Essay On London Bombing

July 7, 2005 was supposed to be a normal day in London, but little did London know this day would walk off down in history. On this Thursday morning, four Islamic suicide bombers were spread across London and separately detonated three bombs in succession. These bombs were detonated within the underground subways throughout the city. Later that day, a fourth bomb was detonated on a double-decker bus within the Tavistock Square. This attack would exit down as the first ever suicide attack within the United Kingdom. Pauline Neville-Jones was quoted stating, “The suicide bombers who struck London on 7 July 2005 killed 52 innocent people and wounded hundreds more. All of them must live with their memories. And the rest of us will always remember where we were when we heard that London had been hit by the worst terrorist attack in its history.” (Neville-Jones, 2005) However, July 7th did not stop Londoners from being who they are. The people of London continued to live life the only way they knew how and did not allow terrorist to create fear in their lives. London’s security response team the Cabinet Office Briefing Room A (COBRA) were alerted and responded to the explosions quickly. COBRA is London’s the top-level emergency group. COBRA was in the area investigating around the clock ensuring evidence was not being tampered with and ensuring people were receiving the help they needed. COBRA also ensured all public transportation was shut down into and out of London ensuring locals and tourist were not in harm’s way. That afternoon, Tony Blair (British Prime Minister at the time of the attacks), meet with COBRA, but before the meeting occurred they saw an Islamist website mention the attacks in London. The website mentions that the attacks against London and the United Kingdom, was retaliation for Britain's involvement in US-led operations in Afghanistan. The organization which posted this statement was known as the Secret Organization of the Al-Qaeda Jihad in Europe. The message of the organization was, “Rejoice for it is time to take revenge against the British Zionist crusader government in retaliation for the massacres Britain is committing in Iraq and Afghanistan. The heroic mujahideen have carried out a blessed raid in London. Britain is now burning with fear, terror and panic in its northern, southern, eastern and western quarters.” (Muir & Cowan, 2005) On September 1, 2005, through a video broadcast through the Arab network called “Al Jazeera,” Al-Qaeda officially took responsibility for the attacks in London. (Townsend, 2006) The British still believe the attackers did not have any direct connection to Al-Qaeda, so after a few inquires into the video it was determined Zabi uk-Taifi, an al-Qaeda commander arrested in Pakistan in January 2009, may have had connections to the bombings, according to Pakistani intelligence sources. (Nelson & Khan, 2009) The time line for these events goes as follows; at 08:50 there were initial reports of an incident from two different train stations. Initial thoughts were a collision had occurred, but incidents were believed to be separate incidents. At 08:56, an explosion had occurred within another tube station; witness believed the explosion happened outside the train. At 09:17, an explosion occurred at another tube station. At 09:28, an operator believed that the explosion was due to a power surge. At 09:33, an incident was reported at a tube station on board a train, with passengers breaking windows trying to escape. At 09:46, British Police made a statement informing the public that there were multiple explosions at …show more content…
The four “bombers” are referred to as the “Stepford four”. (Brothers, 2014) The fact MI5 gave this attack a Codename, did not sit well with the public. The main question which was asked was if MI5 actually did not know what was going on and did not in fact know who was behind this entire attack, why would they give these bombers a Codename like Stepford? This is the just the operation name MI5 decide to give to this event as several questions were still unanswered. However, attempts were being made to find out exactly what had happened and how they missed the signs leading up to the