‘Terror on the Tube: Behind the Veil of 7/7’ – Review of the Book by Nick Kollerstrom

REVIEWS, 25 Nov 2019

Antony C. Black – TRANSCEND Media Service

19 Nov 2019 – This is the third in a series of articles (the other two being ‘Operation Gladio: The Unholy Alliance between the Vatican, the CIA and the Mafia’ and ‘The 2001 Anthrax Deception: Review of the Book by Graeme MacQueen’) investigating the notion of ‘false flag’ terrorism in the modern era.

To some it may seem that the author has taken slight leave of his senses; that in obsessive pursuance of now obscure events of mere historical relevance he evidences a strange and incurable critical distemper. Certainly, judging by the mass amnesia – even amongst so-called ‘progressives’ – for these events, such a diagnosis appears well-nigh unassailable. But for those who (to quote ‘V’) ‘see what I see’ then the entire slew of major terrorist attacks starting with 9/11 and continuing on through with those in Bali in 2002, Istanbul in 2003, Madrid in 2004, London in 2005 and Mumbai in 2006…and beyond, can be, indeed must be, viewed in the light of ‘false flag’ terrorism. By which we mean, of course, state terrorism in the service of supporting both US / NATO imperialism abroad, and oligarchic social control and para-fascism at home.

The thesis, then, (and to make it explicit) animating these extended forays into the obscure bowels of mere history, is that false-flag terrorism, far from being some fevered figment of the paranoid political imagination (as so tendentiously characterized by the establishment), or even just an isolated, irrelevant tactical ploy that simply distracts from more ‘substantive’, more strategic, political happenings (as portrayed by many leading progressive pundits), is, in truth, systemic in nature. As such, it is a highly effective pillar of elite policy that is deployed with depressing regularity and with depressingly predictable consequences. It is a time honoured, well-honed tool solidly situated in the political kitbag of every imperial and fascist state. What’s more, as Kevin Barrett forthrightly opines in his introduction to ‘Terror On The Tube’:

‘In the end, the reader of this book will understand that the post-Cold War West is being terrorized not by Muslims, but by the Western state apparatus itself. This is hardly surprising, since we know that it was NATO (under command by the Pentagon) that was carrying out the worst “terrorist attacks” against Europeans during the Cold War, which we now remember as ‘Gladio’.’

And here is author Kollerstrom as he anticipates the usual charges by the usual suspects:

‘Detractors will label us as conspiracy theorists, but this is only name-calling; the government’s July 7^th narrative also is a theory about a conspiracy……

Here (my emphasis) we wish to argue that not only is this [false flag hypothesis] reality, but that the peace movement will remain powerless until and unless it apprehends what is going on here.’

Exactly so.

Still, in the instance, curiosity must be assuaged, evidence adduced, and a case presented. The jury is now invited to sit back and buckle up as we dive deep with British historian and political activist, Dr. Nick Kollerstrom, down the rabbit hole of the London transport bombings of July 7, 2005.

A Study in Scarlet

Before embarking on what will turn out to be a complex, if grimly fascinating, detective case, it behooves us, before refining our focus, to first conduct a bird’s eye, aerial survey, so to speak, of a few of the major facts and evidential points of interest.

The bombings that day of the three London subway trains and a bus were horrific. Fifty-two people were killed and 784 injured – many maimed for life. Reports of victims staring in stunned disbelief at the stumps of their blown away legs chill the heart to this day. The official narrative explaining this gruesome atrocity cohered quickly around four young men of Pakistani origin, the infamous ‘Luton Four’, as the perpetrators. The ‘war on terror’ had received a new lease of life. Could there be any remaining doubt that we were facing a ‘clash of civilizations’? Certainly there was none for British Prime Minister Tony Blair who, in meeting with US President George Bush in Gleneagles, Scotland for the G8 summit that very day, quickly scrapped the group’s routine agenda in favour of pontificating in grandiloquent fashion about the need to ‘save our way of life’.

