International

7/7 report a whitewash, say victims' relatives

Hasan Suroor

LONDON: An official report on Thursday cleared Britain's intelligence agencies of any blame for the July 7 bombings in London but highlighted the fact that although two of the suicide bombers — Mohammed Siddique Khan and Shahzad Tanweer — had been known to the security services they were not fully investigated.

Internal investigation

Families of the victims called it a "whitewash'' and demanded an independent investigation saying that many questions had remained unanswered and the public had a right to know the full truth. They said the report was the result of meetings held behind "closed doors'' .

"They were internal investigations and I am not surprised that the politicians and security services have examined their work in secret and subsequently found themselves not to blame. It is the public — not the spooks or politicians — who walk the streets, take the buses and tubes each day, and wonder what risks they run. The public seem to have so many unanswered questions. I find it staggering that there is no public inquiry,'' Rachel North, who suffered serious injuries in the attacks told the BBC after Home Secretary John Reid rejected calls for an independent inquiry claiming there was no need for it.

In its report, the cross-party Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) of Parliament held that there was no evidence of an intelligence failure. It acknowledged that security services knew that Khan and Tanweer had travelled to Pakistan and it was "likely that they had some contact with Al-Qaeda figures'' but said that a lack of resources and "more pressing priorities'' at the time prevented them from the further investigating the two.

In a separate report, the Home Office said the attacks, which claimed 52 lives and left hundreds injured and traumatised, were carried out by "home-grown'' suicide bombers who had no direct links with Al-Qaeda though they may have been inspired by it.

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