'Bombers could strike again'
2005-07-08 10:00
London - Britain's top law-enforcement official said on Friday that the bombers who hit London's transportation network could strike again.
"We have to have... maximum consideration of the risk of another attack and that's why our total effort today is focused on identifying the perpetrators and bringing them to justice," Home Secretary Charles Clarke told British Broadcasting Corporation radio.
"That is of course the number one preoccupation that the police and security services have at this moment," he said.
Clarke said police have not ruled out the possibility that one or more of the attackers who struck three subway trains and a double-decker bus on Thursday could have been suicide bombers.
"No particular hypothesis has been ruled out or confirmed."
He also rejected that the attacks, which killed at least 37 people in London and left about 700 injured came "out of the blue," rejecting any idea of an intelligence failure.
"As far as the general threat assessment was concerned, we didn't have prior knowledge of this attack," Clarke told Sky News television.
"We obviously are looking very carefully at all our intelligence to see if anything was missed, but in fact we don't believe anything was missed. It just came out of the blue," said Clarke of the attacks on the London Underground and a London bus.
British newspapers had earlier questioned the alertness of Britain's security services, highlighting a recent decision by the security services to downgrade the terror threat level to its lowest point since the September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.
"The timing of Thursday's seemingly co-ordinated attacks on the capitals transport system appears to have exploited a weak link in the chain of intelligence and a fatal lapse in security," the Financial Times business daily opined.
According to The Times, "the co-ordinated terrorist bombs across London yesterday came out of the blue. There has been no intelligence warning of an imminent attack."
The Joint Terrorist Analysis Centre (Jtac), which operates from the headquarters of MI5, Britain's internal security service, lowered its terror alert one grade from 'severe general', the third highest level, to 'substantial'.
According to The Times, intelligence officials said Jtac was to re-examine all recent secret material to determine if any indications of the London attacks had been overlooked. AP/AFP