Britain's intelligence officials concluded less than a month before the London bombings there was no group with intent and capability to attack the United Kingdom, according to a report this morning.
The New York Timesarticle, citing a confidential intelligence report, said authorities made their conclusion after a terror threat assessment by the Joint Terrorist Analysis Centre, which includes officials from Britain's top intelligence agencies, as well as Customs and the Metropolitan Police.
The assessment, according to the newspaper, prompted the British government to lower its formal threat assessment one level, from "severe defined" to "substantial".
The newspaper said the previously undisclosed report was sent to British government agencies, foreign governments and corporations in mid-June, about three weeks before a team of four British suicide bombers mounted their July 7th attack in London.
The New York Timessaid the threat assessment was particularly surprising because it stated that terror-related activity in Britain was a direct result of violence in Iraq.
"Events in Iraq are continuing to act as motivation and a focus of a range of terrorist related activity in the UK," said the report.
A copy of the report was made available by a foreign intelligence service and was not disputed by four senior British officials who were asked about it, the Timessaid.