Massive shakeup of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ took place after 7 July attacks and dozens of plots have been foiled – but it is still hard to say if we are safer now

7/7 seemed to herald a new era of terror on UK soil – one that did not materialise

When four suicide bombers killed themselves and 52 others in London 10 years ago, it appeared to signal a terrifying new era of terrorism in the UK. And when four more young men tried to repeat the act two weeks later, the feeling that no one was safe intensified. Further attacks, it would seem, were just a question of when, not if.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A round-up of remembrance as Britain marks the 10th anniversary of the 7/7 bombings on Tuesday

A decade later, many Britons have indeed died at the hands of terrorists overseas, from the two aid workers beheaded by Islamic State in 2014 to the 30 who were killed in the Tunisian beach massacre. But on the home front, there is one remarkable statistic that stands out: just one fatality at the hands of Islamic terrorists in the UK since 7/7.

That death was British soldier Lee Rigby, hacked with a cleaver as he returned to barracks in Woolwich, south-east London.



Life for British Muslims since 7/7 – abuse, suspicion and constant apologies | Mehdi Hasan Read more

There have been scores of plots since the London bombings. Last year, the home secretary, Theresa May, put the figure at 40. Some of these plots have been crude, small-scale ones involving one or two individuals. Others have been sophisticated, linked to overseas groups aimed at inflicting mass casualties. David Cameron said in June there had been four or five plots over the last few months.

Why have the UK security services been able to foil plot after plot? Simple luck? That has played a part, such as when detonators failed to go off in a bomb plot in London two weeks after 7/7. But it is about more than just luck. It is primarily about a massive shakeup of the security services that took place in the months and years that followed.

The London bombings came as a shock and surprise to the security services. The day before, Eliza Manningham-Buller, the head of the domestic intelligence-gathering service MI5, had told a group of Labour whips that there was no reason to believe that an attack was imminent. A few minutes before the first bomb was detonated, the Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, told a radio interviewer that Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism unit was “the envy of the policing world”.

7/7: London comes together to remember and reflect 10 years on Read more

Almost as big a shock came two weeks later. Although that attack failed, it aroused fears that 7/7 might not be a one-off and the UK could be facing one devastating al-Qaida-inspired mass-casualty assault after another.

Within weeks, the government and the security services began to introduce a wide-ranging series of reforms. In tandem, Labour ministers proposed measures they believed could mark a turning point in post-war liberalism and civil rights, including plans to deport foreign clerics, shut down mosques, extend the control order regime to British nationals and amend the Human Rights Act.

“Let no one be in doubt,” Tony Blair said during a press conference on 5 August 2005. “The rules of the game have changed.”

One of the biggest reforms was structural, breaking down the long-standing barriers between the security agencies. The overseas intelligence agency the Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6, was viewed as the posh service – the glamorous profession of Oxbridge recruits with language skills lured by the prospect of overseas travel. By contrast, their “friends across the river” at MI5 were viewed as the rougher side of the trade, their jobs closer to police work than spying.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Secret Intelligence Service building in Vauxhall, London. Photograph: Tim Ireland/PA

The ultra-secret surveillance agency GCHQ had little to do with either of them, notorious for turning down requests from its sister agencies. But that was all to change.

Asked why the security agencies had been successful in battling terrorism in the UK, Chris Mackmurdo, who served as the Foreign Office’s senior counter-terrorism specialist from 2005 to 2014, said: “Luck comes into it but it is largely down to changes in working practices between the police, security and intelligence agencies that have helped the UK in identifying and disrupting these networks.”

MI5’s London headquarters at Thames House today has officials from MI6, GCHQ and the police permanently embedded there.

There were other changes, such as increased budgets, improved technology, especially in IT, and increases in staff. MI5 staffing levels jumped from 2,000 before the London bombings to 4,000 today. Instead of being primarily based in London, more regional offices were created which infiltrated Muslim communities, establishing an extensive network of agents and informers, officially known as covert human intelligence sources, some of them extremely well paid for their information.

The main threat in the aftermath of the London bombings was from al-Qaida bases in the tribal areas of Pakistan, and MI6 shifted more of its resources to targeting the terror group’s leadership, working closely with its Pakistan counterpart, the ISI, as well as with the Americans and other European agencies.

The core al-Qaida leadership has gradually been killed, mainly by drones. But some of their affiliates, such as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, remain a potent threat – especially its chief bombmaker Ibrahim al-Asiri – with its aim of mass casualties, such as by bringing down aircraft.

Life after 7 July attacks: survivors tell their stories Read more

Mackmurdo, who is now the founding director of the strategic intelligence consultancy Contest Global, said that while the threat from al-Qaida in Pakistan had decreased, it had been offset by increased exposure to attacks from capable and low-visibility networks linked to Islamic State (Isis) in Syria and Iraq. “The sheer scale and reach of the foreign fighter networks poses a massive challenge,” he said. That threat is compounded by a decrease in capabilities in countries affected by the Arab Spring which has impacted the west’s ability to detect and tackle terrorist networks with an international focus, according to Mackmurdo.

