BRITAIN: A lack of resources allowed the July 7th London bombers to slip through the security net and police and the intelligence services are highly unlikely to be able to prevent all similar attacks in the future, according to two reports published yesterday.
Two of the four suicide bombers had come to the attention of the security service (MI5), time and again, yet the reports' authors concluded that there was no reason for the authorities to have known that they posed a threat.
While one report urged greater co-operation with intelligence agencies overseas, it also concluded that it "seems highly unlikely that it will be possible to stop all attacks", even if the UK authorities were to become more "intrusive" in the way they carried out their responsibilities.
Despite media reports based on leaks prior to publication, which suggested that the group had no links to al-Qaeda, the reports from the Home Office and the cross-party Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) make clear that the four men were unlikely to have been acting unassisted.
They probably received expert bomb-making assistance from an unknown individual and they also had a series of highly suspicious contacts with an unknown individual or individuals in Pakistan for several months before the bombings. However, 10 months after the attacks that killed 52 and injured more than 700, it is clear that many questions remain unanswered.
Police and the security service still cannot be sure whether anyone else was involved, who they may have been, or the role that they may have played. In addition, the bombers probably carried out a test explosion, but no one knows where or when.
The opposition Conservatives' home affairs spokesman, David Davis, said the reports "raised more questions than answers", while victims' relatives renewed their calls for a public inquiry.
John Reid, the home secretary, said the entire operation had cost less than £8,000, and had been carried out by men driven by a desire for martyrdom and "fierce antagonism to perceived injustices by the west against Muslims". He ruled out a public inquiry and said that he intended to meet relatives of victims to give them a chance to ask questions about the findings.
The ISC report said the security service had come across two of the bombers, Mohammed Sidique Khan (30) and Shezhad Tanweer (22), both from the northeast of England, while investigating other terrorism cases.
The report reveals that before the bombings a photograph was shown to a number of detainees being held in an unidentified foreign country, but it was not shown to a detainee who later identified a press photograph as being of Khan. That, says the committee, was a "missed opportunity".
The committee also reveals that in February 2005 MI5 received a report that two men had travelled to Afghanistan in the late 1990s or early 2000s.
It was only after the London bombings one was identified as Khan.
In an important finding, the committee says MI5 could probably have identified Khan and Tanweer before the attacks if they had investigated the two men more fully.
But, it adds - and this is a central theme of the committee's report - priority was given to other terror suspects considered more dangerous.