Nevertheless, the official narrative did not cohere quickly, or well enough, to completely obscure some fundamental flaws in its story. Thus, all of the early reports, i.e. within the first two or three days, pointed to the use of military grade, high explosives (such as C4) as the likely material for the bombs. After all, the three underground trains (an above-ground bus was also targeted), weighing in at 27 tons apiece, were lifted right-off their tracks. Such is hard to square with what soon came to be the ‘official’ story of ‘home-made, ruck-sack’ bombs brewed up in a ‘bathroom in Leeds’. Indeed – and as we’ll soon see – a number of Britain and Europe’s top anti-terrorist experts themselves identified the early remains of the bombs, including detonators, as being military grade. The later ‘home-brewed, suicide, ruck-sack’ bomb theory also had the explosions going off, obviously, inside the trains – but virtually all of the injuries were to the feet and legs suggesting strongly that the blasts came from underneath the trains.

Moreover, virtually all of the eye-witness statements concurred that the explosions came from beneath the trains, and that the trains were lifted up. Surely, one would imagine that the critical issue of whether the bombs were inside vs under the trains could have easily been resolved by simply looking at the train carriages themselves. ‘Granted, Your Honour’, however, not only were no members of the press ever allowed to see the exploded trains, and not only were there no more than a mere handful of grainy photos of the remains, but the trains themselves were hidden entirely from public view and then secretly destroyed a year later. When in 2010 an ‘inquest’ into the July 7^th bombings (not a true public inquest as we’ll come to see) came to survey this question the confusion was palpable. Again, however, all of the eye-witness statements told of the floors exploding upwards.

The ‘inquest’ also heard eye-witness testimony to the effect that there were multiple holes in the floors of the train carriages, i.e. entirely contradicting the notion of a single ruck-sack bomb per train. Furthermore, despite London being one of the most densely surveilled pieces of real estate on the planet, there was not one single CCTV picture or video of the ‘Luton Four’ on any of the trains or the single bus. Indeed, no credible eye-witness testimony placed them there either (though what their likely fate was is a chilling tale in and of itself – to come). But then, perhaps this is not surprising given how, apparently, mysteriously, none of the CCTV cameras seemed to be working on any of the trains or the #30 bus that day.

As for the alleged chemical explosives supposedly used by the Four, no explosive’s expert could figure out exactly what they had supposedly concocted. In the end, the inquiry was left scratching its collective head and contemplating the fantastic notion that the four amateur bomb makers, with no apparent training in or knowledge of chemistry, had engineered an explosive that was unique in the annals of munitions theory.

Still, one might think that a simple forensic examination of the bodies would have shed some much needed light on all this. What emerged next from the inquiry was, then, in its own way, nearly as great a bombshell as had hit the trains. To wit: there had been no post mortem examinations of the fifty-two victims (the alleged bombers having, apparently, vaporized into thin air). No autopsies at all. No DNA analysis. No testing for bomb residue. Apart from fluoroscopic (i.e. X-ray) examinations of body bags to determine contents, no forensic science was employed – at all. Here we have clearly left the precincts of planet Earth and entered Bizarro-World. For while a certain amount of official bumbling and ineptitude can be expected in any crisis, the failure to exercise even the most rudimentary (and legally demanded) of investigatory technique, not just in the first days, but over the ensuing weeks and months, points in an ominous direction, i.e. criminal cover-up.

These, then, are a few of the many tasty tidbits that, just on the surface, appear damning to the official narrative. As it turns out, they are merely the tip of an evidentiary iceberg.

A Coincidence Too Far?

On July 12^th of 2005 the police released information to the effect that they had identified five bodies (of a total of 56), three of which just happened to be those of the alleged perpetrators. Now, granting for the moment that there was an equal likelihood of identifying a victim as a bomber – which is not actually reasonable considering the Four were, apparently, blown completely to smithereens – the chance of this occurring is less than one in eight thousand. Peculiar to say the least. But then, the laws of probability had already been strained far beyond even these incredible bounds when five days earlier, i.e. on the very day of the bombings, it was revealed to an incredulous interviewer on the BBC’s ‘Radio 5 Live’s Drivetime’ programme (about 7:30 p.m.) that a ‘terror drill’ had taken place at the very same train stations and at the very same time as had the real event. Say what?

