Britain: The full extent of the intelligence failures which allowed the July 7th London bombers to strike emerged yesterday in the wake of the publication of two reports into the terrorist attacks last year.
A pattern of disagreements and failures of communication between law enforcement agencies is laid bare within sections of the reports, which examine the events surrounding the bombings which claimed 52 lives.
It also emerged that Britain's security service, MI5, possessed evidence that Mohammad Sidique Khan, the ringleader of the four suicide bombers, was intent on violence, despite the agency's assertion it believed him to be involved largely in fraud.
Some months before the bombings, Khan (30) had been covertly recorded talking about his plans to wage jihad and discussing whether to say goodbye to his family before leaving the country, suggesting he was seeking martyrdom. He was also at a meeting of other terror suspects during which bomb-making plans were discussed.
One of the reports, by the cross-party intelligence and security committee (ISC), shows there was friction between MI5 and the police, who disagreed about the extent of the threat posed by radicalised young British Muslims.
It has also emerged that Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist branch and MI5 had different assessments of the threat. Senior anti-terrorist branch officers had concluded by March 2005 that the country was likely to be attacked by "home-grown" terrorists. One senior officer predicted that an attack could be mounted by Britons with bombs in rucksacks, who would blow themselves up on the London Underground.
Yet the same month, the government's joint intelligence committee (JIC) concluded that such suicide attacks would not become the norm in Europe.
After July 7th, 2005, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, director general of MI5, told the ISC she had been surprised that the attacks had been carried out by suicide bombers. She said she thought the JIC's assessment had been a "reasonable judgment". The JIC has since changed its mind, and now says that more suicide attacks are possible.
Damaging tension between MI5 and the police, and thinly veiled criticism of police special branches, is reflected in the ISC report, which pointed to variations in the "size and competence" of special branches and their failure to identify targets and objectives.
It said MI5 "hopes to be able to work more closely" with special branches in the future. The committee also said it hoped MI5 would be more sensitive to the failings of police special branches, adding: "There appears, rightly, to be more determination post-July for problems or areas of weakness to be identified and resolved."
Khan and a second bomber, Shehzad Tanweer, came to the attention of MI5 more than a year prior to the attacks, when they met other terrorism suspects who were under surveillance.
A decision was taken not to investigate the two men more fully because they were not deeply involved in the other group's plot, and MI5 decided it had insufficient resources to pursue them.
- (Guardian service)