- 4 July 2006
7/7 – The questions still unanswered
An acclaimed new book examining the events and aftermath of the London bombings of July 2005 calls for an independent public inquiry into the failure of national security.
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, a tutor in International Relations at the University of Sussex and author of The London Bombings (Duckworth £8.99), states in his 300-page analysis that the attacks, which left 37 dead and 700 injured, can only be fully understood in the light of extensive co-operation between Islamist extremists and Western Intelligences in Central Asia.
Mr Ahmed, who is also director of the Institute for Policy Research & Development, based in London, says: "The London bombings, much like the attacks on New York in 2001, were a widely predicted consequence of the West's global strategy. If we do face a future of terrorism we should at least understand the extent to which our governments have accepted this as the price of business as usual."
Looking beyond the platitudes and deceptions of the war on terror, Mr Ahmed asks what exactly we mean by the national interest and whether we are really well served by policies that promote terror abroad and tolerate extremism at home.
The book, which has been critically acclaimed as "lucid and persuasive" (Sunday Times) and "the best, most balanced report" (The Observer), highlights contradictions and anomalies in official claims about the type of explosives used, the nature of the explosions, the bombers' movements prior to and on 7 July and the connections of the bombers to a wider terrorist network inside the UK.
"At first, the police were sure that the 7/7 bombers used weapons-grade plastic explosives and sophisticated timers," points out Mr Ahmed. "Two weeks later, they changed their minds - the bombs were home-made and were detonated manually. Since then the official account has changed repeatedly and remains riddled with anomalies and confusion."
He also looks at the British Government's domestic tolerance and protection of extremist groups linked to terrorist activity - the state's use of al-Qaeda affiliated networks to secure strategic and economics interests in the Balkans, Central Asia and Northwest Africa, the details of the 21 July attacks and the tragic police shooting of Jean Charles De Menezes.
Mr Ahmed, a leading authority on Western foreign policies and international terrorism, has been writing about these subjects since the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001.
His first book, The War on Freedom: How & Why America was Attacked, September 11, 2001 (Joshua Tree, CA: Tree of Life, 2002), was an instant bestseller and won the Naples Prize. His 2nd book, Behind the War on Terror: Western Secret Strategy and the Struggle
for Iraq (London: Clairview, 2003), examines the role of energy in the pattern of Western interventionism in the Middle East since the collapse of the Ottomon Empire.
After the release of his third book, The War on Truth:9/11, Disinformation and the Anatomy of Terrorism (New York: Olive Branch, 2005), he testified as an expert witness in US Congress about his research.
Notes for editors
For more information on Nafeez and his new book, see www.independentinquiry.co.uk
Read Nafeez's blog at www.nafeez.blogspot.com
University of Sussex press office contacts: Jacqui Bealing or Alison Field, email: press@sussex.ac.uk, phone: 01273 678888