Looking Back On 7/7

The British government placed before the House of Commons on May 12, 2006,two important post-mortem reports relating to the London explosions of July 7,2005.

The first report had been prepared by the permanent  Intelligence andSecurity Committee (ISC), which consists of members of  Parliamentdesignated by the Prime Minister, on its own initiative in pursuance of adecision taken by it at a meeting held on July 13,2005, "to examine andtake evidence on the intelligence and security matters surrounding the terroristattacks."

The focus of the report is on the role of the intelligence community inconnection with the explosions. It has been prepared after going through theintelligence reports and assessments of the agencies, the Joint IntelligenceCommittee (JIC) and the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC). It also examinedthe chiefs and other senior officials of the agencies, the police and theTransport Security Team in the Department for Transport.

The second report is an Official Account of the events--before andafter--relating to the explosions prepared by the Home Office. The two reportswere not the result of an exhaustive public enquiry similar to the one by the USNational Commission, which had gone into the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US.There was no public testimony by important witnesses and the relatives of thosekilled had no access to the post-mortem process.

Keeping in view the fact that the police investigation into the explosions ofJuly 7,2005, and into the attempted explosions of July 21,2005, are stillcontinuing and many matters relating to them are still sub-judice, the tworeports have covered only a restricted field of ground. The ISC report itselfadmits that as more evidence flows in during the police investigations, some ofits conclusions may have to be revisited.

The Home Office's Official Account, in one of its annexures, tabulates 63landmarks or events since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 having abearing on  the "Evolution of the Modern International TerroristThreat." Five each of these events relate to India and Pakistan.

The events relating to India are the hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane toKandahar in December,1999, the terrorist strike in the Red Fort at New Delhi inJanuary,2001, the explosion outside the Legislative Assembly of Jammu &Kashmir in October,2001, the attempted attack on the Indian Parliament inDecember,2001, and the twin blasts in Mumbai in August,2003.

The events relating to Pakistan are the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl,the US journalist, at Karachi in January-February, 2002, the explosion killingsome French submarine engineers at Karachi in May,2002, the explosion outsidethe US Consulate in Karachi in June,2002, and the two attempts to kill PresidentGen.Pervez Musharraf  at Rawalpindi in December,2003.

The Official Account does not refer to the attempted attack on a place ofworship at Ayodhya in India in July,2005 and the explosions in a shopping areaof New Delhi on October 29,2005. Nor does it refer to the death of the wife anddaughter of an American diplomat in an explosion in an Islamabad church in March2002 and the two attempts to kill the corps commander of  Karachi andMr.Shaukat Aziz, the then Finance Minister of Pakistan, in 2004. It is not clearwhether these omissions were due to an oversight or were due to any conclusionthat these incidents could not be categorised as acts of internationalterrorism.

The investigation done by the Police so far have clearly established that theexplosions of July,2005, were acts of suicide terrorism carried out jointly bythree young British citizens of Pakistani origin--Mohammed Siddique Khan (30),Shazad Tanweer (22) and Hasib Hussein (18)--and a British citizen of Jamaicanorigin--Jermain Lindsay (19).

All the three persons of Pakistani origin were born in the UK  and grew upin West Yorkshire. While Mohammed Siddique Khan and Tanweer attended the LeedsMetropolitan University, Hasib Hussein did a course in advanced businessprogramme in a local college. Lindsay was born in Jamaica and moved with hismother to the UK in 1986. He attended local schools and embraced Islam.

The ISC has concluded that the British authorities were well aware of thedangers of home-grown terrorism. It says: " We found that the possibilityof British nationals becoming involved in terrorist activity, including againstthe UK, had been recognised prior to July. In 2004, the JIC  had judgedthat over the next five years, the UK would continue to face a threat fromhome-grown as well as foreign terrorists. Understanding of the potential threatfrom British citizens, including those born and brought up in the UK, appears tohave developed over the period 2001-2005. The attempt by Richard Reid, theBritish shoe bomber, to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight in 2001 clearlyillustrated the possibility of British nationals becoming involved in terroristactivity. But the judgements of the JIC in 2002  suggest attacks againstthe UK  were more likely, at that time, to be conducted by terroristsentering from abroad than by British nationals resident in the UK. By early2004, perceptions of the threat , and the threat itself, had changed. SecurityService investigations and successful disruptions in the UK revealed thatBritish-born citizens were involved in plotting attacks on their homesoil."

