7/7 REPORT
A slightly misleading headline from the frontpage of the Times' website: Noone blamed for 7/7.An official report into the July 7 attacks on London has concluded that MI5 and other security agencies had not understood the sheer scale of the threat posed by "home-grown" Islamic terrorists.I'm not sure whether that's particularly good news, other than for the relief it provides that our security services didn't lose Mr Big after all.
Although the report, by the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), absolves the security forces of specific blame for their failure to identify the four 7/7 bombers and avert Britain's first suicide attacks, it paints a picture of an intelligence community that is largely out of its depth.
The cross-party group of eight MPs and one peer also criticises the Joint Intelligence Committee for its potentially misleading judgement just four months before the bombings that suicide attacks would not become the norm in Europe.
...
The report adds: "Claims in the media that a 'mastermind' left the UK reflect one strand of an investigation that was subsquently discounted by the intelligence and security agencies."
More worryingly, if this piece from the Independent is anything to go by, MI5 have their eye on another 700 homegrown nutjobs lurking out there with the same twisted mindset as Messrs. Khan, Tanweer, Lindsay and Hussain.
How much the 300% rise in this figure since 9/11 is actually down to the police and MI5's response to 7/7 I don't know, but at least it sounds like the spooks are paying proper attention.
UPDATE:
No need. All's working again, as of 5.07pm.
posted by Dan @ 3:08 pm
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