Britain foils many terror plots, but missed one

Secondly, the intelligence services are still no better at infiltrating Islamist groups than they were six years ago, he says. They have been assiduously hiring ethnic minorities, but security experts say it will take years before these new recruits can be entrusted with – and credibly execute – infiltration operations.

Instead, successes tend to stem from foreign-intelligence tips or public cooperation, such as when staff at a west London depot called in their suspicions about material stored there, which turned out to be 600 kilograms of ammonium nitrate for use in the fertilizer bombs.

But last week, the Metropolitan police's top counterterrorism officer, Peter Clarke, indicated that mistrust of the police was inhibiting the flow of intelligence from the public. Botched raids, like one last summer in which an innocent Muslim man was shot, alienate the very people who can provide the local intelligence to help police foil plots.

"It's a major problem," says Dr. Neumann. "It's the most important thing in prevention terrorism that you have communities who trust the authorities."

But Neumann says the counterterrorism effort has improved in several respects. He says that once the Pakistan connection emerged in 2005 (three of the 7/7 bombers were of Pakistani extraction) the focus switched away from Algerian radicals previously considered the biggest threat.

"They have done a very good job on catching up," he says. "MI5 opened offices in Northern England, where a lot of these people live. And they have established a good working relationship with Pakistani intelligence services."

Whether they are improving fast enough is another matter. From afar, the increasing frequency of terror raids, arrests, charges, and now trials may look like growing British competence in tackling terrorism. But Neumann says it's also because the number of would-be terrorists is growing.

"It's partly because the intelligence services are getting better and are focusing on the right people, which they didn't before 2005," he says. "But also, there are more radicalized young Muslims in Britain so the number of people considered dangerous extremists has risen. Whether the security services are keeping up with the threat is another question. It's difficult to judge."

Renewed calls for 7/7 inquiry

Survivors of 7/7 are using the new revelation to renew calls for a proper public inquiry into the atrocity. And parliament's intelligence and security committee, which published a report on 7/7 last year, is to review its findings in the light of the new evidence.

Khan cropped up in MI5 surveillance at least four times more than a year before he and three other bombers killed 52 people on London's transit system on July 7, 2005. During an enormous yearlong investigation said to cost £50 million ($100 million) – Operation Crevice, which homed in on 55 figures considered dangerous – he was tailed as he drove hundreds of miles around the country with Mr. Tanweer; he was bugged talking about jihad to the ringleader of the fertilizer bomb plot, Omar Khyam; and he was even photographed.

MI5 says Khan and Tanweer were "unidentified contacts" of those involved in the fertilizer bomb plot, not central players. It said the pair appeared as "petty fraudsters" and said the intelligence collected on them "gave no indication that they posed a terrorist threat."

Its arguments have not persuaded everybody. "MI5 has got a great deal of explaining to do and so has the current home secretary and the previous home secretary," says Patrick Mercer, a Conservative MP and security expert.

He said that aside from explaining why the pair were allowed to vanish, security chiefs would have to clarify why, in the immediate aftermath of 7/7, they told the country that the bombers were "clean skins," completely unknown to the authorities.

"What on earth were intelligence agencies doing allowing the home secretary at the time to start saying these attacks had come out of the blue?" Mercer asks. "Phrases like 'clean skins' were being used, when patently these people had been under surveillance."

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