Interesting findings from the official report - this was a plan of just 4 individuals.
British government reports into the July bombings on London’s transit network conclude the four attackers acted without the assistance of foreign terrorists, officials and lawmakers said yesterday.
The two reports being released today address concerns that intelligence agencies had placed two of the bombers under surveillance in 2004 but determined them not to be a threat and halted their supervision.
Authorities have long held that the four men, who killed 52 subway and bus passengers, were home-grown terrorists who acted independently and not at the direction of an Al Qaeda operative or other foreign group.
Exhaustive investigations now support that assessment, a government official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
But the reports, by Britain’s Home Office and a committee of lawmakers, are likely to fuel further calls for a broader probe that would publicly dissect the evidence.
Britain’s Home Office attempted to examine the ease with which the attack was mounted and the effect the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq had in radicalizing young British Muslims to strike against their homeland, the official said.
The Home Office report was written as an alternative to a full public inquiry and survivors of the bombings are campaigning for a public inquiry similar to the U.S. commission into the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
In compiling a separate report also being released today, Britain’s parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee interviewed the heads of Britain’s two spy agencies, investigating if more could have been done to prevent the attacks. It is expected to conclude there is no evidence the agencies could have prevented the attack.