After the 7/7 London bombings (see July 7, 2005), an official at the Saudi Arabian embassy will tell a British journalist that before the attack Saudi Arabia provided intelligence to Britain that was sufficient to dismantle the plot, but British authorities failed to act on it. The information is quite detailed, containing names of senior al-Qaeda members said to be involved in the plot, including Kareem al-Majati, whose calls the Saudis have been intercepting and who may have been in contact with lead bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan. Al-Majati is said to have been involved in attacks in Morocco (see May 16, 2003) and Madrid (see 7:37-7:42 a.m., March 11, 2004), before being killed in a shoot-out in Saudi Arabia in April 2005. Calls from Younes al-Hayari, an al-Qaeda logistics expert and al-Majati’s lieutenant, are also traced to Britain. Al-Hayari will die in a shootout in Saudi Arabia four days before the 7/7 bombings. Details of calls, e-mails, and text messages between an al-Qaeda cell in Saudi Arabia and a group in Britain are passed on to the British intelligence agencies MI5 and MI6. After the bombings, Saudi ambassador to Britain Prince Turki al-Faisal issues a statement, “There was certainly close liaison between the Saudi Arabian intelligence authorities and the British intelligence authorities some months ago, when information was passed to Britain about a heightened terrorist threat to London,” although it is not clear if this statement refers to this warning, another Saudi warning about a possible attack in Britain (see December 14, 2004-February 2005), or both. The public response by British authorities when asked about this alleged warning changes over time; initially they deny having received it at all, but after the issue is reignited by King Abdullah in 2007 (see October 29, 2007), they will say that the warning was not specific enough to act on. [Observer, 8/7/2005; New Statesman, 11/1/2007]
Late June-July 7, 2005: Alleged British Intelligence Informant Said to Mastermind 7/7 London Bombings, Calls Suicide Bombers
According to an article in the London Times, Haroon Rashid Aswat is the mastermind of the 7/7 London bombings. Aswat’s family comes from India, but he was born in the same West Yorkshire town as one of the 7/7 suicide bombers and has British citizenship. He is said to be a long-time al-Qaeda operative and also the right-hand man of radical London imam Abu Hamza al-Masri. He arrives in Britain about two weeks before the bombings from South Africa, where he was being monitored by British and US intelligence. He orchestrates the final planning for the bombing, visiting the towns of all the bombers as well as the bomb targets. “Intelligence sources” also will later claim that there are records of up to twenty calls between Aswat and two of the bombers, lead bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan and his friend Shehzad Tanweer, in the days before the bombings. A senior Pakistani security source will tell the Times, “We believe this man had a crucial part to play in what happened in London.” Khan telephones Aswat on the morning of the bombings. He flies out of Britain just hours before the bombings take place. Pakistani officials will also say that a total of eight men in Pakistan were in telephone contact with Khan and Tanweer, and that Khan, Tanweer, and Aswat were all at the same madrassa (religious boarding school) at the same time when Khan and Tanweer went to Pakistan for training in late 2004. [London Times, 7/21/2005] A later Sunday Times article will confirm that Aswat and some of the bombers talked on the phone. Some of the cell phones used by the bombers will be found and some data will be recovered from them, even though they are badly damaged. This will confirm that at least several calls were made from Aswat’s phone to the bombers in the days before the bombing. British investigators will not deny the phone calls took place, but will “caution that the calls may have been made to a phone linked to Aswat, rather than the man himself.” There is speculation that US intelligence may have been monitoring the calls (see Shortly Before July 7, 2005). [Sunday Times (London), 7/31/2005] It will later be alleged that Aswat is an informant for British intelligence. Furthermore, the imam he has worked for, Abu Hazma, is also a British informant (see Early 1997).