That’s right. According to one Peter Power, head of British security firm, Visor Consultants, and a former senior Officer of the Metropolitan Police 1971 – 1992, on that very morning he and his team ‘of over a thousand people’ had been running an anti-terror ‘exercise’ that perfectly mimicked both the place and time of the actual attacks! Here are his own words on the matter:

Power: “….at half-past nine this morning we were actually running an exercise for, er, over, a company of a thousand people in London based on       simultaneous bombs going off precisely at the railway stations where it happened this morning, so I still have the hairs on the back of my neck standing upright!”

Fancy that. Again, one can do the mathematics on this scenario and, even under the most conservative and stringent of strategic assumptions, the odds of such a coincidence occurring come out to less than one chance in a million. Worthy of further note is that Mr. Power mentions ‘simultaneous bombs going off’. This is curious because the bombs on the actual trains were (virtually) simultaneous (yet another fact suggesting military-style detonation). However, it was not known at the time of the interview that such was the case. Another coincidence? Well, in one sense yes in another, no, for this was not the first time that Peter Power had played out this scenario.

Just fourteen months earlier, on the 16^th of May, 2004, for instance, the BBC Panorama program broadcast a docudrama entitled, ‘London Under Attack’ that depicted a terrorist bombing involving – you guessed it – three underground trains and a bus. And, just as in the real event a year later, the explosions were simultaneous, occurred between 8 and 9 in the morning, with the bus attack going off roughly an hour after the train blasts. How prescient. Perhaps a little too prescient, perhaps, was the show’s statement that the event was, “set in the future – but only just”. And as author Kollerstrom relates,

“Peter Power was not only one of a small but select panel of advisors that helped create ‘London Under Attack’, but was one of the commentators throughout.”

On the supposition that both the Panorama program and the ‘security drill’ were, indeed, related to the actual event, two questions immediately arise. First, why would a ‘warning’ of the attack be broadcast prior – to the entire nation – and, second, why would Mr. Power admit to such a ‘drill’ in the first place? We will address both of these in just a bit, but not before we continue our excursion down coincidence lane.

After what has already been said it should not come as much of a shock to discover that the Peter Power ‘drill’ and the Panorama program were not the only two ‘anti-terror exercises’ related to 7/7. There were, in fact, several others – all involving multiple trains and a bus. Perhaps the most noteworthy was the anti-terror drill, ‘Exercise Atlantic Blue’, a UK / US / Canadian collaboration that “featured terrorist attacks on UK transport networks and that coincided with a major international summit.” Atlantic Blue took place April 4 – 8^th, 2005, i.e. barely three months before 7/7, and involved over a thousand UK personnel, several times more American personnel (though the American part was codenamed TopOff 3 – for ‘top officials’) and included ‘live action on the ground’. Despite the scale, details about this massive operation are, as Dr. Kollerstrom states, “wholly unobtainable”. One is, of course, reminded here of the NATO anti-terror exercise code-named ‘CMX 2004’ which took place in various European capital cities from 4^th – 10^th of March, 2004 ending just one day before the equally suspicious train bombings in Madrid on March 11^th. One is also reminded here that train bombings were a NATO / Gladio specialty. But we digress.

Apart from these ‘coincidence’ speculations it is, as author Kollerstrom points out, surely a highly disturbing feature of modern life that, where in the past NATO exercises were confined to ships milling about on the sea and such, now the battlefront is seen to be in the heart of major global cities to which thousands of ‘personnel’ are deployed – and yet about which any and all information is kept entirely from the public.

Yet another anti-terror exercise occurred in London just days prior to 7/7. ‘Operation Hanover’, a little known yearly terror drill just happened to take place in this instance on July 1-2, 2005 and involved – three simultaneous attacks on underground trains. Again, the exercise was kept entirely under wraps until the police finally revealed its existence in 2009.

