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Rumours and conspiracy theories about the July 2005 London bombings

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2005 London bombings
Overview Timeline
Rumours
7 July 2005
Details
Response
Memorials
Locations
Liverpool Street
to Aldgate
(Circle Line) 		King's Cross
to Russell Square
(Piccadilly Line)
Edgware Road
(Circle Line) 		Tavistock Square
(bus)
21 July 2005
Details
Locations
Shepherd's Bush
(H&C Line) 		Warren Street
(Victoria Line)
Oval
(Northern Line) 		Bethnal Green
(bus)
There are many questions, rumours and theories about the July 2005 London bombings.

Contents

Conspiracy theories

Government responsibility

There is a lot of speculation, especially on the Internet, that the bombings were not the work of Islamic extremists at all, but a "false flag" operation by the British and US Security forces. According to the Internet conspiracy website run by Jeff Rense, David Shayler, the ex MI5 agent, has suggested that the 7/7 bombings were staged for political reasons, and bear striking similarities to the September 11, 2001 attacks in the US. "It's amazing how many aspects of the two events are so similar," Shayler supposedly said. "First, we learn about the training exercises going on here just like 9/11. Next, they release suspicious evidence left behind by the culprits as well as quickly releasing identifying pictures of the suspects just like they did after 9/11." [link]

Government complicity

According to journalist Alex Jones' website, on July 29th, Fox News' Day Side programme announced that the assumed mastermind of both bombings was Haroon Rashid Aswat, an MI6 agent. It was further claimed that British Intelligence had forbidden the United States from arresting Aswat when he visited Seattle, Washington in 1999.[link]

Withheld evidence

Amongst complaints that the government was only releasing highly cropped photographs of the alleged bombers, came the revelation that there were actually videos of the bombers not being released to the public.[link]

There were also claims that the infamous surveillance video of the four entering Luton station at 7:22am would have made it impossible for them to be videotaped at Kings Cross by 8:26, as the 7.40 a.m. train from Luton that morning had been cancelled, and a later train would have made it physically impossible to travel between the two stations in the time period.[link]. The Kings Cross video has not been released, for reasons of national security.

Warnings

While no warnings before the 7 July bombings have been properly documented or acknowledged, the following are sometimes quoted as indications either of the events to come or of some foreknowledge.

  • Some news stories, current a few hours after the attacks, raised a query over the British government's position that there had been no warning or prior intelligence. It was reported on CBS News that a senior Israeli official said that British police told the Israeli Embassy in London minutes before the explosions that they had received warnings of possible terror attacks in the city. This was later retracted by AP [link]. An Associated Press report [link] carried on a number of news sites, including The Guardian, attributed the initial report of a warning to an Israeli "Foreign Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity", but added Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom's later denial on Israel Army Radio: "There was no early information about terrorist attacks" [link]. A similar report on the site of right-wing Israeli paper Israel National News / Arutz Sheva attributed the story to "Army Radio quoting unconfirmed reliable sources" [link]. Although the report has been retracted, the original stories are still circulated as a result of their presence on the news websites' archives.
  • In an interview with the Portuguese newspaper Público a month after the Madrid train bombings, Syrian-born cleric Sheik Omar Bakri Muhammad warned that "a very well-organised" London-based group which he called Al Qaeda Europe, was "on the verge of launching a big operation" [link]. In December 2004, the Sheik vowed that if Western governments did not change their policies, Muslims would give them "a 9/11, day after day after day".
  • According to a 17 November 2004 post on the Newsweek website, US authorities in 2004 had evidence that terrorists were planning a possible attack in London. In addition, the article stated that FBI agents were avoiding use of the London Underground [link].
  • In an interview published in the German magazine Bild Am Sontang dated July 10, 2005, Meir Dagan, head of the Mossad, said that the Mossad office in London was alerted to the impending attack at 8:43, six minutes before the first bomb went off.
Bold text

Rumours

The attacks inspired a number of rumours, also communicated by means of the Internet and e-mail, that drew the attention of the Urban Legends Reference Pages.

Reactions

Popular e-mails shortly after the attack on July 7 purported to list a number of ways people in London responded to the bombings, often with humourously defiant tones. One elderly Briton supposedly remarked, "I've been blown up by a better class of bastard than this!", apparently referring to the London blitz. The Urban Legends Reference Pages argues that in fact the quote, if it is indeed authentic, originated in 1996 with an IRA attack. [link]

Emergency numbers

It was perhaps in response to the July 2005 bombings that more rumours began circulating that one can dial 112 as an emergency number on one's cell phone, and the call would go through, even if there is no signal for the phone. This is not true; when there's not enough signal with which to make a call to 999, there will not be enough to make one to 112. [link]

However, when one does attempt to make an emergency call with no signal, the call, whether it be to 999 or 112, will be redirected to another network immediately to deal with the emergency.

