My sister works in a building overlooking Liverpool Street station. This morning she should have been among the commuters making their way to work but by the grace of God, she had taken the morning off work and was on the other side of town when the terrorists struck. She could so easily have been caught in the carnage. Our family was lucky; we have been spared the pain and bereavement that at the latest count has struck more than thirty-seven families in London. My heart goes to them, may God ease their suffering and be with them, all of them, be they Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Atheist, Buddhist, Hindu or from any other communities that live peacefully and happily side by side here in London.
Tony Blair referred to the attacks as barbaric. For once I agree with him. These attacks were cowardly, killing defenseless people indiscriminately and without reason, ordinary people going to work on a Thursday morning, people like you and me, people who were simply trying to get on with their lives — earning a living, raising a family, looking after their loved ones, saving for their old age, regular folk as the Americans say.
The contrast between Wednesday night and Thursday morning could not be starker. London was celebrating winning the race for the 2012 Olympic Games. The morning papers were covered with jubilant pictures from Singapore. By mid-morning, the joy had been replaced by despair. London had been struck a cruel blow, one that Londoners had been bracing for. It has long been a question not of if but of when, and many have been predicting that it would be London’s transport system that would be attacked — the softest and most visible of targets.
At first, we did not know it was a terrorist attack. The first reports were of a power surge, but it soon became clear that London was coming under a coordinated attack.
The first three explosions were on trains. The first one, at 8.51 a.m., was near Liverpool Street Station, in the City, London’s financial district. Then four minutes later there was a blast on a train between Russell Square and Kings Cross stations — Kings Cross is London’s busiest station. At 9.17 the third bomb went off, this time it was Edgware Road station that was targeted, right in the heart of London’s Arab district. But this did not satisfy the terrorists, they wanted more carnage. They planted a bomb on a double-decker bus, surely one of London’s trademarks. The bomb went off when the bus was in Woburn Place Square, right in front of the headquarters of the British Medical Association.
Meanwhile, up in Scotland the leaders of the G-8 were meeting in the tranquil surroundings of Glenneagles, cordoned off from the rest of the world. A visibly shaken Tony Blair came out at noon to make his first statement of the day. He was the first to state categorically that these were terrorist attacks and pointed the finger at extremists, presumably Islamist extremists. He warned them that they would not succeed. Later he came back out, this time flanked by the leaders of the seven other G-8 nations, a powerful statement of solidarity. This was “an attack not on one nation but on all nations and civilized people” said the G-8 statement. He later left Glenneagles and came down to London, but the G-8 summit continued without him, the leaders deciding not to let the terrorists succeed in disrupting the summit.
By 11 a.m., London was in a state of emergency. I live close to one of London’s largest hospitals. All day I could hear sirens and the sound of helicopters overhead. The emergency services have been preparing for a terrorist attack. They responded quickly, putting in place their emergency plan and taking decisive control of the situation. Police and medical personnel were bussed in from surrounding areas. Police launches patrolled the Thames. London attractions like the London Eye were closed. Buckingham Palace was cordoned off. You can only admire the way the emergency services handled the situation.
The people of London reacted to the attacks with characteristic stoicism. Out on the streets, people looked dazed and confused. Tourists looked at newspapers trying to understand what had happened. Phone lines were jammed for most of the day as everyone tried to send a message home. As evening fell, shops closed early and people converged on the street and toward the main rail stations for the long trek home.
The finger of suspicion clearly points to Al-Qaeda. This attack bares all their hallmarks. An obscure group — the Secret Organization Group of Al-Qaeda of Jihad Organization in Europe — has claimed responsibility on the Net, but this has not been verified. The statement claims the attacks were to avenge the deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq.
George Galloway stated that this was only to be expected. You reap what you sow was his message. These attacks were “despicable but not remotely unpredictable”. London was “paying the price” of British involvement in Iraq, just as many security experts had been warning it would.
The Muslim community was quick to condemn the London attacks, but also voiced concern that Muslims could increasingly become the targets of violence. Iqbal Sacranie of the Muslim Council of Britain said that Muslims were “simply appalled” and expressed his condolences to the families. He called on Muslims in Britain to unite and help the police “hunt these murderers down.”
The prime minister in his evening address to the nation tried to allay people’s fears. “We know that these people act in the name of Islam but we also know that the vast and overwhelming majority of Muslims here and abroad are decent and law-abiding people who abhor those who do this every bit as much as we do” he said. London’s mayor, Ken Livingstone, spoke from Singapore. He condemned the attacks and vowed that Londoners would not be divided by them. There was also a great show of unity between the different faiths. The Archbishop of Canterbury — the spiritual leader of the Church of England — spent the day praying with Muslim friends, while in the East End, Dr. Mohammed Abdul Bari, the director of the East End Mosque appeared on television with the Bishop of Stepney and emphasized that the different communities of the East End had worked together for many years and would continue to do so. East London has one of the most diverse ethnic communities in London. Indeed there is a pathetic irony that the first bomb went off close to Aldgate, an area with a large Muslim population.
The police do not know at this stage whether the attacks were the work of suicide bombers or whether the bombs were left in rucksacks and detonated by remote control. We do know that the terrorists used conventional explosives and that so far there are at least 700 casualties and more than 37 people have died. Wednesday London was a scene of joy and jubilation; yesterday it is a scene of carnage and murder.