Let us now return to answer the two questions previously posed, i.e. What did Peter Power have to gain by his revelation? And what was the (hypothetical) purpose of the ‘London Under Attack’ docudrama? Regarding the first, author Kollerstrom suggests that Power may not have known that his ‘drill’ was destined to go ‘live’, and that both out of a sense of survival, i.e. holding ‘too much’ information, and to shield himself from future public grilling, he played the early revelation card. And, lo and behold, he was most assuredly rewarded in the second sense as the mainstream media simply dropped the issue as soon as they had heard it, never to breath a word about it ever again. As for the second question, we enter upon more telling territory. Here Kollerstrom invites us to listen to American historian and political pundit, Webster Tarpley:

‘No terrorist attack would be complete without the advance airing of a scenario docudrama to provide the population with a conceptual scheme to help them understand the coming events in the sense intended by the oligarchy.’

And by ‘understanding’ Tarpley is referring principally to the ‘who’ of a ‘terrorist’ attack. It must, after all, be beyond question as to whom to blame, i.e. Muslims, ‘Al Qaeda’ etc. And, again, actual circumstances bear this thesis out completely as both the political establishment and the press never questioned for a second who was responsible for 7/7. Indeed, in the instance, there was never a flicker of doubt, even from the earliest moments, not just amongst the media, but so too amongst the vast majority of the public at large. They knew. They had been taught to know.

But then, what of the ‘drills’ themselves? What part do they (hypothetically) play? Thereby hangs the heart of the tale. Again, we repair to Dr. Tarpley:

‘The principle directly at stake here is that state terrorists wishing to conduct an illegal terror operation often find it highly advantageous to conduit or bootleg that illegal operation through the government military/security bureaucracy with the help of an exercise or drill that closely resembles or mimics the illegal operation. Once the entire apparatus is set up, it is only necessary to make apparently small changes to have the exercise go live…’

And there you have it. For affirmation of Tarpley’s thesis one need only look to the major ‘terror attacks’ of the millennium – and judge to your own satisfaction that ‘anti-terror drills’ shadow each and every one of them like some dark, collective assassin.

The Plans of Mice and Men

Only days after July 7^th it was announced at a Metropolitan Police conference that the alleged bombers had caught the 7:40 a.m. Thameslink train from Luton to London. Though never demonstrated, both CCTV video footage and eye-witness testimony were cited as the basis for this determination. Just a few days after that, on July 16^th, the police released a CCTV image of the four ‘bombers’ entering Luton station that was time and date-stamped a few seconds shy of 7:22 a.m. This would have allowed the Four to easily catch the 7:40, arrive at King’s Cross station in London en route to their appointment with destiny, and where, according to the police, they were, in fact, caught on camera at 8:26. This latter footage was, again, never shown to the public (a persistent theme in this saga), but it meshed, nonetheless, with the timing necessary for the Four to catch all three (soon to be bombed) trains exiting from King’s Cross. All well and good.

The tiny mar in this neat narrative was – the 7:40 had never run that day. Moreover, apart from the 7:40 train having been cancelled, all of the other trains from Luton that morning had been seriously delayed. In fact, it was Nick Kollerstrom and his colleague, James Stewart, who had, six weeks after 7/7, and on a tip from a regular commuter on those trains, bothered to inquire of the transport authorities for the actual schedules that morning. They discovered that, in truth, no train coming from Luton that day could possibly have allowed the Four to arrive in time for their alleged date with destiny. Indeed, it took the official authorities a full year to acknowledge their ‘mistake’, i.e. despite the ‘eyewitness testimony’, and admit that the Four could not have taken the 7:40, or the 7:48, but must, instead, have taken the 7:25.

But this didn’t really work either as it too was delayed and entered King’s Cross at 8:23 with not enough time (roughly ten minutes) for the Four to get from the King’s Cross Thameslink station to the main King’s Cross station where the alleged CCTV footage had them situated, only three minutes later, at 8:26. No worries, Gov’nor, why not just say, then, that they caught the really early train from Luton at 7:20? Which the authorities promptly did. But to claim that, the official narrative had to then have the Four entering Luton station at 7:15 – trusting, of course, that no one, especially the vaunted free press, would remember, which they didn’t, that the government’s own CCTV pic had them date and time-stamped as entering at 7:22!