Other mysteries

Bomber photo claimed by some to be faked

One of the alleged mysteries surrounding the 7/7 attacks is an image, used by several news outlets, of the bombers entering the Luton station [link] The CCTV image of the four alleged bombers entering Luton station at around 7.20am on July 7 is claimed by some conspiracy theorists to be fake. Fintan Dunne thinks he has found not just one, but as many as thirteen indications that the picture is essentially a Photoshop creation.[link] Indeed, upon viewing the source code of the original image on the [UK Police website] one can clearly read the word Adobe on the first line.[link]

Major media question

Major media have asked a number of questions about how the events unfolded, that seem to contradict the likelihood that the London bombings were meant to be a suicide attack, although the presumption has been that the bombings were staged by Islamic terrorists who intended to survive the blast. As one official told the media, "Whoever is behind this didn't want to waste their best operatives on a suicide mission. Instead they used easily recruited low-grade men who may have believed they'd walk away."

The inconsistencies with usual suicide attacks that have led to this opinion include:

  • The fact that the alleged bombers purchased return tickets and paid to park their cars at Luton.
  • None of the alleged terrorists are known to have said "Allah Akhbar" before their deaths.
  • The alleged terrorists carried the explosives in their bags instead of wearing them.
  • Suicide was tactically unnecessary -- they could have merely left the bags on the cars (assuming they knew what was in them).
  • The bombers, two recent fathers, one with a wife pregnant with his second child, a university graduate and a teacher of disabled children don't fit the usual "suicide" bomber profile.
The suspicion is that the alleged terrorists were deceived by their superiors into thinking that they could escape the explosions after delivering them to the targeted areas of London, when the bombs were actually designed to explode quickly. [link]

Other important questions

Additionally, many other questions have been asked and are continued to be asked by prisonplanet.com and others. These include:

  • MI5 downgrades terror threat to UK businesses [link] same-time-as-attack underground bombing exercise in London a chilling coincidence?
  • London underground bombing exercise takes place at exactly the same time as actual attack. [link] [Video] [link]
  • Londoners Suspicious Of Station Closures Before Blasts [link]
  • The Convenient Malfunction Of The Four London Bus Cameras [link]
  • "Military explosives" now become "homemade material" [link]
  • Bomb Was UNDER The Train Says Eyewitness Closest To It [link]
  • Bombing Mastermind Aswat Works for MI-6 [link] [link]
  • In a BBC interview, Peter Power (former Scotland Yard detective) of Visor Consultants, a crisis management firm, said that there were mock terror drills taking place on 7/7 at the same stations as the actual bombings.
  • Was enough known about the attacks (through normal investigative channels) no more than eight hours after they occurred for Efraim Haveli, former head of Mossad to be able to write this (from a seemingly already-prepared piece published 7/7/05 in the Jerusalem Post (long since removed)): "The multiple, simultaneous explosions that took place today on the London transportation system were the work of perpetrators who had an operational capacity of considerable scope. They have come a long way since the two attacks of the year 1998 against the American embassies in Nairobi and Dar-Es-Salaam, and the aircraft actions of September 11, 2001. There was careful planning, intelligence gathering, and a sophisticated choice of timing as well as near-perfect execution. We are faced with a deadly and determined adversary who will stop at nothing and will persevere as long as he exists as a fighting terrorist force. There will be supreme tests of leadership in this unique situation and people will have to trust the wisdom and good judgment of those chosen to govern them. The executives must be empowered to act resolutely and to take every measure necessary to protect the citizens of their country and to carry the combat into whatever territory the perpetrators and their temporal and spiritual leaders are inhabiting. The rules of combat must be rapidly adjusted to cater to the necessities of this new and unprecedented situation, and international law must be rewritten in such a way as to permit civilization to defend itself. Anything short of this invites disaster and must not be allowed to happen."

Conspiracy theory articles, documentaries & radio broadcasts on 7/7

As with 9/11, there are many conspiracy theories surrounding the various questions that still remain unanswered. In the UK, Paul Joseph Watson is the main questioner[[Citing sources citation needed]] of what happened in 7/7, and will appear in Alex Jones' upcoming documentary about the July 2005 London bombings. [link] This documentary premiered exclusively at the "9/11 + The Neo-Con Agenda Symposium" on June 24 and 25 of 2006. This documentary, entitled "Terror Storm", is Jones' "newest and most powerful film which largely focuses on the 7/7 London bombings and how the British government ran and exploited the attacks to accelerate big brother's control grid and cashless society." [link] [link]

Jones announced the title for this documentary film on his May 12, 2006 radio show. The film will premiered on Saturday June 24th, 2006 at the Sheraton in Downtown Los Angeles at the 911 Scholars for Truth Symposium.

Between Jones and Watson, they have written and compiled hundreds of articles, audio tapes and videos about the unanswered questions regarding 7/7 [link] [link]

  • 7/7 Attacks Not "Suicide Bombings"? [link]
  • Actual Train Times, Now Confirmed, Prove Official Version of 7/7 Physically Impossible [link]

Radio broadcasts

  • The London Bombings, Part One: The Footprints of State Terror [link]
  • The London Bombings, Part Two: Inventing the Scapegoats [link]
  • The London Bombings, Part Three: Unravelling the Official Fiction [link]
  • The London Bombings, Part Four: The De Menezes Execution - Prelude to the Death-Squad State [link]

See also

External links

The following links refer to articles gathered by the worlds leading conspiracy theorists, Alex Jones from the US and Paul Joseph Watson from the UK:

 

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