Solving Britain's first suicide-bombing

Jul 14th 2005
From The Economist Global Agenda

Police investigating the London terrorist attack have identified the four men suspected of planting the bombs and think they may all have died in the attack, making it Britain's first suicide-bombing. It appears that three of the bombers were British-born Muslims of Pakistani descent

LONDONERS, and tourists visiting the British capital, made a point of going about their business and leisure as normal—or as near normal as possible—this week, following last Thursday's devastating terrorist attacks, which killed at least 53 people and injured around 700. For the first four days after the attacks, there had been few signs of progress in the hunt for the bombers. It was feared that they could strike again, as happened in devastating terrorist attacks in Madrid last year and Istanbul in 2003. Meanwhile, with every hour that passed, the trail leading to them seemed to be getting colder.

However, on Tuesday July 12th the police announced dramatic developments: they had identified four men—three from the area around Leeds in northern England and one whose home area was not specified—who they suspected had planted the four bombs, three on board London Underground trains and one on a bus. The four were recorded on security cameras arriving together at King's Cross railway station, carrying rucksacks, shortly before the explosions.

There are strong indications that all four men died in the explosions. Documents bearing the names of three of them had been found at the scenes of three of the explosions. In one case—that of the blast on an Underground train near Aldgate station—there was strong forensic evidence that one of the bombers died there. It now appears that three of the four were British-born Muslims of Pakistani descent from the Leeds area while the fourth is believed to have been a Jamaican-born Briton. Neighbours and friends of the three Leeds men have expressed astonishment that such apparently ordinary young men had suddenly turned mass killers.

If the four bombers were “lilywhites”, as terrorists with no previously known militant connections were called in the days of the IRA's bombing campaign, this would make it extremely hard to have detected them in advance of the attacks—and would have disturbing implications for the chances of intercepting any future bombers. Britain's interior minister, Charles Clarke, has vehemently denied a claim by his French counterpart, Nicolas Sarkozy, that Mr Clarke had told a European Union ministerial meeting on Wednesday that some of the bombers had been arrested last year but freed to see if they led police to a wider terror network. However, police sources have told the BBC that one of the bombers' names had come up in a previous terrorism investigation but he had been eliminated from the inquiry.

Whether or not any was already known to have links to militants, what does now seem almost certain is that the four men carried out the first ever suicide-bombing on British soil. London suffered devastating bombing by German warplanes in the second world war, and many people were killed and injured in the IRA's bombing campaign of the 1970s-1990s. But, if confirmed, an attack by people who have no fears for their own safety represents an unprecedented threat for a British city.

The worry now—especially given that the bombs were thought to be quite sophisticated and contained high-grade explosives—is that the four attackers were the mere “foot soldiers”, as Mr Clarke put it, of a “master bomber” who is still at large and may have at least one other group of bombers preparing to strike. Police have been searching homes in the Leeds area, including those of the bombers, and have found a car containing suspected explosives, at Luton railway station, north of London. On Thursday July 14th—a week after the bombings—as Londoners and others across Europe observed two minutes' silence in memory of the victims, police evacuated a district in Leeds near the home of one of the bombers and were searching another house in Aylesbury, not far from Luton.

Whether or not any of their relatives and friends knew, it now seems almost certain that the attackers were Islamist extremists, possibly linked to al-Qaeda, and that the bombings were timed to coincide with Britain’s hosting of the Group of Eight summit at Gleneagles in Scotland last week. Though al-Qaeda’s top leadership structure is believed to have been disrupted since the American-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, it is possible that any number of sympathetic groups worldwide are seeking to stage attacks, with or without assistance from the central organisation. Shortly after the London attacks, a group claiming links to al-Qaeda posted an internet statement saying that “mujahideen” (holy warriors) had carried them out in retaliation for Britain's military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan—though such statements have sometimes proved unreliable in the past.

As might be expected in the wake of such devastating attacks, a poll for Tuesday's London Times by Populus shows strong support for new anti-terrorism measures: 89% of those polled supported increased security and baggage checks on public transport, while 70% backed extra police powers to stop and search people on the streets. Less predictably, support for such measures seemed stronger outside London than in the capital itself.

However, Tony Blair, the prime minister, must know that public support for such measures might soon dissipate if they caused constant inconvenience and delays for passengers. Worse, relations between ethnic and religious communities in London and elsewhere might quickly be strained if police appeared to be singling out people for “looking Muslim”.

Parliament, which resisted several of the measures in the anti-terrorism law Mr Blair struggled to pass in March, would not necessarily wave through any new proposals. The law passed in March was needed because Britain’s highest court, the Law Lords, had struck down part of an earlier terrorism law, passed in the wake of the September 11th 2001 attacks in America, that had allowed the government to detain foreign terrorism suspects indefinitely. In the new bill, Mr Blair had sought powers for the government to impose “control orders”, including house arrest, on suspects not charged with any offence. But resistance in Parliament forced him to back down and agree to let judges supervise the imposition of such restraints on suspects’ liberties.

At their meeting on Wednesday, the EU's interior and justice ministers agreed to speed up the implementation of proposed anti-terrorism measures, including the approval by December of a new “European evidence warrant” to accelerate the cross-border exchange of evidence in terrorism investigations; and agreement by October on measures to require telecommunications providers to keep records of phone and internet usage, perhaps for a year or more, to help trace terrorists' messages. Europe's finance ministers also met on Wednesday and agreed new controls on cash transfers, to constrain terrorists' finances.

The London attacks have also prompted America and other allies to reconsider their own anti-terrorism laws. On Monday, President George Bush urged Congress to make permanent those parts of the Patriot Act that are soon to expire. Among other things, the law, which was passed in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, increased the security forces’ powers to track and detain terrorism suspects. A number of these provisions will lapse at the end of this year. Even within Mr Bush's Republican Party there are divisions over whether to make them permanent or just renew them for a further period.

Italy, which has sent troops to Iraq alongside America’s and Britain’s, fears it could be next in line for a terrorist attack. This week its government announced new anti-terrorism legislation, including a proposed increase in the length of time that suspects can be held. Though it seems highly sensible for those countries that risk being attacked to re-assess whether there are any gaps in their armoury of legal and other weapons against terrorism, no one should be under any illusions that protecting such vulnerable targets as public-transport systems will be easy.

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