The London Blasts: Media Review

DAY 51: 27 August 2005

Contents

7/7 BOMBERS

There are many lingering mysteries about the 7/7 attacks. One concerns the large cache of explosives left behind in the car park in Luton. The Times reports that investigators now believe the explosives they had put together may just have been too large for the rucksacks to carry:

'After examining all the possible reasons why the bombers left bomb-making components in the boot of a car at Luton railway station, investigators consider it likely that the four terrorists had intended to build devices with at least 20lb of home-made explosives.'

'The suggestion that the explosives, nails and other components found in the red Fiat had been left there for a follow-on terrorist team has been discounted. One posssibility is that their rucksacks were too small for bigger devices.'

As everyone knows, the bombs left behind included one nail bomb. The use of nails or similar shrapnel would have greatly increased the death toll from the explosions. Another mystery is the decision of the bombers not to amplify the effectiveness of the bombing by including such materials - a common tactic in Palestine.

What about the peculiar behaviour of Hasib Hussain, the bus bomber.

Today in The Times, a letter tries to use the fact that the Hasib Hussain tried to call his fellow cell members after they had already blown themselves up as evidence that the bombers might have been duped into committing suicide:

'Is it not possible that they were duped into believing that a time-delay mechanism would enable them to disembark at the next station and escape before detonation?'

'This hypothesis is strengthened by the fact that one of the bombers tried to contact the others “minutes before he blew himself up on a London bus”.'

As discussed here two days ago, police now think that Hasib Hussain had second thoughts about his attack, because there were no problems with the Northern Line underground, which he was targeting. He should therefore have been below ground, on a train, at 8.50, when the bombs were due to go off.

It seems to us that one possible explanation, that fits the facts just as well, is that the fourth bomber had problems boarding a train, as he said, and may at the same time have had problems triggering his bomb.

The Times reported two days ago:

'Knowing that all four men were supposed to synchronise the timing of the explosions, Hussain ran out of King’s Cross Underground station and tried to reach his accomplices by mobile telephone.'

'It was just before 9am, but by then all his fellow bombers were already dead. The other three had triggered their devices within seconds of one another at 8.50am.'

'Hussain is believed to have first called Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, the alleged leader of the group, saying: “I can’t get on a train. What should I do ?” Then in quick succession he left the same message for Shehzad Tanweer and Jermaine Lindsay as, clearly agitated about his next move, he hurried away from the station.'

Why would he have called his fellow bombers unless he believed that they were also alive?

It is in theory possible that he thought they were alive because they didn't think they were on a suicide mission.

This is hard to believe. Quite apart from anything else, it is hard to believe that the bombers would not have been aware of the lack of a timing device in the trigger that they manually operated. Secondly, the "bomb factory" that created the bombs (and presumably the triggering devices) was in Leeds, and seems to have been operated by the three Leeds bombers.

The other possibilities are that Hasib Hussein called out of desperation, knowing that the others were almost certainly dead; or that, when he called, he had had problems exploding his device, and thought that they also might have failed to blow themselves up.

This would be consistent with the eyewitness accounts of his struggles with his rucksack on the top deck of the No 30 bus:

'Richard Jones, a passenger standing near the back of the upper deck, noticed a man “of Mediterranean appearance” who kept dipping down into the rucksack at his feet, and seemed increasingly agitated. “He was fiddling away and kept getting annoyed with something.” Realising the bus was being diverted, Mr Jones asked the driver to let him off.'

The Times comments, 'Hussain may have been trying to detonate the bomb; more likely he was trying to disarm it, and could not.' Their view is based on this eyewitness account:

'A second before the explosion, passengers heard a man’s piercing scream of terror from the back of the bus. One described the sound as “ghastly, and not of this world”.'

The Times suggests, 'This was not the final yell of the Muslim martyr, but the cry of a fool and a coward, suddenly staring at his own death.' Perhaps. On the other hand, it is common in such traumatic situations to confuse the order of events, and it is possible that this scream occurred after the explosion rather than before it.

If Hasib Hussain had wanted to survive that day, he could have left his bomb anywhere. He chose to carry it with him, and to continually fiddle with it. This suggests he intended to carry out his mission.

None of this is of any larger political significance.

JNV welcomes feedback.