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10 Years After London Bombings, Warnings of a Greater Threat
Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain, right, and Mayor Boris Johnson of London laid wreaths on Tuesday at a memorial in Hyde Park to the victims of the London bombings on July 7, 2005.
PETER NICHOLLS / REUTERS
By*STEVEN*ERLANGER
JULY 7, 2015
LONDON — As Britain mourned the 52 civilians killed 10 years ago in its most devastating terrorist attacks, government officials warned on Tuesday that the threat of terrorism had only increased, though its nature has shifted.
Four suicide bombers linked to Al Qaeda detonated explosives on a London bus and on three subway trains in the July 7, 2005, attacks, which Britain considers its Sept. 11. About 700 people were wounded.
Commemorations on Tuesday included a wreath-laying ceremony at a Hyde Park memorial for the victims, attended by Prime Minister David Cameron and Mayor Boris Johnson of London; a service at St. Paul’s Cathedral and a national moment of silence.
The coordinated attacks changed British attitudes, bringing a new focus on the spread of terrorism and further empowering the government to try to forestall extremism, especially among people raised in Britain who are at risk of becoming radicalized. But British leaders are now warning that the rise of the Islamic State has again changed the calculus.
A man prayed on Tuesday at a memorial in London near where a bus was bombed 10 years ago. A national minute of silence was observed for the 52 people killed in the attacks.
PETER MACDIARMID / GETTY IMAGES
Less than two weeks ago, 38 people, including 30 Britons, were killed when a young Tunisian, who was reported to have trained in Libya and to have claimed allegiance to the Islamic State, opened fire at a beach resort in Sousse, Tunisia. It was the deadliest act of terrorism against Britons since the attacks in 2005.
Britain’s senior counterterrorism officer, Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley of the Metropolitan Police, said that the rise of Islamic State militants meant that Britain was now facing a “very different” threat.
“We’ve seen another step change in terrorism in the way it works and connects across the world in the last couple of years,” he said.
Mr. Cameron said on Twitter that “Ten years on from the 7/7 London attacks, the threat continues to be as real as it is deadly — but we will never be cowed by terrorism.”
Tony Blair, who was prime minister at the time of the attacks, warned that the threat to Britain and other Western countries from Islamist terrorism had increased, as the Islamic State had established itself “on the edges of Europe.”
Counterterrorism experts like Raffaello Pantucci, director of international security studies at the Royal United Services Institute in London, have regularly noted that while Al Qaeda tended to favor large-scale coordinated assaults, the new dangers include so-called lone-wolf attacks, which are harder to prevent, by marginal actors whose radicalization and recruitment can happen quietly in British suburbs and towns through social media and small mosques.
These lone-wolf attackers can be motivated by external events like the Syrian civil war or groomed into radicalism by anger and anomie. The case of Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale — two British-born converts to Islam who killed Lee Rigby, an off-duty soldier in London, two years ago in retaliation for the killing of Muslims overseas by the British military — caught intelligence services and the police by surprise.
Mr. Pantucci recently published a book, “We Love Death as You Love Life,” about such cases of “suburban terrorists.” The attacks 10 years ago, he wrote, “breathed vivid life into the concept of the homegrown terrorist, born and raised in town and city suburbs and beneficiaries of our schools and universities, who suddenly turn murderously against the state.”
British officials estimate that about 700 Britons — and roughly 5,000 Europeans — have traveled to Syria or Iraq to join jihadist groups, including three schoolgirls from the Bethnal Green neighborhood in East London in February. Last week, a family of 12 that had not been seen since May issued a statement saying that it had joined the Islamic State.
About half of the 700 Britons are estimated to have returned, but there are many others who are tempted to go, or who have tried but been turned back. It is increasingly difficult for intelligence services to keep track of all of them, officials say, bringing additional demands for increased surveillance of suspects and new debates about privacy.
Andrew Parker, the director general of MI5, Britain’s domestic intelligence agency, described the events of July 7 as an “enduring reminder” of what his organization “is striving every day to prevent.”
He said that “appalling acts are attempted by individuals who have grown up here but decided, for whatever twisted reasons, to identify their own country as the enemy.” This, he added, presented Britain with “a serious societal and security challenge.”
Mr. Parker noted that in the months before the 2005 attacks, “there had been a degree of skepticism about the terrorism threat in the media: Surely it couldn’t happen here?”
“The fact of 7/7 ended those arguments and led to a step change in the nation’s counterterrorism defenses,” he said.