This begs the question: If the Four did not arrive in London in time to catch the trains that they were alleged to have bombed, then what did happen to them? A possible answer comes by way of an announcement on the 11 o’clock Radio 5 news that morning that three of the terrorists involved in the bombings had been shot and killed by the anti-terrorist branch of the police at Canary Wharf in the Docklands area of London’s East End. This was later denied both by the police and the news media, but several major newspapers had already got wind of the startling information before it was later expunged (more or less) from the public record. Thus, an independent story appeared in the New Zealand Herald:

‘The New Zealander, who did not want to be named, said the killing of the two men wearing bombs happened at 10:30 a.m. …..Following the shooting, the 8000 workers in the 44-story tower were told to stay away from the windows and remain in the building for at least six hours, the New Zealand man said. He was not prepared to give the names of his two English colleagues who he said had witnessed the shooting from a building across the road from the tower.’

The Herald also reported that:

‘Canada’s Globe & Mail newspaper reported an unconfirmed incident of police shooting a bomber outside the HSBC tower. Canadian, Brendan Spinks, who works on the 18^th floor of the tower, said he saw a “massive rush of policemen” outside the building after London was rocked by the bombings.’

Yet another report, from the South London News, told of how the police shot a suicide bomber outside the Credit Suisse First Boston Bank, approximately 470 yards away from the HSBC building.

Apart from numerous internet bloggers who affirmed the airing of the Radio 5 news broadcast that morning, Professor Rory Ridley-Duff of Sheffield University weighed in following the broadcast of the BBC’s 2009 Conspiracy Files program about 7/7. Using a Nexis UK News Database search for the period from July 7^th to 30^th, 2005, Dr. Ridley-Duff uncovered no less than 17 accounts of the Canary Wharf shootings. He further opined that, in his scientific judgement, the account offered up by the BBC program, i.e. the official narrative, fared miserably when compared with the hypothesis put forward by one John Anthony Hill, author of ‘7/7: The Ripple Effect’, the most famous of the online videos examining the bombings that day. We will have occasion, in just a bit, to reference another crucial aspect of Mr. Hill’s findings, i.e. in regards to the bombing of the #30 bus that morning, but for now our attention will focus on his theory regarding the ultimate fate of the four alleged ‘bombers’.

The key, according to Mr. Hill, is the location, for Canary Wharf is home to London’s major media companies. The horrific scenario then unfolds something like this: The Four, having previously been induced, by hook or by crook, to take part in the ‘anti-terror drill’ that morning (evidence for which will arise from the inquest), find, after having arrived in London too late to board their assigned trains, that something is seriously askew (a fascinating instance of which, again, will issue from the inquest). When the bombs eventually do go off (at approximately 8:50 a.m.), the Four – or at least three of them – suddenly realize that those were the trains they were supposed to be on. A sickening feeling washes over them as they twig to the fact that they have been set up as the patsies, the fall-guys, for the ‘terror attack’. What to do? They try to make calls, but that particular area has been blacked out for mobile service (as it really was that morning as confirmed by the police). The three eldest – Mohammed Khan, Shehzad Tanweer and Germaine Lindsay – comprehending their predicament, i.e. that ‘suicide bombers’ are not supposed to survive, attempt to make their way to the major newspapers to tell their story before it’s too late. They head for Canary Wharf. Outside of the ‘area’, of course, their phones allow the police to track them – and they are assassinated outside of the HSBC and Credit Suisse buildings. Hasib Hussain, only 18, less worldly-wise, alone and uncomprehending, continues towards his ‘drill’ assignment on the #30 bus.

So sundered are the best laid plans of mice and men – when the Luton transport system has a bad hair day that morning.

