LONDON, July 7: Britain marked the first anniversary of the London suicide bombings with flowers, candles and a two-minute silence on Friday as the city’s police chief said another attack now looked more likely.
One year after four young British Muslims blew themselves up on London’s transport system, killing 52 people and wounding 700, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Ian Blair described the threat faced by Britain as ‘grim’. “There are, as we speak, people in the United Kingdom planning further atrocities,” he told BBC Radio. “Since July (last year), the threat has palpably increased.”
Across the country, people fell silent at midday (1100 GMT) in memory of the dead. Prime Minister Tony Blair observed the tribute alongside fire-fighters at their London headquarters on the banks of the River Thames.
“It is a chance for the whole nation to come together to offer comfort and support to those who lost loved ones or were injured on that terrible day,” Mr Blair said in a statement.
Tennis fans fell silent at the Wimbledon championships and Queen Elizabeth paused for reflection at a church service in the Scottish capital, Edinburgh.
Earlier, remembrance candles were lit under the vast dome of London’s St Paul’s Cathedral at 8:50am and at 9:47am. — the times the bombs went off — and wreaths of flowers were laid in Tavistock Square, where the last of the four bombers detonated his explosives on a double-decker bus. “It’s a very sobering moment,” Obi Nwosu, an IT manager who was at that ceremony, told Reuters. “It makes you realise your day to day problems are not really that significant.”—Reuters
