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'You can bet on more attacks'
06/10/2005 08:00 - (SA)
London - Life in London is effectively back to normal three months after suicide bombers tore through its transport network, but police are still scrambling for clues and the risk of another attack remains high.
Crucially, hundreds of questions have been left unanswered, such as was there a mastermind behind the bombings? What was al-Qaeda's involvement? Were the blasts linked to a botched attack two weeks later? Who made the bombs?
In addition, Prime Minister Tony Blair said that "the rules of the game are changing", but analysts say nothing has really altered apart from the rhetoric. They warn that the government must work harder to avoid more carnage.
Four British-born Muslims, police say, killed 52 people and injured hundreds more when they blew themselves up on three subway trains and a double-decker bus at the height of the morning rush hour on July 7.
Hundreds of detectives
Britain's worst terrorist attack came the day after London was awarded the 2012 Olympics and as Blair hosted a G8 summit of world leaders in Scotland.
It triggered an unprecedented police investigation, which was made all the more complicated on July 21 when another group of four men allegedly tried to carry out an identical bombing campaign, but were foiled by faulty explosives.
All four have been caught and charged, but police have yet to announce a breakthrough on the July 7 probe despite pouring over more than 80 000 hours of closed circuit television (CCTV) footage and speaking to 3 000 witnesses.
A police spokesperson at Scotland Yard said: "The investigation is still pursued with a great deal of vigour, but the activity is behind the scene.
"There is still an awful lot of work being done, with hundreds of detectives involved."
But Robert Ayers, a former United States intelligence officer, believes the lack of news on the inquiry likely means that the police have made little progress.
"There have been no further arrests, there have been no people charged... it has all gone very quiet, which would suggest to me that they don't have much information they could act on," said Ayers, who now works in London as a security expert at the think-tank Chatham House.
He warned that Britain's inability to locate a ringleader or tackle the fundamental problem of why British-born Muslims became suicide bombers, meant the chance of another attack was a matter of if rather than when.
"Given the number of disenfranchised, unhappy and illegal (immigrants) in the United Kingdom, I think it is not only logical to expect, but it is worthy of betting that there are going to be more attacks," he told AFP.
A Transport for London spokesperson said passenger numbers were back to the normal level of more than three million a day on the subway.
- AFP
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