CHAPTER II
LONDON TRANSIT BOMBING
On July 7, 2005, during the morning commute, four separate bombs were detonated on the London mass transit system, killing 56 people(including the 4 suicide bombers) and injuring over 700 others. It marked the deadliest attack on British soil since World War II. The coordinated attack was carried out by four British citizens, allegedly in retaliation for British involvement in the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Lack of effective intelligence and insufficient deterrence and detection strategies were blamed for allowing this disaster to occur.
……….By the end of the twentieth century, the United Kingdom and the city of London had become familiar with the threat of terrorism from decades of violence over the political status of Northern Ireland. The attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001, however, presented British authorities with the prospect of internationally based, mass-casualty terrorism, a threat encountered only once before in the United Kingdom, with the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.
………British officials quickly began altering the nation's intelligence, law enforcement, and emergency response systems in an effort to ensure the safety of its citizens under the new paradigm of Islamist terrorism. Several pieces of legislation were ratified by the British Parliament and members of the British intelligence community, such as the Security