The Magical Mystery Tour

We now enter upon the strange case of the #30 bus, the peculiar facts of which were first highlighted by Mr. Hill. According to the official narrative, Hasib Hussain caught a #91 bus (about 9:22 a.m.) from Kings Cross Thameslink station and headed one stop west to Euston station where he disembarked and then boarded a #30 bus which headed back east – and which would have taken him directly back to where he had just come from, except for the fact that the #30 was, unexpectedly, diverted to Tavistock Square, where it blew up.

As an aside it is worth noting that the police affirmed, unequivocally, that none of the CCTV cameras on either bus were working that day. However, the bus management company, Stagecoach, wasn’t having any of that and insisted, instead, that their cameras were working. They further claimed that, “the hard drive had been recovered from the [#30] vehicle and passed to the Metropolitan Police.” Huh. Also worth noting is that, apparently, the one and only security camera in Tavistock Square wasn’t working either that morning. Hmm…

Given these basic facts, a number of questions immediately present themselves. If, on the one hand, we assume Hussain was guilty then the question arises as to why he would not have simply blown up the #91 bus? After all, he was, allegedly, lugging around a heavy backpack full of explosives. But then perhaps he wanted, for some unknown reason, to blow up the #30. But the thing is, the #30 leaves from King’s Cross Thameslink, as does the #91, and he could have caught it there. Or, if he had wanted to do the deed in Tavistock Square, he could have just stayed on the #91 – as its normal route goes through Tavistock Square – though this destination doesn’t really make any sense since he couldn’t have known that the #30 was going to be diverted to Tavistock Square. It’s all such a muddle. Surely it is possible that he was simply acting completely irrationally and boarding more or less random buses before he got the nerve to pull the trigger so to speak. It’s possible. (It’s also possible that he was not on either bus, but that’s another story – which I’ll leave to the book).

On the other hand, if we assume he was innocent and that he was simply following a script, as say, part of the Peter Power ‘drill’ that morning, then the story becomes rather more coherent. Here, having Hussain catch the #91 makes sense in terms of his being directed to Euston station precisely in order to board that particular #30 bus (registration LX03BUF) that had been pre-rigged to blow up – in Tavistock Square where the failed security camera (and other such arrangements) had been suitably prepared. As if to buttress this theory it was revealed at the 2010 inquest that, in fact, Bus #30 registration LX03BUF had undergone some very unusual maintenance five days prior to 7/7. Thus, as Kollerstrom summarizes the testimony,

“So, the Saturday, prior to July 7^th, a maintenance group previously unknown to the depot crew spent twenty hours tinkering with the bus – an unheard of length of time for CCTV maintenance.”

As it did all other matters of critical pertinence, however, the ‘Inquest’ – to which we now turn – passed this telling morsel by without batting an eye.

And Justice for None

Early in the book author Kollerstrom tells us why he decided to write, ‘Terror On The Tube’:

‘The British people have been denied anything resembling a fair inquiry into the events of July 7^th, 2005…Instead, there has been an ‘Inquest’, which was a massive, five-month event: it heard evidence concerning how people died. It may have looked a bit like a public inquiry – but it wasn’t one. It gave to the Metropolitan police one more opportunity to tell their story. We heard no intelligent mind evaluating it or asking any questions about it…This book seeks to remedy that defect.’

We have already briefly adumbrated a number of serious anomalies to the official narrative that the ‘Inquest’ examined – and then simply skipped over without the slightest demur, including: the fact that virtually all the injuries were to the feet and legs; the total lack of forensic autopsy; the extensive eyewitness reports of multiple holes in the floors, and of trains lifted upwards; the repeated ‘failure’ of key CCTV video footage, alongside the absence of any film identifying the Four as actually being on any of the vehicles in question; and the utter confusion and irresolution surrounding the type of explosives supposedly used in the attacks. A compelling cast to be sure, but which hardly does justice to the full, rich theatre of the absurd that was the 7/7 Inquest of 2010. Let us then take up the production as it continues its examination of the explosives issue.

