Britain's security services could not have prevented the 2005 London suicide attacks because they lacked the resources to investigate the plot's ringleader properly, a report by senior parliamentarians said on Tuesday. Indeed the domestic spy agency MI5 could only properly track about 6 percent of those suspected of involvement in terrorism a year before the bombings, the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) said.
In a report containing unprecedented detail about the work of MI5, the committee said the head of the service had admitted that even now, with greater resources, they could only "hit the crocodiles nearest the boat".
Mohammad Sidique Khan, the ringleader of the July 7 bombings which killed 52 commuters in the capital's worst peacetime attack, had been watched, photographed and recorded by surveillance operatives a number of times after 2001. But the ISC declined to fault MI5 for failing to act against him, saying he had not been considered a significant enough threat to devote limited manpower.
"Having taken everything into account, and having looked at all the evidence in considerable detail, we cannot criticise the judgements made by MI5 and the police, based on the information that they had and the priorities at the time," it said. In the immediate aftermath of the blasts on three underground trains and a bus, the authorities said the bombers had been "clean skins" who had not previously come to the attention of security services.
But it emerged in later court cases that Khan and fellow bomber Shehzad Tanweer had been seen in 2004 meeting Omar Khyam, the leader of an al Qaeda-inspired gang jailed for plotting to bomb nightclubs, trains and shopping centres in Britain using fertiliser-based explosives.
The ISC report also showed MI5 had come across Khan on numerous occasions from 2001. But either Khan or Tanweer were not identified or not considered to be "essential" targets. While the ISC said it was "surprising" that Khan had not been identified before 7/7, it noted MI5 would have needed a *strength of several hundred thousand officers, instead of the 3,500 it now has, to tail all such suspects.
The ISC report, the second the committee has carried out into the attacks, said "astounding figures" showed that more than 60 percent of MI5's targets at the time had coverage described as either "inadequate" or "none". The ISC noted the security services had thwarted 12 terrorist plots since 2000 which could have resulted in loss of life "in some cases on a massive scale". It also warned that another successful attack was likely.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the review showed there was no evidence to support claims that warnings had been ignored but it may not satisfy relatives of victims and survivors of the bombings who have long pressed for an independent public probe.
"There will inevitably be those who do not like what we have written, who will criticise the report because it does not say what they want it to say, but we cannot alter the facts to suit the story," said committee chairman Kim Howells. The government has ruled out a public inquiry, saying it would sidetrack the security services when Britain is at serious risk of a terrorist attack. Britain remains at its second-highest threat level, "Severe", meaning an attack is highly likely.
Comments
Comments are closed.