London Terror Attacks When Terrorist Attacks Felled

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 the years following the initial invasion of Iraq a recognition that increased acts of terrorism were now stimulated throughout the world. 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 demonstrate the difficulty in detecting and disrupting the activities of the grass-roots terror groups unrelated to the perpetrators of 9/11. Here, it would be clear that the shared motives between terrorist groups had only strengthened in light of American and British actions following the 2001 attacks. With that said, the British government would remain steadfast in the defense of its positions and policies, taking issue with the association drawn between the London attacks and its involvement with the war in Iraq. According to an article in BBC News in the aftermath of the subway bombings, British home secretary John Reid aggressively rejected the notion that there was any direct connection between the bombings and Iraq.

It bears noting that Reid's statements were made from a position of defensiveness, with the British government taking efforts to resist an extensive public inquiry into the attacks. Though the reasons for opposing this inquiry were largely rationalized as related to security concerns, many in the public had clamored that the inquiry was avoided because the British government wished to evade explicit notation of the Iraq War as a motive. With the conflict becoming increasingly unpopular as its goals became less clear and its progress more protracted, "Mr. Reid told the BBC: 'if there had been any mention of Iraq from any of the bombers any where in the last will and testament of Khan in the Al Jazeera video which he made - that wouldn't have been hidden, couldn't have been hidden. The truth is it wasn't mentioned.'" (BBC, p. 1)

The article notes though that British intelligence had been inundated by a growing din of threats from extremist groups including al-Qaeda. These warned that its involvement in Iraq would stimulate retaliatory gestures against England. Many in the British public and around the world would see the London attacks as exactly such a gesture. For the British government, however, the article here demonstrates an interest in distancing the discussion on the London attacks from the already highly vitriolic discussion on Iraq.