Bombers had ‘links with Al Qaeda’: Report on London attacks clears intelligence
LONDON, May 11: Two of the suicide bombers behind last year’s deadly London transport attacks probably had contacts with Al Qaeda but British security lacked resources to stop the atrocity, two reports said on Thursday.
The first detailed accounts of the July 7 bombings cleared the intelligence services of any failings in preventing Britain’s worst extremist attack.
At the same time the reports — one by an influential parliamentary committee and another by the Home Office — highlighted the enormity of the task they face in thwarting terrorist plots.
Four British Muslim extremists killed 52 people and injured more than 700 others when they blew up three London Underground trains and a double-decker bus during the morning rush hour by detonating bombs packed into rucksacks.
Two of the men, Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, and Shehzad Tanweer, 22, had appeared only vaguely on Britain’s intelligence radar.
They were considered peripheral figures at the time and were not pursued, with agents pre-occupied with “more pressing priorities”, the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee said in its 44-page report.
Afterwards, it emerged they had been to Pakistan. Khan visited in 2003 and again, this time with Tanweer, between November 2004 and February 2005.
“It has not yet been established who they met in Pakistan but it is assessed as likely that they had some contact with Al Qaeda figures,” the report said — comments echoed in the Home Office document.
The two men, whose identities were only established after July 7, probably received “operational training” there, it said.
Security officials in Pakistan said on Thursday that British and Pakistani investigators were focusing on almost 200 phone calls made from Pakistan to one of the London bombers in a bid to uncover any links to Al Qaeda.
For his part, British Home Secretary John Reid said there was no “irrefutable evidence” that the terrorist group played a part in July 7.
“However, there is considerable circumstantial evidence which runs from the fact that Khan visited certainly Pakistan, possibly outside it, and that he went back with Tanweer between November and February 2004 to 2005,” he said.
Despite any prior suspicions, the parliamentary committee’s chairman, Paul Murphy, said the intelligence services were not to blame.
“There was no evidence that these two men were involved in attack planning against this country,” he told a press conference.
“There was no culpable evidence of failure on the part of the agencies.
“Our view is that it was understandable that the leads were not taken any further. Things may have been different — but they may not have been.”
The committee’s report also revealed that a third bomber, Germaine Lindsay, 19, was known to the security services.
His telephone number turned up on their records following the bombings, it said without giving further details.
The report identified the lack of resources available to the security agencies, mainly Britain’s domestic spy service MI5, as one of the main reasons why they failed to prevent the July 7 attacks.
“The story of what was known about the 7 July group prior to July indicates that if more resources had been in place sooner the chances of preventing the July attacks could have increased,” the text said.
At the same time, the committee dismissed theories which circulated after the attacks of a fifth bomber or “mastermind” who may have subsequently fled the country.—AFP
