Bus blast may have been suicide bomb

LONDON - The biggest criminal investigation in recent British history has swung into action with the police and the security services carrying out forensic tests, checking CCTV cameras, and examining lists of suspects.

Law enforcement agencies in Europe, the US and the Middle East were contacted immediately following yesterday's bomb blasts on the London underground and a bus.

A few clues emerged early. Two of the underground blasts had been caused by high explosives packed into containers, possibly brief cases, taken on to the trains and left there.

However, the bomb that ripped the roof off the double-decker bus in central London may have been detonated by the person carrying it. Police say it could have gone off accidentally while being transported for another Tube attack but they were also considering whether it was the first-ever suicide bombing in Britain.

Suicide attacks have become a common tool for a number of insurgent groups, especially Islamists, the world over. The United Kingdom had been spared this during the long IRA campaign, but all this may change with new protagonists.

The attacks were designed to cause the maximum number of casualties at the height of the morning rush hour at King's Cross in the north, Edgware Road in the west and Liverpool Street in the east.

The bus bomb could, say the police, have been intended for a station to the south. In the space of 56 minutes there were at least 37 killed and 700 casualties.

Within hours responsibility was claimed on an Islamist website by a group calling itself The Secret Organisation of al Qaeda in Europe.

The bombings were, it said, in revenge for "massacres Britain committed in Iraq and Afghanistan".

A group using the same name claimed responsibility for the last major terrorist attack in Europe - the co-ordinated bombings of commuter trains in Spain on March 11 last year that killed 191 people. Two days after the blasts a video was found in a dustbin outside a mosque with a statement from Abu Dujan al Afghani, who described himself as the group's spokesman.

But British and US officials as well as security analysts stressed yesterday that there was no proof that the group actually existed and had carried out the attacks.

The website statement said: "Rejoice, Islamic nation. Rejoice, Arab world. The time has come for vengeance against the Zionist crusader government of Britain in response to the massacres Britain committed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"The heroic mujaheddin carried out a blessed attack in London, and now Britain is burning with fear and terror, from north to south, east to west. We warned the British government and the British people repeatedly. We have carried out our promise and carried out a military attack in Britain after great efforts by the heroic mujaheddin over a long period to ensure its success."

The statement went on to warn the Danish and Italian governments that, "they will receive the same punishment if they do not withdraw their troops from Iraq and Afghanistan."

There is no evidence that Islamist bombings in recent years including Bali, Istanbul, Riyadh, Casbalanca and Madrid were carried out by al Qaeda members acting on the direct orders of Osama bin Laden. Instead, they appear to have been carried out by local cells of sympathisers.

There is, however, plenty of evidence of collusion between militants within Europe and Spanish police have claimed there are connections between the group which carried out the Madrid bombings and Britain.

Three men allegedly implicated in the Madrid bombings are said to have British links, including a Syrian living in London. His brother was arrested by police in Spain accused of sheltering some of the bombers and was also questioned about suicide bombings in Casablanca which killed 45 people.

Abdelkarim el Mejjati, also known as Abu Elyas, vanished from Spain a few days before the Madrid bombings and was sighted in London. He was convicted in absentia in Tunisia for the Casablanca bombings.

An alleged ringleader of the Madrid attack, Mustapha Setmarian Nassar, also Syrian-born, lived in north London in the late 1990s and is said to have been a visitor to the mosque at Finsbury Park. There had been sightings of him in London after the Madrid bombings, although US authorities, who have placed a US$5m bounty on him, maintain he is now in Iraq where he has established links with the Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born militant who runs al Qaeda in Iraq.

Nassar is known to have associated with Abu Qatada, one of the detainees released from Belmarsh in March this year, while he lived in London. Spanish authorities claim that Qatada, described by a British judge as a "truly dangerous" individual, also had links with Abu Dahdah, another Syrian living in Spain who was arrested there on suspicion of recruiting bombers.

The security agencies maintain, however, that there is no reason for foreign operatives to come to Britain to carry out attacks because there is no shortage of home-grown activists mainly from the Pakistani community.

MI5 say that around 3000 British Muslims have been through al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan, although the vast majority have played no active part in terrorism.

Tony Blair has spoken about "several hundred" trained al Qaeda operatives in Britain, a figure supported by the Scotland Yard Commissioner Sir Ian Blair.

With yesterday's attack came the reminder of the message delivered by IRA bombers after the assassination attempt on Mrs Thatcher in Brighton.

"You have got to be lucky all the time, we have got to be lucky just once."

- INDEPENDENT