July 7, 2005: 52 Killed in ‘7/7’ Bombings in London; Three Subway Trains and One Bus Are Hit
England suffers its worst terrorist attack when four bombs go off in London during the morning rush hour. At 8:50 a.m. bombs go off on three London Underground trains within 50 seconds of each other. A fourth bomb goes off at 9:47 a.m. on a double-decker bus, near Tavistock Square. Fifty-six people, including the four bombers, are killed. The bombings become popularly known as ‘7/7.’ [Daily Telegraph, 7/7/2005; Daily Mail, 7/8/2005; CNN, 7/22/2005] The alleged bombers, all British residents between the ages of 18 and 30, are Mohammad Sidique Khan, Hasib Mir Hussain, Shehzad Tanweer, and Germaine Lindsay. All were British nationals of Pakistani descent, except Lindsay, who was born in Jamaica, but moved to England when he was five. [Daily Telegraph, 7/16/2005; BBC, 7/21/2005] In 2004, Khan had been the subject of a routine threat assessment by the British intelligence agency MI5, after his name came up during an investigation into an alleged plot to explode a truck bomb in London. However, MI5 did not consider him a threat and did not place him under surveillance. [BBC, 7/17/2005; London Times, 7/17/2005] According to the Independent, Tanweer had similarly been scrutinized by MI5 that year, but was also not considered a threat. [Independent, 12/17/2005] Khan and Tanweer had flown to Pakistan together in November 2004, returning together in February 2005. However, what they did during their stay is unclear. [BBC, 7/18/2005; CNN, 7/20/2005] Less than a month before the bombings, the British government lowered its formal threat assessment one level, from “severe general” to “substantial,” prompted by a confidential report by the Joint Terrorist Analysis Centre (JTAC). JTAC, which is made up of 100 top intelligence and law enforcement officials, concluded, “At present there is not a group with both the current intent and the capability to attack [Britain]” (see Mid-June 2005). [New York Times, 7/19/2005; London Times, 7/19/2005] The attacks also coincide with the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, attended by British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George W. Bush, amongst others. [Guardian, 7/7/2005] Consequently, 1,500 officers from London’s Metropolitan Police, including many anti-terrorist specialists, are away in Scotland as part of the force of 12,000 created to police the event. [Press Association (London), 7/7/2005; London Times, 7/10/2005]
July 23, 2005: Head 7/7 London Bomber Said to Have Been Trained in Explosives by Al-Qaeda Operative
The Telegraph reports that Pakistani officials believe Mohammad Sidique Khan, the lead suicide bomber in the 7/7 London bombings (see July 7, 2005), spent much of his time during his trips to Pakistan with an al-Qaeda operative named Mohammed Yasin, a.k.a. Ustad Osama. Yasin is said to be an explosives specialist also linked to the Pakistani militant group Harkat ul-Jihad al-Islami (which in turn is related to the Harkat ul-Mujahedeen group). He is based in the training camps near the Afghan-Pakistani frontier and is reputed to be an expert at manufacturing “suicide jackets.” Yasin was included on a Pakistani government list of 70 “most wanted” terrorists in December 2003. [Dawn (Karachi), 12/31/2003; Sunday Telegraph, 7/23/2005]
July 25, 2005: Pakistani President Musharraf Falsely Claims Al-Qaeda Has Been ‘Shattered’ and ‘Smashed’ in Pakistan
In the wake of the 7/7 London bombings earlier in the month (see July 7, 2005), it is revealed that at least some of the suicide bombers in that attack had trained in Pakistan’s tribal regions. For instance, Mohammad Sidique Khan, considered the head of the bomber group, trained in the tribal regions in 2003 and 2004 and met with al-Qaeda leaders. But on July 25, 2005, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf downplays such links. He says, “Our… law enforcement agencies have completely shattered al-Qaeda’s vertical and horizontal links and smashed its communications and propaganda setup.… It no longer has any command, communication, and program structure in Pakistan. Therefore it is absolutely baseless to say that al-Qaeda has its headquarters in Pakistan and that terror attacks in other parts of the world in any way originate from our country.” [Rashid, 2008, pp. 279, 442] Director of National Intelligence (DNI) John Negroponte will make those exact claims six months later (see January 11, 2007).
