JEDDAH, 8 July 2005 — The world recoiled in shock yesterday after bombs tore through London’s transport system killing 37 people. Messages of sympathy and condolences poured in from the Middle East, Europe and across the Atlantic. Saudi Arabia strongly condemned the attacks and called on the international community to step up its efforts to combat terrorism. “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia strongly condemns the explosions that targeted the British capital on Thursday and expresses its sympathy with the British government and the victims,” the Saudi Press Agency quoted an official source as saying.

The Kingdom reiterated its position “calling on the international community to step up efforts to combat the terrorism scourge which now threatens our security and the security of all our peoples,” the source said.

The Council for Arab-British Understanding (CAABU) also condemned the bombings. Addressing a CAABU conference on British-Saudi relations, CAABU Director Chris Doyle expressed “his utter horror at the attacks. It was so sad that London had had a day of unbridled joy followed by a day of unbridled horror.” He was joined in this by two Saudi ministers. Social Affairs Minister Abdulmohsen Al-Akkas said: “It is a heinous act. I don’t know who did it. I condemn it in the strongest possible terms and I offer my sympathies to the families.”

State Minister Abdullah Zainal said: “It is a ghastly act and wherever it is it should not happen. We must defeat these people.”

All speakers made clear that this (if Al-Qaeda were behind the bombings) had nothing whatsoever to do with Islam. CAABU co-chair, John Austin MP, said: “We should avoid rumors and speculation and not rush to conclusions. This was a brutal and repulsive act, aimed not at the state or the powerful but aimed against ordinary Londoners going about their normal business and innocent visitors to our city. It has killed and injured people of all races and color, and of all religions.”

London Mayor Ken Livingstone called the attacks “mass murder”, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said they were “barbaric” and Queen Elizabeth referred to “the dreadful events in London”.

US President George W. Bush stood side by side with Blair at the G-8 summit meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland, to say world leaders reacted resolutely. “Their resolve is as strong as my resolve,” Bush said. “We will find them (the perpetrators). We will bring them to justice. And at the same time we will spread an ideology of hope and compassion that will overwhelm their ideology of hate.”

The U.N. Security Council condemned “without reservation” the terror attacks and urged nations to prosecute perpetrators of such “barbaric acts.” In a resolution adopted by a 15-0 vote at an emergency meeting, the council expressed condolences to the victims of the bomb blasts.

In the United Arab Emirates, Deputy Prime Minister and State Minister for Foreign Affairs Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed Al-Nahayan said his country “condemns in the strongest possible terms these horrific crimes and declares full solidarity with the British government.”

Kuwait denounced the terrorist attacks in a letter to Blair from Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, who is currently in the United States.

Iran and Syria, both on Washington’s list of states sponsoring terrorism, joined an unbroken chorus of condemnation, as did the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinian group Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

“We Spaniards know well the suffering that the British people are going through today,” Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said, referring to train bombs in Madrid which killed 191 people last year. “We unite with their grief as they and so many other people united with ours.”