21 Feb 2011

London bombings: MI5 officer tells of ‘profound regret’

Home Affairs Correspondent

A senior MI5 officer tells the July 7 inquest of the Service’s “profound regret” for failing to prevent the London bombings, which killed 52 innocent people, as Andy Davies reports.

Siddique Khan, Tanweer and Jermaine Lindsay on 'scouting mission' at King's Cross (Reuters)

Using the pseudonym “Witness G”, the officer insisted MI5 had “no inkling” of what was set to happen to the London tube and bus network on 7 July 2005. He said it would be “nonsensical and offensive” to suggest otherwise.

The inquest has previously heard that the plot ringleader Mohammed Siddique Khan and his second in command Shehzad Tanweer had met known terror suspects 17 months before the 2005 London bombings. But M15 hadn’t diverted resources to place the pair under detailed investigation or surveillance because they couldn’t justify such an initiative.

At the time leading up to the July 7 attacks, the officer – who is chief of staff to the Head of M15, Jonathan Evans – said the Service was investigating a large number of serious terrorist conspiracies.

He gave the example of the plot to bring down transatlantic airliners foiled in 2006 which M15 viewed very seriously. “I believe it is the most significant thing the service has been involved in since 1945,” he said.

Operation Crevice

Counter-terrorism officers had watched, photographed and followed Khan and Tanweer in early 2004 during their inquiry – codenamed Operation Crevice – into the group of extremists planning a fertiliser bomb attack, but did not fully identify them at the time.

They were among 4,000 contacts who emerged from that investigation, but the inquest was told that only one MI5 officer was tasked with following up on those individuals – and even that official had other work to do at the same time.

But Witness G denied that there had been “significant intelligence failings” and said the department’s reviewing techniques had been “beefed up” and spending dramatically increased in the run-up to the July 7 attacks.

Asked if lessons had been learnt from the follow-up of Crevice which was not “quite as thorough” as it might have been, he said: “Not just Crevice, I think we learnt lessons from a number of operations between 2004 and 2005.”