Britain is now poised to acquire some of the most draconian anti-terrorist legal regimes in Europe, writes Jonathan Eyal
Security and intelligence experts will spend weeks trying to piece together the sequence of events which led yesterday to the worst series of terrorist attacks in modern British history. But a few conclusions can already be drawn: the threat of terrorism remains very real in Europe, and terrorist cells are highly organised.
The claim made by a website purporting to represent al-Qaeda and claiming it was responsible for the atrocities cannot yet be taken at face value. Al-Qaeda's strategy has been to keep quiet following a major atrocity. In the last four years, however, this reticence was discarded, mainly to refute claims from the US that it had been annihilated.
So, as with many other recent attacks, those who rush first to claim responsibility may not be the culprits. In all likelihood, the attacks were perpetrated by local, British-based cells, co-operating with foreign elements inspired by al-Qaeda.
Nevertheless, the London attacks were highly co-ordinated and executed with some precision, the two hallmarks of al-Qaeda in the past. We do not know yet if suicide bombers were involved, or what types of explosives were used. But it is evident that scores of terrorists were engaged in planning the operations, identifying the targets and detonating the explosives at a time which coincided with London's rush hour.
There are also obvious similarities between the atrocities in London and the massive terrorist attacks in Madrid in March last year. As with the attacks on the Spanish capital, the London targets were key transportation nodes: underground trains which intersect with main railway stations, feeding through hundreds of thousands of passengers during peak time.
And, as in Madrid , the explosions did not take place too early in the morning - when trains are cleaned or inspected - but were carefully timed to coincide with the end of the rush hour, when the network is used to capacity, and vigilance may be at a minimum.
Either way, the purpose was to kill as many people as possible.
But the differences between Madrid and London may yet turn out to be just as important. First, the London attacks extended further by including the bus services. This may be due to the particular vulnerabilities of London buses, which usually have a dedicated area for storing passengers' luggage, a largely unsupervised space and therefore a great opportunity for placing explosive charges. It may also indicate that the operation aimed to bring to a standstill the entire transportation network, below and above ground.
The second difference is in the operation's apparent political intent.While in Madrid the terrorists sought - and ultimately obtained - a change of government by timing their attacks precisely on the eve of parliamentary elections, the aim of those who struck in London appears to be much more nebulous.
Operations such as these take a long time to conceive, as targets are identified, explosives are pre-positioned and people are selected to place them. It is likely that planning for the London attack started well before the British elections, which took place only two months ago. The British security services were on high alert at that time, predicting a repeat of the Madrid strategy. Yet nothing happened until yesterday.
It is possible that the perpetrators understood they could not repeat their political achievement in Spain, and that an attack in London on the eve of the British elections would merely have stiffened government resolve. So, they opted instead for attacks at the time of the G8 summit, when the attention of British security services was on the presence of some of the world's most important leaders in Scotland. Hitting at the one European country perceived to be closest to the US, at a time when the US president was on its soil, was the aim.
The immediate political implications from yesterday's bloody scenes on the streets of London are clear enough. For more than a year, the government of prime minister Tony Blair has tried to push through a set of anti-terrorist measures, which included preventive detention for suspected foreign nationals, as well as the introduction of identity cards.
A combination of legal challenges and stiff opposition from within Blair's Labour Party has prevented both measures from being applied. This opposition is now likely to disappear, and Britain will acquire some of the most draconian anti-terrorist legal regimes in Europe.
Beyond that, the government in London will have to draw even more profound lessons. Although the country's intelligence services have scored some notable triumphs against international terrorism, they clearly failed on this occasion.
This, in itself, is unremarkable: as Eliza Manningham-Buller, director-general of Britain's Security Service (MI5), readily admitted, it was always considered "a matter of time" before such an attack took place.
Nevertheless, it is curious that, on the eve of the G8 summit in Scotland, the security service itself publicly announced that its assessment of the terrorist threat had diminished. It is obvious that most of the attention of the law and order forces concentrated on the physical protection of foreign leaders visiting Britain, rather than the potential for wider terrorist attacks.
The emergency services - ambulances, fire brigade and the police - performed as well as could be expected. Nevertheless, London's transport infrastructure was brought to a standstill, while Britain's mobile telephone networks were unable to cope with the demand for calls. In the months to come, a serious re-evaluation of emergency procedures will be required: measures will have to be put in place to minimise disruption and an extra, so-called "redundant capacity" will have to be created for both the emergency services and the transport and communication networks. The measures will not come cheap, but they remain essential if terrorists are not to win this battle. The ultimate lesson from yesterday's carnage in London, however, is that the fight against international terrorism is only just beginning: it will be a long arduous battle, which can only be fought by all European governments, together.