Report of the Official Account of Bombings in London on 7 July

One of the two official reports on the 7 July bombings in London, made public on 11 May 2006, inquires into the causes of the attack. The report offers a portrait of the four men involved in the bombings. They are rendered as ‘largely unexceptional’ and their motivation is due to the ‘perceived injustices carried by the West against Muslims’ as well as a ‘desire for martyrdom’. The group appears to have been self-financed and to have carried the attacks with minimal financial means.

The conclusions of the report point out the difficulties for intelligence services and local communities to identify terrorist suspects: nothing in their background marked them out as particularly vulnerable to radicalisation, they were open about their religious beliefs and observance and the planning of the attack was ‘deceptively simple’.

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Report of the Official Account of Bombings in London on 7 July