10 Years After London Bombings, Warnings of a Greater Threat
Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain, right, and Mayor Boris Johnson of London laid wreaths on Tuesday at a memorial in Hyde Park to the victims of the London bombings on July 7, 2005.
PETER NICHOLLS / REUTERS
By*STEVEN*ERLANGER
JULY 7, 2015
LONDON — As Britain mourned the 52 civilians killed 10 years ago in its most devastating terrorist attacks, government officials warned on Tuesday that the threat of terrorism had only increased, though its nature has shifted.
Four suicide bombers linked to Al Qaeda detonated explosives on a London bus and on three subway trains in the July 7, 2005, attacks, which Britain considers its Sept. 11. About 700 people were wounded.
Commemorations on Tuesday included a wreath-laying ceremony at a Hyde Park memorial for the victims, attended by Prime Minister David Cameron and Mayor Boris Johnson of London; a service at St. Paul’s Cathedral and a national moment of silence.
The coordinated attacks changed British attitudes, bringing a new focus on the spread of terrorism and further empowering the government to try to forestall extremism, especially among people raised in Britain who are at risk of becoming radicalized. But British leaders are now warning that the rise of the Islamic State has again changed the calculus.
A man prayed on Tuesday at a memorial in London near where a bus was bombed 10 years ago. A national minute of silence was observed for the 52 people killed in the attacks.
PETER MACDIARMID / GETTY IMAGES
Less than two weeks ago, 38 people, including 30 Britons, were killed when a young Tunisian, who was reported to have trained in Libya and to have claimed allegiance to the Islamic State, opened fire at a beach resort in Sousse, Tunisia. It was the deadliest act of terrorism against Britons since the attacks in 2005.
Britain’s senior counterterrorism officer, Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley of the Metropolitan Police, said that the rise of Islamic State militants meant that Britain was now facing a “very different” threat.
“We’ve seen another step change in terrorism in the way it works and connects across the world in the last couple of years,” he said.
Mr. Cameron said on Twitter that “Ten years on from the 7/7 London attacks, the threat continues to be as real as it is deadly — but we will never be cowed by terrorism.”
Tony Blair, who was prime minister at the time of the attacks, warned that the threat to Britain and other Western countries from Islamist terrorism had increased, as the Islamic State had established itself “on the edges of Europe.”
Counterterrorism experts like Raffaello Pantucci, director of international security studies at the Royal United Services Institute in London, have regularly noted that while Al Qaeda tended to favor large-scale coordinated assaults, the new dangers include so-called lone-wolf attacks, which are harder to prevent, by marginal actors whose radicalization and recruitment can happen quietly in British suburbs and towns through social media and small mosques.
These lone-wolf attackers can be motivated by external events like the Syrian civil war or groomed into radicalism by anger and anomie. The case of Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale — two British-born converts to Islam who killed Lee Rigby, an off-duty soldier in London, two years ago in retaliation for the killing of Muslims overseas by the British military — caught intelligence services and the police by surprise.
Mr. Pantucci recently published a book, “We Love Death as You Love Life,” about such cases of “suburban terrorists.” The attacks 10 years ago, he wrote, “breathed vivid life into the concept of the homegrown terrorist, born and raised in town and city suburbs and beneficiaries of our schools and universities, who suddenly turn murderously against the state.”
British officials estimate that about 700 Britons — and roughly 5,000 Europeans — have traveled to Syria or Iraq to join jihadist groups, including three schoolgirls from the Bethnal Green neighborhood in East London in February. Last week, a family of 12 that had not been seen since May issued a statement saying that it had joined the Islamic State.
About half of the 700 Britons are estimated to have returned, but there are many others who are tempted to go, or who have tried but been turned back. It is increasingly difficult for intelligence services to keep track of all of them, officials say, bringing additional demands for increased surveillance of suspects and new debates about privacy.
Andrew Parker, the director general of MI5, Britain’s domestic intelligence agency, described the events of July 7 as an “enduring reminder” of what his organization “is striving every day to prevent.”
He said that “appalling acts are attempted by individuals who have grown up here but decided, for whatever twisted reasons, to identify their own country as the enemy.” This, he added, presented Britain with “a serious societal and security challenge.”
Mr. Parker noted that in the months before the 2005 attacks, “there had been a degree of skepticism about the terrorism threat in the media: Surely it couldn’t happen here?”
“The fact of 7/7 ended those arguments and led to a step change in the nation’s counterterrorism defenses,” he said.