The ISC has also stated that the intelligence and security agencies had clearlyforeseen the possibility of a terrorist strike directed at the transportnetwork. It says: " Our examination of JIC and JTAC assessments showed thatthe London underground was specifically recognised by the JIC as a potentialtarget as far back as April, 2003."

However, it adds that a JTAC report of May 2005 had stated that while there wasa danger of terrorists attacking high-profile  or iconic rail targets,"there was no intelligence to suggest that attacks on the railinfrastructure, the London Underground or any part of the UK public transportinfrastructure were currently being planned."

While examining the question as to whether the agencies were taken by surpriseby British nationals taking to suicide terrorism against other British nationalsin British territory, the ISC says: " Assessments prior to Julyacknowledged the possibility of suicide attacks against the UK. In June,2002,the JIC judged that loose networks of Islamist extremists capable of conductingsuicide attacks were present in the UK and, in June 2005, that suicidetechniques could become the preferred techniques for extremist attackselsewhere, following their impact in Iraq. The head of JTAC said that suicideattacks had been reported on as a possible method for attacks in the UK and thatpreparations had been made, including by the police, in response to this. Theoverall JIC assessment, however, was that suicide attacks were not likely and that they would not become the norm in Europe."

While there were thus general warnings and assessments regarding the dangers ofa suicide attack by home-grown terrorists and regarding possible attacks on the transport infrastructure, the British intelligence failed to collectpreventive intelligence regarding the preparations being made by the fourperpetrators for the terrorist attack of July 7,2005.

The investigations made after 7/7 indicated that the four  Britishnationals of Pakistani and Jamaican  origin had come to the adverse noticeof the British agencies even before 7/7 as indicated below:

• A telephone number, which had come to the adverse notice of the agencies before 7/7, was established only after 7/7 to be that of Lindsay.
  
  
• The Security Service had also on its records before 7/7 another telephone number said to belong to one "Siddeque Khan". Only after 7/7 was it realised that this person was identical with the leader of the group, which carried out the 7/7 attacks.
  
  
• A pre-7/7 report on a surveillance kept by the Security Service on certain other persons in connection with a security-related investigation had revealed  certain meetings held by these persons with certain others in 2004. Only after 7/7 did the Security Service establish that among these other persons mentioned in the surveillance report were Siddique Khan and Tanweer.
  
  
• In early 2004, terrorist detenus from outside the UK had told the agencies about some men from the UK travelling to Pakistan in 2003 and seeking meetings with Al Qaeda figures. After 7/7, one of these detenus saw a photograph of  Siddique Khan in the newspapers and identified him as one of the persons, who had travelled to Pakistan and sought meetings with Al Qaeda figures.
  
  
• Photographs of a number of suspected extremists, including of Siddique Khan, were circulated even before 7/7 to many foreign intelligence services and foreign detaining authorities , but they could not identify Siddique Khan, but that photograph was not shown to the detenu, who reported about the visit of  some persons from the UK to Pakistan to contact Al Qaeda figures.
  

• Both left their jobs after they returned from Pakistan.
  
  
• From March 31,2005, they started acquiring material which could be used for the fabrication of a peroxide-based explosive.
  
  
• In May, they hired a flat from an Egyptian student away from their place of residence so that they could use it for preparing the explosive from the chemicals bought by them. When the police raided this place on July 12, they recovered much of the bomb-making equipment.
  
  
• They made reconnaissance visits to London.
  
  
• Khan became extremely security-conscious. He was careful in using his mobile and used hired cars for moving around.

• The three perpetrators of Pakistani origin  had made more than one visit to Pakistan.
  
  
• The preparations for the explosions started after Khan and Tanweer returned to the UK in February,2005, after a joint visit to Pakistan.
  
  
• They were in clandestine contact with one or more persons in Pakistan as they made their preparations for the explosions.

B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. ofIndia, New Delhi, and, presently,  Director, Institute For Topical Studies,Chennai.