Here a small sampling of the summary statements illustrates the general tenor of the proceedings: Clifford Todd, a senior government forensic analyst, weighed in to the effect that the devices were, “unique in the UK and possibly the whole world.” Concerning the Tavistock blast the Inquest was told by Kim Simpson, another government explosives expert, that, “the main charge used did not consist of any previously seen composition…” Testimony in regards to the blast at Russell Square revealed that, “no traces of HMTD or TATP or, indeed, any other explosive was found.” At Edgware Road, “the standard test for organic explosives [allegedly used by the Four] proved to be negative…” And at Aldgate, a question relating to organic explosives elicited the response, “That’s right, we tried to see if we could find that and, in the end, we weren’t successful, so we couldn’t draw any conclusions from that.” And so on and so forth.

Moreover, as a string of experts were to testify in the inquiry, it turns out that the production of TATP – that the Four were alleged to have produced – is not quite such an amateur affair after all, needing special equipment and considerable know-how to produce. Furthermore, it is so dangerously volatile in transport that the likelihood of all four bombers having even made it to their targets without a prior detonation seemed a virtual impossibility. So the TATP theory was quietly dropped, only to be replaced by an equally suspect hypothesis involving a substance labelled ‘HMTD’. It too succumbed to the mortal blows of ‘know-how’ and ‘volatility’.

Now what is really quite bizarre about all of this, is that back on July 12^th, 2005, i.e. only five days after the bombings, the police had stirred up huge fanfare over their alleged discovery of a large quantity of explosive situated in a ‘bomb factory’ at 18, Alexandra Grove, Leeds, a substantial quantity of which was then supposedly found in a car parked at Luton Station! By the time of the Inquest, all of this evidential material, and any potential analysis that might have accompanied it, had simply vanished. Equally bizarre was the fact that one Dr. Magdy el-Nashar, a recently graduated PhD in chemistry from Leeds University and who owned the flat at Alexandra Grove, had left the country for Egypt just a few days before 7/7. He had subsequently been detained and then released by the Egyptian authorities, whereupon the British authorities declined to have him extradited for questioning! As Kollerstrom pointedly notes, “It seems the police did not take their own allegations seriously.”

In direct contrast to all this sustained craziness over completely unsubstantiated claims of ‘home-brewed’ explosives, are the well-attested statements of a slew of eminent anti-terror experts who were actually on the scene in the immediate aftermath of the bombings. Thus, on July 8^th, Vincent Cannistro, former head of the CIA’s counter-terrorism centre told the Guardian that the police had discovered “mechanical timing devices” at the bomb scenes. On July 9^th, the police announced that, “High explosives were used in the attacks and were not home-made.” On July 11^th, Scotland Yard Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick told a news conference that, “All we are saying is that it is high explosives.” Likewise, on July 12^th, Christophe Chaboud, the French anti-terror chief who was in London assisting Scotland Yard on the case, confirmed to The Times that, “The nature of the explosives appear to be military, which is very worrying….the material used were not homemade but sophisticated military explosives…” By the time of the Inquest, however, all of these statements had vanished from view as surely had the explosives from the ‘bomb factory’ at Leeds and the car at Luton station.

The lunacy at the Inquest continued. Here we repair to author Kollerstrom as he describes the finding of multiple identity documents supposedly attributed to Mohammed Khan:

‘For five years we’d been told that the I.D. of Khan was found at three different locations: the Edgware Road, Tavistock and Aldgate Station blast scenes. Could the story get any sillier? …The Inquest managed to add a fourth location where Khan’s I.D. was located: Russell Square, the Piccadilly line blast. His mobile phone was located there by the blasted carriage…So we have Her Majesty’s Inquest gravely listening to the four different sites where I.D. of Khan was located: all four of the blast sites. Nobody laughs, nor does a single newspaper journalist express doubt.’

