The similarities between yesterday’s multiple bombings of rush hour commuter transport in London and the March 2004 attack in Madrid are striking and give credence to claims that Al-Qaeda perpetrated these crimes. As with the Spanish horror which claimed 191 lives, the sympathy of all decent people must go out to the families of London’s dead and to the injured, many of whose wounds are horrific. Only minutes before the first blast took place, London’s police chief was telling a BBC radio audience during a live interview on the security challenges for the 2012 Olympics that since 9/11, the British capital had always been a target. Maybe some of the terrorists who had planned and planted yesterday’s wicked bombs, heard his words with perverse satisfaction as they hurried back to their lairs. The timing of course was significant. Britons were still wildly congratulating themselves on winning the hosting of the Olympics and G-8 leaders were settling down in Scotland to their first day of discussions. To ensure security for this summit, policemen from all over the UK had been drafted in, including 1,500 from London, particularly anti-terror specialists.

The capital was however far from unguarded. The authorities may not have been able to prevent the attacks but the ball now moves to their court. Britain has the highest concentration of security cameras in the world and London is the most camera-watched city. It must be virtually certain that the perpetrators were recorded at some stage of their bloody mission. Meanwhile large parts of London have been brought to a halt for as long as it takes, while police embark upon an exhaustive search for forensic evidence. If there are further attacks, the store of evidence available to investigators will simply mount and with it the likelihood that the terrorists will be found. While the overwhelming majority of British Muslims deplores terror, hard-line extremists are already heavily monitored by British intelligence. It seems highly likely that with the help of local Muslims, as in Spain, this terrorist cell will find it very difficult to evade discovery. It must however be hoped that along the way, the authorities will take every care not to outrage loyal British Muslims with overbearing or indiscriminate action. Inflamed relations with local Muslims are the best the killers could hope for because, there is no way attacks like Madrid and London are going to cower a people and their government.

On Sept. 7, 1940, the day Hitler’s bombers began their blitz of London, 430 people were killed and 1,600 injured. Before the raids ended over 40,000 would die. It did not break the British as Hitler expected. Between 1943 and 1945 hundreds of thousands of Germans died in Allied bombing raids. It did not break the Germans as the Allies expected. What the murderers yesterday in London and Iraq seem not to understand is that their cowardly and barbarous attacks produce only profound anger and contempt, not despair and fear. Their bombs destroy not only innocent lives but any possible claim they have to be taken as anything other than bloodstained criminals.