Four attempted bombings on London’s transport system on Thursday look like an intended carbon-copy of attacks that killed 56 people two weeks ago and may be masterminded by the same group, security analysts said.
They put forward two main scenarios behind the latest blasts, which were much smaller than the previous ones and did not cause any fatalities.
The first, more benign explanation, was that the attacks were carried out by “imitative amateurs” intent on mounting a copycat strike by targeting three underground trains and a bus in a cross-formation across the city.
The second, more worrying, was that the same group behind the suspected al-Qaida-linked attacks on July 7 had struck again, albeit with far less devastating effect.
Police refused to be drawn on which was more likely.
“Whether or not this is directly connected, in the sense of carried out by the same group of people, however loosely knit that is, I think that’s going to take just a little bit longer before we can qualify that,” police chief Ian Blair said.
But he added: “Clearly, the intention must have been to kill.”
'Terrorist psychology'
Whoever was behind Thursday’s attacks, they managed to manufacture four explosive devices and smuggle them on to the London transport network despite the highest levels of security and public watchfulness in London for years.
If the same group was responsible for two waves of coordinated attacks two weeks apart, it would show an alarming ease in mobilizing fresh operatives — perhaps even would-be suicide bombers — to follow the example of the four bombers who blew themselves up on July 7.
“The more we know about the bomb attack two weeks ago, the more skilful it looks, well planned — the people behind it know what they’re doing,” said Michael Clarke, security expert at King’s College London.
“It is entirely plausible that they will have planned a campaign, not just one bomb. It’s part of terrorist psychology that one bomb is never enough.”
Former U.S. intelligence official Robert Ayers, a security analyst at the London think tank Chatham House institute, said he thought it more likely the same group was behind both attacks than that a second, independent group had now emerged.
“What I’ve been saying all along is that you had four guys that died (in the July 7 bombings), but the infrastructure that trained them, equipped them, funded them, pointed them at the right target — the infrastructure’s still in place.”
If the same group was involved, the obvious question is why the first wave of attacks was so professional and deadly and the second apparently so amateur.
Unused explosives
Ayers noted that police had recovered unused explosives from various sites, including a hired car abandoned by the July 7 bombers at Luton, near London.
“One speculation I’ve had all along is that they left those explosives in the car for another group to pick up and carry out a second attack, but when they got there the car had already been taken over by the police, so they’ve had to cobble something together fairly quickly,” he said.
Both Clarke and Ayers said witness accounts of Thursday’s incidents suggested the bombs had malfunctioned.
“From what I’ve been able to gather, either the bombs themselves are very, very small compared to two weeks ago, or they’ve got a manufacturing problem and only the detonators are going off, and not the primary charge,” Ayers said.
“They’re certainly using explosives that aren’t nearly as powerful.”
The analysts said the impact of a second attack, although less deadly than the first, would be highly disruptive to life and business in Europe’s biggest financial center.
Navin Reddy, strategic risk analyst at consultancy Merchant International Group, said “every half-baked terrorist in the country” would be looking at committing similar attacks.
“Given that the intelligence services will be unable to track groups that act independently of the major terror organizations they do watch, this raises the risk level,” he said.
“The events of today and July 7 are having a distinct economic impact on the running of the capital. They have disrupted the transport system and they have tied up the emergency services.
“The longer-term trickle effect on the nation’s psychology and missed business opportunities could mount up,” he added.
