Gary Monro’s blog

In today’s Daily Telegraph Pakistan’s President, Gen Pervez Musharraf gives Britain a few home truths:

“We certainly have a problem here [with Islamic militancy] which we are trying to address, but may I say that England also has a problem which needs to be addressed.

“There are the extremist organisations in Britain such as Hizb ut-Tahrir and Al-Muhajiroun which operate with impunity. They also give sermons of hate and violence.”

He dismissed the idea that the London bombers could have been indoctrinated during their short visits to Pakistan. “Three out of the four are accused to be from Pakistan, the fourth is from Jamaica. If the aspersion is that they got indoctrinated in Pakistan, where did the Jamaican get indoctrinated?

“Three are from Pakistani parentage. But they have been born, educated and bred in the UK. There is a lot to be done in Pakistan, but may I suggest there is a lot to be done in England also.”

As it turns out, one of the three who allegedly went to Pakistan actually did not. We may have a case of mistaken identity.

Either way, Britain’s reluctance to deal with Muslim hate mongers is roundly criticised by security agencies world-wide. The French coined the phrase ‘Londonistan’ for the capital’s willingness to give free reign to the worst of them while the Americans have expressed dismay several times at the laxity of the British approach to radicals and extremists.

Briefest of reports here on the BBC site.

Here’s their full report in case you can’t get on to the site:

Man shot by armed police on Tube

A man has been shot at Stockwell Tube station by armed police officers, police confirm.
Passengers were evacuated from a Tube train on the Northern Line station in south London after the incident.

Passenger Mark Whitby told BBC News he had seen an Asian man shot five times by “plain-clothes police officers”.

Services on the Victoria and Northern lines have been suspended following a request by the police, London Underground said.

Police are hunting four would-be bombers after Thursday’s London blasts.

The bombers fled after detonators went off, causing small blasts, but failed to detonate the bombs themselves.

Mr Whitby, told BBC News: “I saw an Asian guy run onto the train hotly pursued by three plain-clothes police officers.

“One of them was carrying a black handgun - it looked like an automatic - they pushed him to the floor, bundled on top of him and unloaded five shots into him.”

Passenger Briony Coetsee said: “We were on the Tube and then we suddenly heard someone say, ‘Get out, get out’ and then we heard gunshots.”

Yesterday’s London bombings - exactly two weeks after the previous which have killed 52 people - failed to kill or injure any Londoners. For that we breathe a huge sigh of relief - but the bombers themselves are now on the run.

The attempts at widespread murder - on three trains and a bus, just as on July 7th - failed because the small explosives that made up the detonators failed to ignite the rest of the explosives in the rucksacks containing the devices.

Witness statements reoprts a man exclaiming out loud when his device failed to go off; a second was seen to flee when his detonator activated. One of the bombers was standing next to a woman and her baby when his detonator went off.

From The Guardian:

Witness said they had heard a sound “like the popping of champagne corks” from a large black rucksack on a train seat, and the carriage had begun to fill with smoke.

When the train pulled into the station a young man next to the bag dashed out of the train and fled into the street.

The driver of the No 26 bus, Mark Maybanks, heard a bang coming from the top deck of his bus. He ordered his passengers off and went upstairs to investigate.

Mr Maybanks, 38, said: “I’ve never been so frightened in my life as when I went up the stairs. After what happened earlier this month I didn’t know what I would find.”

Four bombs, each in a rucksack, have been recovered from each of the scenes.

The trawl through CCTV footage has already begun. Confidence in the ability of the police and security services to catch these four must be sky-high at the moment. After outstanding work in tracking down the last four these four must know the game is up. It’s only a matter of time.

Detectives are assuming these men are part of a bigger team although the possibility is that they are simply copy-cats. However, a security consultant interviewed on television this morning believes there is little chance that, on seeing the bombings of 7 July, anybody could have planned and prepared a replica in just 14 days. He suggests the explosives - which are thought to have come from the same batch as those used on the 7th - failed to detonate simply because they had degraded over the intervening period.