August 1, 2005: Phone Calls Link 7/7 London Bombers to Head of Pakistani Militant Group
The Christian Science Monitor reports that police in Pakistan are carefully analyzing the cell phone records of the two 7/7 London bombers who trained there, Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer. “While officials stress that it is a tedious process, it has already yielded the name of at least one significant suspect: Maulana Masood Azhar.” Azhar is leader of the Pakistani militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM), which has technically been banned twice by the Pakistani government but continues to operate (see November 2003). [Christian Science Monitor, 8/1/2005] Tanweer met a JEM leader during visits to Pakistan in 2003 and 2004, and also associated with a JEM recruiting agent (see Late 2003). Sources also say that Haroon Rashid Aswat, the alleged mastermind of the 7/7 bombings, has links to JEM as well as al-Qaeda. [Guardian, 7/21/2005] Azhar is questioned shortly after the 7/7 bombings, but then let go. [Dawn (Karachi), 7/16/2005] However, there are no apparent repercussions for Azhar or his group, despite well-documented links to al-Qaeda and other attacks. In 2006, it will be reported that Azhar is keeping a low profile, but living openly in the city of Karachi and editing a militant newspaper there. Also in 2006, it will be reported that Rashid Rauf, the leader of a failed transatlantic airplane bomb plot (see August 10, 2006), is related to Azhar through the marriage of their siblings. [New York Times, 12/17/2007]
September 1, 2005: Lead 7/7 London Bomber Apparently Gives Last Testament in Al-Qaeda Video, Praises Bin Laden
The Al Jazeera satellite network broadcasts a video apparently featuring short speeches from Mohammad Sidique Khan, considered the lead suicide bomber in the 7/7 London bombings, and al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri. The two do not appear together. The man resembling Khan praises “our beloved sheikh, Osama bin Laden.” He declares: “Until we feel security, you will be our target. Until you stop the bombing, gassing, imprisonment and torture of my people, we will not stop this fight. We are at war and I am a soldier. Now you too will taste the reality of this situation.” The man resembling Al-Zawahiri does not explicitly take credit for the 7/7 bombings, but he speaks of “the blessed London battle, which came as a slap to the face of the tyrannical, crusader British arrogance.… Like its glorious predecessors in New York, Washington, and Madrid, this blessed battle has transferred the battle to the enemies’ land.” British Prime Minister Tony Blair has strenuously denied that the 7/7 bombings were inspired by British involvement in the Iraq war, but the man resembling al-Zawahiri refers to the “inferno of Iraq,” and says Blair is conducting a “crusader war against Islam.” There are no obvious visual signs of where the speeches were recorded. [New York Times, 9/2/2005] Remarkably, British counterterrorism officials continue to deny a direct al-Qaeda link to the 7/7 bombings and are not convinced by the video. One unnamed senior official says, “It leaves us in the same position.” A police source admits that the video “makes it a bit more likely al-Qaeda were directly involved.” The video is made by As-Sahab, the al-Qaeda media production company behind other al-Qaeda videos. [Guardian, 9/3/2005] Another 7/7 bomber will apparently appear in a similar video one year later (see July 6, 2006).
Late September 2005: Mossad Allegedly Secretly Reports that Key Southeast Asian Operative Played Important Role in 7/7 London Bombings
According to the 2007 edition of a book about the Mossad entitled “Gideon’s Spies,” shortly after the 7/7 London subway bombings (see July 7, 2005), the British domestic intelligence agency MI5 gathers evidence that a senior al-Qaeda operative known only by the alias Mustafa traveled in and out of England shortly before the 7/7 bombings. For months, the real identity of Mustafa remains unknown. But in early October 2005, the Mossad tells MI5 that this person actually was Azhari Husin, a bomb making expert with Jemaah Islamiyah, the main al-Qaeda affiliate in Southeast Asia. Husin used to study in Britain and reports claim that he met the main 7/7 bomber, Mohammad Sidique Khan, in late 2001 in a militant training camp in the Philippines (see Late 2001). Meir Dagan, the head of the Mossad, apparently also tells MI5 that Husin helped plan and recruit volunteers for the bombings. The Mossad claims that Husin may have been in London at the time of the bombings, and then fled to al-Qaeda’s main safe haven in the tribal area of Pakistan, where he sometimes hides after bombings. Husin will be killed in a shootout in Indonesia in November 2005. [Thomas, 2007, pp. 520, 522] Later official British government reports about the 7/7 bombings will not mention Husin.
