Practically all the papers focus on the possibility that two of the July 7th bombers were after all on the radar of the security forces rather than the crimes that these men were found guilty of.
Practically all have the grainy photograph of the two tube bombers Mohammed Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tameer on their front pages.Alongside critisisms by opposition spokemen and families of the 7/7 victims who are asking whether the attacks could have been prevented.
There is also much specualtion that lack of funds may well have led to the decision not to keep tabs on the two. David Davis writes in the Times "Tell us the truth about those 7/7 blunders"
He writes that
The day before those bombings, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, the head of MI5, told government whips that there was no specific threat on the horizon. Shortly before this, the terror level had been reduced from severe to substantial. That was despite July 7 being the first day of Abu Hamza’s trial and, therefore, a high-risk date. After the bombing, the public were told by the Home Secretary that the attacks came “out of the blue”. The security agencies briefed the press that the suicide bombers were “clean skins”, agency parlance for people not previously known to them.
Now we know differently. In the interests of a fair trial, for the last year the British media has been prevented from reporting that Khyam, the head of the terrorist ring convicted yesterday, was a close associate of Mohammad Sidique Khan, the 7/7 ringleader. They met on at least four occasions in England while under MI5 surveillance. We also know that they were recorded by Security Service agents talking about plans for future attacks. We now also know that Khyam met Shehzad Tanweer, another 7/7 bomber, while under MI5 surveillance. We can now also say that both Khan and Tanweer were monitored for more than a year before the suicide attack. In the case of Khan, this surveillance extended back to 2003 and more than a year before they killed 52 people, Khan was considered a “desirable suspect” by the security service.
Elsewhere the other papers are quick to condemn in their leader columns
When will we British learn to stop appeasing terror? is the Mail's opinion column
The ending of the Al Qaeda fertiliser bomb plot trial has posed crucial questions about the competence of MI5.
In particular, the assurances we were given after the 7/7 bombings, that the perpetrators had been unknown to the security service, have been shown to be utterly false
We’re in peril says the Sun
The lesson from yesterday’s verdict is clear, and we cannot ignore it.
Britain must now move much more quickly and firmly to clamp down on Muslim hotheads ranting on our streets to attract new recruits.
PROBE 7/7 TERROR FLAW says the Mirror
The would-be bombers would have killed hundreds had they succeeded in destroying Europe's biggest shopping centre - Bluewater in Kent - and London's Ministry Of Sound nightclub.
But families of the dead and maimed in the July 7 suicide bombings on London transport have a right to wonder if the attacks which claimed the lives of their loved ones could have been stopped.
MI5 is obliged to give answers after two leaders of the London outrage appear to have slipped through their fingers.
Restrictive limits on reporting meant that there could be no discussion of the most significant evidence, which yesterday helped bring about the conviction of five of the seven defendants for plotting to blow up a major (but unidentified) public target with maximum loss of life. Nor could the security services and the government be challenged over the fact that two of the men who later went on to carry out the July 7 attacks in London were not tracked after they appeared in the Crevice investigation. The trial has formed a ghostly backdrop to the national response to terrorism: offering evidence (for those who need it after July 7) that official warnings about a serious terror threat are based on fact, not hysteria (although at times that can look like a factor). But until yesterday's convictions, it was not something that could be made public.
Continuing that
One response is a degree of relief. It would, surely, have been more frightening still to discover that the London bombers had reached their target without at any point encountering the security system that was supposed to stop them. That offers no comfort to those who lost relatives and who now live with the knowledge that MI5 had some awareness of these characters but decided not to pursue them. It proved a bad mistake. But in the subtle and challenging world of counter-terrorism, errors will go on being made.
This is the best of the British Press in action questioning quite rightly why these decisions were taken and perhaps supporting the victims of those that suffered on that July morning two years ago
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