We now briefly return to the ‘instance of something seriously askew’ at King’s Cross station previously alluded to. The Inquest heard testimony from Mr. Fayad Patel, a customer service assistant at King’s Cross, that sometime between 8:15 and 8:45 he was approached by a man he later identified as being Germaine Lindsay. According to Mr. Patel, Lindsay asked to speak to the ‘duty manager’ saying, “It’s something very important.” Mr. Patel replied that he was unable to grant that request because, “Well, we’re busy at the moment because of…the station control.” The latter, it turns out, is only implemented under special circumstances so as to “minimize the flow of passengers”. So, as Kollerstrom notes, something very unusual was already afoot at King’s Cross – before any bombs have gone off. The two continue to ‘rap’ with Lindsay being adamant on seeing, not any old supervisor, but a ‘duty manager’. Kollerstrom sums up the absurdity of this situation:

‘The obvious point here is that the idea of a suicide bomber wanting to approach a station manager to sort out an issue, however serious, is utterly, utterly ridiculous. To any reasonable person this fact alone should prove that Germaine Lindsay was definitely NOT a suicide bomber.’

It does, however, point to the notion that Lindsay sensed something was not quite right. Perhaps he was having doubts about the ‘drill’? And, as Kollerstrom notes, “Patsies need minders. They do not understand the situation in which they are involved and their behaviour must be strictly controlled…” Evidence for the latter possibility came not from the Inquest, but from CCTV film released in 2008. This film had subsequently been elided from government records – but not before members of the public had already downloaded it. The relevant footage relates to:

 ‘… a Jaguar that drove up and parked in Luton station car park beside the ‘bomber’s’ car on the morning of 7/7, having also appeared on the morning of their so-called ‘dry run’ on June 28^th, 2005 – just in the same spot. The Jaguar pulls in beside the bombers’ car and on both days the CCTV footage has been edited to exclude what could be vital evidence relating to the role of the driver of this car in the 7/7 operation. The suspicion is, of course, that this driver would be seen greeting and conversing with Khan, Tanweer and Hussain.’

Let us now exit the Inquest and return through the Looking Glass to briefly inspect the world that 7/7 left behind.

* * *

It is often maintained by certain progressive pundits that whether false flags are fact or fiction is irrelevant to broader strategic concerns. But this clearly cannot be so. Both the assassination of JFK and the 9/11 attacks, for instance, witnessed not just murder, but coup d’état, i.e. the wholesale imposition of a new political order. In the former, ‘Camelot’ was destroyed, the nuclear arms race affirmed, and the Vietnam War stoked and set ablaze. In the latter, the post-Cold War ‘peace dividend’ was scuttled, the Eternal War ignited and at least half dozen nations were more or less totally destroyed. These two false flag events were, essentially, pivot points in history. And though not all state terrorist acts are of equal moment, all partake in the same end goal: war mongering and imperialism abroad, fascism and social control at home. The thesis herein entertained is, then, not hard to grasp. To wit, if the ‘war on terror’ is an illusion, then the ‘enemy’ is equally illusory – and must be simulated. Such was the case on 9/11, such was the case on 7/7. And unless these are taken seriously as false flags, similar ‘enemy’ attacks will continue to occur.

We have only examined in this (already too long) essay, a scant few of the more outstanding threads of Nick Kollerstrom’s rich and deeply woven tapestry of evidence (and ancillary political context). The reader is implored to examine the whole cloth. We end with one last exhortation, this from the author:

‘Ever wonder why all the hopes and dreams of your youth – about socialism as the sharing of the common-wealth, whereby we could be happy together, yes that’s right be happy – why none of that ever happened? Who stole your dreams away and gave you all these nightmares? Muslim terror groups? Nope, try harder.’

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Read also:

• Operation Gladio: The Unholy Alliance between the Vatican, the CIA and the Mafia
• The 2001 Anthrax Deception: Review of the Book by Graeme MacQueen

Antony C. Black is a freelance political essayist living in Hamilton, Ontario. He has been writing for some thirty years for a broad spectrum of both mainstream and independent media outlets. To contact him send message to: tal2@cogeco.ca

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 25 Nov 2019.

Anticopyright: Editorials and articles originated on TMS may be freely reprinted, disseminated, translated and used as background material, provided an acknowledgement and link to the source, TMS: ‘Terror on the Tube: Behind the Veil of 7/7’ – Review of the Book by Nick Kollerstrom, is included. Thank you.

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