LONDON, April 9 (Xinhua) -- The official inquiry into the July 7 London bombings will reportedly reveal the attacks were not linked to al-Qaida, British newspaper reported on Sunday.
The suicide attacks were planned on a shoestring budget from information on the Internet. There was no "fifth bomber" and no direct support from al-Qaida, although two of the bombers had visited Pakistan, The Observer cited the first completed draft of the government's definitive report into blasts.
The attacks were the product of a "simple and inexpensive" plot hatched by four British suicide bombers bent on martyrdom rather than an international terror network, said the report, which will be published in the next few weeks.
The four bombers, who scoured terror sites on the Internet, carried out the attacks, and their knapsack bombs cost only a few hundred pounds, the report said.
"The London attacks were a modest, simple affair by four seemingly normal men using the Internet," a Whitehall source was quoted as saying.
According to the report, there was no fifth bomber, whose existence was suspected after another knapsack was found in a car left at Luton station belonging to the bombers.
The failed bomb attacks a fortnight later on July 21 were planned by an unconnected group trying to copy the July 7 attacks.
Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, Shehzad Tanweer, 22, Hasib Hussain, 18, and Germaine Lindsay, 19, were thought to have blown up three London Underground trains and one double-decker bus during the morning rush hour on July 7 by detonating bombs packed into rucksacks.
The attacks were apparently motivated by concerns over Britain's foreign policy and the perception that it was deliberately anti-Muslim, The Observer said, adding that they were also driven by the prospect of immortality. Enditem |