The Independent : The reconstruction: 7/7 - What really happened?

The reconstruction: 7/7 - What really happened?

by Cole Moreton | July 17, 2005

Were the four bombers being controlled or acting alone? Why did they buy return tickets if they were intending to die? Could MI5 have found out what was happening and stopped it? Was an al-Qa'ida suspect allowed to travel to the UK unwatched? The unanswered questions of the London attacks

Suicide bombers do not buy return tickets. Theirs is a one-way trip. When four young men met at Luton railway station a week ago last Thursday, however, they gave every impression of going to London and coming back. They paid and displayed, leaving valid tickets on the windows of a Nissan Micra and a Fiat Bravo in the station car park. They boarded the 7.48am to London carrying return tickets.

Why would they do that, if they knew they would be dying very soon? The car park can be explained: perhaps they did not want to attract attention or get stopped. But the question of the train tickets has no obvious answer, unless the bombers were not aware that they would be among the casualties at Aldgate, Edgware Road, King's Cross and on the No 30 bus. They may have thought that they could leave their deadly bags on the train or the bus and walk away, merging safely into the crowd by the time a detonator set off the plastic explosive they called Mother of Satan to kill and maim in those enclosed spaces. Or were they told the bombs would go off later than they did?

Article Length: 3050 words (approx.)