individuals plotting this for a very long time.
This could not have been done overnight. (It's) absolutely impossible to have really done the spectacular planning needed to carry out such a simultaneous series of bombings.
Emerson, on what impact the attacks could have on U.S. security:

I don't expect it to unless there is some type of intelligence or warning suggesting that that United States itself would be subject to a series of attacks. That type of intelligence has not been received by the U.S. government. Frankly, the British government didn't receive any intelligence ahead of time. The question is whether the British government would decide to warn that this is something that would be spreading to other continents. I doubt very much that there is anything suggestive of that type of intelligence at this point.

Emerson, on comparisons between the attacks on Madrid and Thursday's bombings in London:
With vast subway systems or vast transportation systems - particularly subway systems that provide concealment possibilities for terrorists - it's almost impossible to prevent any kind of terrorist from carrying out such an attack. In particular if it turns out to be a suicide bombing. If it turns out to be planted bombs that were detonated by remote control or by detonation timers, then there are going to be serious questions asked about whether in fact the London subway cars were kept secure overnight or kept secure during the inspection period that they are all required to undergo almost every single day to prevent bombs from being left on the cars.

Emerson on attacks on transit systems:
The intelligence community has to be 100 percent right. The terrorists only have to be one percent right. In this case, they've proven that one percent to be very lethal. In this particular case, the series of attacks on mass transit shows increasingly that as in the United States, the bombings on 9/11, the bombings on 3/11 and now these attacks, clearly show that mass transit infrastructures in the West are very susceptible and almost impossible to protect by Western law enforcement.

Therefore, intelligence is the first line of defense. The fact that they were not able to stop this type of attack clearly shows there was a failure of intelligence. I'm not suggesting that the British government was to blame, but there was a failure of intelligence, and that's going to be subject to a much larger investigation that will happen way after the causalities are counted in this particular incident.

ISRAEL WARNED UNITED KINGDOM ABOUT POSSIBLE ATTACKS
► www.stratfor.com
► StratFor

Jul 8 2005 ► Jul 8. Summary
There has been massive confusion over a denial made by the Israelis that the Scotland Yard had warned the Israeli Embassy in London of possible terrorist attacks “minutes before” the first bomb went off July 7. Israel warned London of the attacks a “couple of days ago,” but British authorities failed to respond accordingly to deter the attacks, according to an unconfirmed rumor circulating in intelligence circles. While Israel is keeping quiet for the time-being, British Prime Minister Tony Blair soon will be facing the heat for his failure to take action.

Analysis
The Associated Press reported July 7 that an anonymous source in the Israeli Foreign Ministry said Scotland Yard had warned the Israeli Embassy in London of possible terrorist attacks in the U.K. capital. The information reportedly was passed to the embassy minutes before the first bomb struck at 0851 London time. The Israeli Embassy promptly ordered Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to remain in his hotel on the morning of July 7. Netanyahu was scheduled to participate in an Israeli Investment Forum Conference at the Grand Eastern Hotel, located next to the Liverpool Street Tube station -- the first target in the series of bombings that hit London on July 7.

Several hours later, Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom officially denied reports that Scotland Yard passed any information to Israel regarding the bombings, and British police denied they had any advanced warning of the attacks. The British authorities similarly denied that any information exchange had occurred.

Contrary to original claims that Israel was warned “minutes before” the first attack, unconfirmed rumors in intelligence circles indicate that the Israeli government actually warned London of the attacks “a couple of days” previous. Israel has apparently given other warnings about possible attacks that turned out to be aborted operations. The British government did not want to disrupt the G-8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, or call off visits by foreign dignitaries to London, hoping this would be another false alarm.
The British government sat on this information for days and failed to respond. Though the Israeli government is playing along publicly, it may not stay quiet for long. This is sure to apply pressure on Blair very soon for his failure to deter this major terrorist attack.

BRITISH SEEK MOROCCAN MAN IN LONDON ATTACK INVESTIGATION
► Wall Street Journal
► The Counterterrorism Blog

The London Attacks
Jul 8 2005 ► Jul 7. The Wall Street Journal reports that the British are seeking a Moroccan man, Mohamed Guerbouzi, in connection with the attacks. Text: "A Brussels-based European police official said British police have asked their European counterparts for information on a Moroccan man, Mohamed Guerbouzi, in relation to the attacks in London. Mr. Guerbouzi has been under investigation in Britain in connection with two previous attacks, a 2003 suicide bombing in Morocco and last year's attack on commuter trains in Spain. Mr. Guerbouzi held a senior position in the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, or GICM, investigators say. He has been living in Britain for about a decade, the police official said on condition of anonymity. It is unclear if he is in British police custody. Also unclear if he is suspect of direct involvement in Thursday's attacks or if he is a witness. The European police official said Britain wants help in investigating Mr. Guerbouzi, for example, in learning more about his activities in other countries." This is consistent with the comments by our Contributing Experts and others that North African-based terrorists, with ties to Al Zarqawi and Al Qaeda, would be among the most logical suspects, based on their leading role in the 3-11-04 Madrid traim bombings.

LONDON BOMBS: CHANGE IN AL-QAEDA'S STRATEGY
► AKI

Jul 7 2005 ► Jul 5. A renowned French expert on Islamic terrorism, Jean-Charles Brisard, is convinced that Thursday's blasts in London are the work of international terror network al-Qaeda and argues that it represents a change of tack. In an interview with Adnkronos International (AKI) Brisard said the series of attacks on the British capital's transport system indicate al-Qaeda is setting its sights on Western countries, which is seeks to destroy.
"There is no doubt that these attacks are the work of al-Qaeda. Jihadists have been eying London as a possible target for a terror attack for some time, as is shown by the many plots that the Metropolitan police have foiled in the last few years," said Brisard, a lawyer and renowned al-Qaeda expert, who was engaged by families of the victims of the 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States to carry out an independent investigation into the attacks.

In the past few weeks, police had been receiving "clear signals" from Iraq that an al-Qaeda attack on Western targets was imminent, with London topping the list, Brisard noted.

"Lately, we have been seeing the further radicalisation of groups linked to al-Qaeda's Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is believed to be operating in Iraq," Brisard said.

The order to launch an attack on the British capital came from Iraq, in accordance with al-Qaeda's new strategy - which is making its cells in Iraq "increasingly dangerous, splintered, and difficult to identify", according to Brisard. "Above all, the organisation is bent on destroying the West," he stressed.

The British government's recent measures to clamp down on Islamist extremists - some of whom have made the United Kingdom their sanctuary - had contributed to the radicalisation of the jihadist cause, Brisard claimed. But Thursday's attacks are above all the result of the al-Qaeda's renewed focus on global Jihad, which is now targeting Western countries to strike at "enemy governments".

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