April 9, 2006: British Government Report Says Al-Qaeda Provided Inspiration but No Direct Help to 7/7 London Bombers
A leaked draft of the “narrative” of the 7/7 London bombings (see July 7, 2005) compiled by the Home Office in lieu of an official investigation concludes that there was no direct support from al-Qaeda for the 7/7 bombings. The Observer reports that the narrative concludes, “Far from being the work of an international terror network, as originally suspected, the attack was carried out by four men who had scoured terror sites on the Internet.” It does acknowledge that two of the suicide bombers—Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer—traveled to Pakistan and met with known militants, but concludes that these trips were “ideological, rather than fact-finding.” Even a video of Khan’s last testament released by an al-Qaeda production company in Pakistan is dismissed as evidence of any al-Qaeda involvement in the attack (see September 1, 2005). Patrick Mercer, a spokesman for the opposition Conservative Party, says an independent inquiry into 7/7 remains necessary, adding, “A series of reports such as this narrative simply does not answer questions such as the reduced terror alert before the attack, the apparent involvement of al-Qaeda, and links to earlier or later terrorist plots.” [Observer, 4/9/2006] But within months, this assertion of no direct al-Qaeda invovlement will collapse as more information is made public about the bombers’ links to al-Qaeda figures and training in al-Qaeda linked camps in Pakistan. On May 12, 2006, Home Secretary John Reid concludes for the first time that there is “considerable” circumstantial evidence of an al-Qaeda connection. [Guardian, 5/12/2006] By July 2006, Peter Clarke, the Metropolitan Police force’s head of anti-terrorism, will concede, “Such information as we do have does suggest there is probably a link to al-Qaeda” (see July 6, 2006). [New York Times, 7/7/2006; Daily Telegraph, 7/8/2006] The BBC will report that same month: “British intelligence agencies believe some form of operational training is likely to have taken place while Khan and Tanweer were in Pakistan together and that it is likely they did have contact with al-Qaeda figures.… [T]he evidence pointing to a major role for al-Qaeda is mounting.” [BBC, 7/6/2006] British counterterrorism expert Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed will argue that the government has deliberately downplayed evidence of al-Qaeda involvement in order to deflect questions about how a large network was able to operate in Britain for many years (see July 2, 2006).
May 11, 2006: British Government Reports into 7/7 London Bombings Largely Absolve Government of Failures
The British government releases two official reports into the 7/7 London bombings (see July 7, 2005). One report is from the Intelligence and Security Committee, which is not a House of Commons committee, but a Cabinet Office committee appointed by the prime minister in consultation with the leader of the opposition. It concludes that two of the 7/7 bombers had been under surveillance, but while there were “intelligence gaps,” there was no evidence of an “intelligence failure that could have prevented the bombings.” British intelligence was justified in not devoting more resources to monitor the 7/7 bombers. The second report is a “narrative of events” by the Home Office. It acknowledges that British foreign policy was an element in the radicalization of the bombers, but concludes that British involvement in the Iraq war was not a key contributory factor behind the bombings. It highlights the “home-grown” nature of the bombers. It acknowledges that the bombers were inspired by Osama bin Laden’s ideology, but says that there is no evidence so far pointing to a direct al-Qaeda link or a mastermind in addition to the four suicide bombers. The Guardian editorial board criticizes the reports, and says that they are unlikely to quiet calls for an independent public inquiry. “The purpose of such reports is to draw lessons and point to ways of improving the public’s safety. In this respect neither report is entirely satisfactory. Each report leaves important questions hanging in the air. Each report tells a story of serious official failure. The failures were particular and general. Two of the 7/7 gang, [Mohammad Sidique] Khan and [Shehzad] Tanweer, were known to the security services. Both had visited Pakistan for extended periods in the months before their suicide mission. Khan, in particular, was already of considerable interest to MI5. It is MI5’s job to collate, to sift, to match and to interpret information of this kind. Patently, the service failed to do that in these cases. This seems not to have been purely a matter of inadequate resources. It was also an operational failure, and thus a failure for which management must take responsibility. The new home secretary, John Reid, gave no indication yesterday that this has happened.” [Guardian, 5/11/2006; Guardian, 5/12/2006] Yet within days, it will be revealed that key evidence had been withheld from the Intelligence and Security Committee that directly contradicts its conclusion that British intelligence was justified in not monitoring the 7/7 bombers more closely (see May 13-14, 2006).