He added: “Isil (Isis) is not prioritising mass attack against the west as al-Qaida did and continues to do so. They are much more interested in state-building in the region. They have learned from the mistakes that al-Qaida has made. But it would be a real mistake to ignore the potential of Isil to look outward in the medium to long term.”

Two years after the London bombings, the security services put the number of Britons classified as extremists at around 2,000. Today, it stands at 3,000. The security agencies were criticised after the London bombings and after the Rigby killing for failing to keep tabs on the killers. But it takes an estimated 30 people to maintain 24-hour surveillance so judgments have to be made about prioritising. There are an estimated 700 Britons who have gone to join Isis, or, to a lesser extent, one of the smaller groups, of whom about half have returned.

Sir David Omand, former UK security and intelligence coordinator at the Cabinet Office and former head of GCHQ, attributes the success of the security services to deep cooperation between the police and national intelligence, information frequently volunteered from the community, a specialist team within the Crown Prosecution Service and US-led attacks on al-Qaida.

“But perhaps most important of all, the UK has benefitted from having good – but of course never perfect – pre-emptive intelligence,” Omand said, citing the role of GCHQ in surveillance. He also gives credit to the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, established in 2003, which brings together counter-terrorist specialists, assesses threat levels and is based at MI5 headquarters.

7/7 memories 10 years on: 'It made me love London more passionately' Read more

In the immediate aftermath of 7/7, civil rights groups warned that it would be a grave mistake to allow terrorists to undermine the fundamental values of British democracy. But government ministers and their advisers believed they had little choice; that the country would expect it to prioritise collective security over individual liberties. As Jack Straw, who was foreign secretary at the time, observed in a speech that he gave last month to mark the 800th anniversary of the signing of Magna Carta: “When fear becomes the dominant emotion, national security and not individual rights become the dominant imperative on government.”

While a number of the new proposals never came to fruition, a number of organisations were proscribed, and the following year a new Terrorism Act introduced a series of measures which were already under consideration before 7/7, including the new offences of preparing acts of terrorism, undergoing terrorism training and encouraging terrorism.

Furthermore, a number of controversial counter-terrorism measures of questionable legality were also adopted, unannounced and unseen by most members of the public.

In July 2006 the guidance issued to MI5 and MI6 officers when seeking information from terrorism suspects held in countries where torture was known to be used was updated. It instructed senior officers to weigh the importance of the information that was sought against “the level of mistreatment anticipated” at the point at which the information was being extracted. It also warned that the policy must be kept a carefully guarded secret, for fear that it could in itself provoke terrorist attacks.

A number of British Muslims who were detained overseas after the policy was redrafted and distributed say they suffered appalling torture. One man lost three fingernails after being detained in Pakistan at the suggestion of MI6 and interrogated on the basis of questions supplied by MI5 and Greater Manchester Police. The policy was eventually rewritten and made public after the 2010 general election.

From 7/7 to Isis: how the terrorist threat to the UK has evolved Read more

While ministers of the coalition were determined to avoid being implicated in the abusive interrogation of terrorism suspects, they did make increased use of another measure: citizenship deprivation.

Young British jihadis who were dual nationals would find that they had been stripped of their British citizenship after leaving the UK.

Two of these men – a British-Lebanese national and a man born in London to Egyptian parents – lost their UK citizenship in 2011 after travelling to Somalia to fight with al-Shabaab. Shortly afterwards their names were added to the Obama administration’s so-called kill list. In early 2012, both were killed in drone strikes.

A number of other British nationals have been killed in drone strikes: the UK government refuses to disclose anything about the intelligence it shares with the US in advance of these operations.

Shortly after the formation of the coalition, David Cameron made a public commitment to hold a judge-led inquiry into the human rights abuses in which the previous government had become embroiled. The inquiry was scrapped in 2012.

The coalition did make good on another pledge, however. With lawyers chalking up a series of successful claims for damages brought on behalf of victims of rendition and torture, the government introduced a new law, the Justice and Security Act, to ensure that key parts of future cases would be heard in secret.

“Intelligence work is a jigsaw puzzle, or rather several jigsaw puzzles, with the pieces all mixed up and no picture on the lid to guide the analyst,” says Omond. “Very rarely is there one piece that completes the puzzle and stops an attack; it is a team effort involving a lot of experience in putting the picture together using all the information that could bear on the problem. All that said, there can be no certainty of success. I am very confident the team will do their utmost, but we cannot expect every match can be won.”

Are we safer now? Few currently serving in the intelligence agencies are rash enough to comment publicly or privately. It is equally unlikely that any of them will be celebrating today that remarkable statistic of confining Islamist-related terrorism in the UK to one dead since 7/7. They know that there could be an attack at any time – one they fail to stop.