London Bombings: State of Play

After the dramatic arrests on Friday in London and Rome, it appears that the foot soldiers of the July 21 bombing are all in custody. Whether the police have been able to go up the cell structure to find handlers, bomb makers and logisticians is unclear.

This is what we know, except that one of the question marks can be replaced with the name of Somalian-British Osman Hussein, captured in Rome. He was traced using his cell phone!




The use of two distinct ethnic networks for the two operational cells was an excellent way to throw the police off the trail and prepare the way for the July 21 bombings. The police would have been looking at British/Pakistani networks after the first bombing. The question of what ties the two networks together is the real question. It would only be necessary that the two operational cell leaders-- say Muhammad Sidique Khan and Yasin Hassan Omar-- knew a third person. Or that they each had a handler who knew the third person.