says the ex Head of The Met, News of the World, Times, BBC etc based on absolutely no evidence at all. History appears to be about to repeat itself. I was in Guildford on the night that the Horse and Groom was blown up in 1974 and I well remember the hysteria whipped up by the press that led to four innocent people of Irish descent being jailed for years whilst the real culprits walked free to kill again.
From what I can see the modus operandi of these attacks using multiple bombs set off simultaneously on public transport is almost identical to that used in Madrid which was the work of a terrorist cell made up mainly of North Africans. Juan Cole, whose views I respect, has stated on his web site that British Muslims of South Asian origin are very unlikley to have been the organisers of this attack. He thinks the 'Qaeda al-Jihad in Europe' who claimed to have carried out the bombings may well be responsible. Contrary, to what I have seen touted on some parts of DU it did not misquote the Koran nor was it written in bad Arabic. Even more interestingly the language used was very similar to that expounded by the 'Muslim Brotherhood' which has a powerful following in Egypt and certain other parts of North Africa.
http://www.juancole.com/It now seems that high grade plastic explosives were used to construct the bombs and this substance is certainly not readily available in the UK. The material would have to be obtained outside the country and smuggled across the border.This requires an international organisation. In addition, from my memory of past IRA activity, terrorist groups rarely used mainland based sympathisers to carry out bombings. Instead they brought in teams from outside the country to do the attacks. This made it far harder for the authorities to infiltrate their organisation and to stop the bombers. Contary, to what the press may be saying, the nightmate scenario for the authorities is not that the bombers came from the local Muslim population because such a network would be relatively easy to penetrate and roll up. More worrying is the fact that large amounts of explosives and the people who use it are getting into the country undetected. It is one of the little mentioned prices for living in our glorious 'global economy'.