Foreign policy was a ‘driver of 7/7 attacks', says former counterterror chief Neil Basu
On 7 July 2005, four suicide bombers targeted the capital, killing 52 people and injuring more than 770 on three London Underground trains and a bus.
Confusion, panic and then terror gripped the capital, as survivors emerged from Tube stations, some with lost limbs, others supporting their fellow travellers who were caked in dust.
Terror group al-Qaeda later claimed responsibility, and in the subsequent hunt for suspects, police shot dead an innocent man, Jean Charles de Menezes, at a Tube station.
Speaking to The Guardian ahead of the anniversary, Neil Basu said: 'A driver of the 7/7 attacks was foreign policy and Iraq. That does not excuse in any way what they did.
'That foreign policy decision has radicalised and made extremists of people who might not have been radicalised or extreme. And if they were on the pathway, it's pretty much guaranteed …
'All terrorists will have a freedom fighter story. Bin Laden would have had a freedom fighter story. We might think it's crap. We might think it's self-justification, but he will have had a story about liberating his lands from the great invaders.'
He also said it did not mean a terrorist threat should dictate foreign policy.
Mr Basu said the 'shocking act' divided society.
He said: 'When terrorists hide behind a religion to commit an atrocity, people blame every follower of the religion and the religion itself. We ought to stop doing that.
'That causes a fear and suspicion of people who don't look like you, think like you, eat like you, worship like you. That has got worse, not better, and that has been caused exactly as terrorists want, by dividing a society by committing the shocking act.'
Terror attacks have 'interrupted a trajectory of tolerance', he added.
Mr Basu said: 'That's what I think has been most soul-destroying … It has interrupted a trajectory of tolerance that I was becoming very familiar and happy with …
'It started with 9/11 … 7/7 accelerated that in this country. The relationship between races is worse today, or as bad today as it was in the 70s and 80s. That period of tolerance is over, and feels very much over.'
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