London Terror Attacks
When terrorist attacks felled the World Trade Center and blew a hole into the Pentagon in the United States on September 11th, 2001, the United Kingdom fulfilled its role as America's closest ally. England immediately stepped forward to pledge troops to whatever operations were to arise in response. This would create a coalition that first ventured to Afghanistan to uproot the Taliban and subsequently to Iraq to displace longtime dictator Saddam Hussein. But it was not until July 7th, 2005 that the British people came face-to-face with the War on Terror. The subway bombings which transpired in London on that day and which claimed 56 lives including those of four suicide bombers, highlighted the inherent danger of England's involvement with the global war on violent extremism. Indeed, the events would highlight the ongoing debate within Great Britain at the time, which cast staunch supporters of American interests in direct opposition with those in Britain who had vocally objected to partnership in a preemptive invasion of Iraq.
Quite to the point, it would become a popular perspective amongst members of the British public that the attacks which occurred in London were a direct consequence of the decision to assist in America's highly controversial aggression toward Iraq, which appeared to have no direct involvement in the events of September 11th. According to an article by Baldwin (2006), there would develop in...
According to Baldwin, the U.S. State Department would recognize explicitly that extremist groups were springing up in places all over the world in response to the highly contentious policies developed by the U.S. In the wake of 9/11. To this point, Baldwin reports, "the State Department said: 'Extremist groups continue to proselytise heavily in some European cities. The presence and activity of such terrorist cells was dramatically highlighted by the London bombings.'" (Baldwin, p. 1)
In this instance, Baldwin reports, it is evident that the group responsible for the attacks had no apparent ties to the al-Qaeda network and was forged in London. This would speak to a rising phenomenon of Islamic extremist organization and training across European cities. The article takes the perspective that the attacks in London are among the most prominent and large-scale attacks to emerge from this phenomenon. With the British public already producing a resounding collective objection to the invasion of Iraq and British military support of this endeavor, the attacks in London would only further exacerbate tensions between supporters and opponents of the war.
The attacks would also underscore the inherent challenges in attempting to fight an enemy of this nature. Particularly, the London attacks would…
