Clarke: Website terror claim ‘serious’
A statement posted on a website claiming responsibility for the London terrorist attacks is being treated as “serious”, home secretary Charles Clarke has said.
He said that while no lines of inquiry were being closed off at this stage, particular attention was being paid to comments on an Arabic site blaming the British government’s actions in Afghanistan and Iraq for the bomb blasts.
“The day of vengeance against the crusader Zionist British government has come in response to the massacres Britain is committing in Iraq and Afghanistan,” a group calling itself the Secret Organisation Group of al-Qaeda of Jihad Organisation in Europe said.
The home secretary said last night that the link to al-Qaeda was one of a number of lines of inquiry being followed up by the security services.
“The website claim is a serious one, so we will look at that very closely but we haven’t eliminated any alternative explanations,” Mr Clarke told Sky News.
The investigation into the four explosions gets underway in earnest this morning with forensic teams closing off the scenes and beginning the painstaking search for evidence.
Meanwhile, there are questions being asked about the longer term implications of yesterday’s attacks, with campaign groups warning a knee-jerk reaction that threatened civil rights would be a victory for the terrorists.
Speaking on the Today programme this morning, Mr Clarke conceded that ID cards, one of the government’s flagship security proposals, would not have helped prevent yesterday’s attacks.
“I doubt it would make a difference,” he said. “I don’t argue and have never argued that ID cards would prevent any particular act.”
Police said last night that there was no prior warning and no specific human intelligence or surveillance data ahead of the bombings.
CCTV footage will be examined closely in a bid to ascertain whether or not yesterday’s attacks were the first perpetrated by suicide bombers on British soil.
