Two South Africans were among the 700 people injured in Thursday’s bomb blasts in London, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Friday. One was in a critical condition, the other seriously injured, spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said.
More than 50 people were killed in the attacks on London’s underground railway and a bus, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Ian Blair told a news conference on Friday.
The identities of the South African man and woman cannot be released until their families have been informed.
”The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, has directed our consular officers in London to visit them and provide support,” Mamoepa said.
The department’s Pretoria office was contacting their families on Friday.
”The minister, on behalf of the government, wishes the two South Africans a speedy recovery,” said Mamoepa.
Attacks ‘came out of the blue’
British Interior Minister Charles Clarke said on Friday that the series of bomb attacks that killed at least 37 people came ”out of the blue”, rejecting any idea of an intelligence failure.
”As far as the general threat assessment was concerned, we didn’t have prior knowledge of this attack,” Clarke told Sky News.
”We obviously are looking very carefully at all our intelligence to see if anything was missed, but in fact we don’t believe anything was missed. It just came out of the blue,” said Clarke of the attacks.
British newspapers had earlier questioned the alertness of Britain’s security services, highlighting a recent decision by the security services to downgrade the terror threat level to its lowest point since the September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.
”The timing of Thursday’s seemingly coordinated attacks on the capitals transport system appears to have exploited a weak link in the chain of intelligence and a fatal lapse in security,” the Financial Times business daily opined.
According to The Times, ”the coordinated terrorist bombs across London on Thursday came out of the blue. There has been no intelligence warning of an imminent attack”.
The Joint Terrorist Analysis Centre, which operates from the headquarters of MI5, Britain’s internal security service, lowered its terror alert one grade from ”severe general”, the third-highest level, to ”substantial”.
According to The Times, intelligence officials said the analysis centre is to re-examine all recent secret material to determine if any indications of the London attacks were overlooked.
Jihad in London
Britain today faces the same threat from militant attacks that Israel has been forced to confront for decades, the Israeli press said on Friday after bombings in London killed at least 37 people.
Under the headline ”Jihad in London”, the Maariv tabloid likened the string of blasts in the British capital to an attack in Israel.
”After Madrid … came London’s turn. The assumption common in Europe until a short while ago, that the continent was a logistical hinterland for the extremists and not an arena for Jihad, continues to fade away,” it said.
”Who’s next in line?” asked the newspaper.
For liberal daily Haaretz, the answer could only be the Jewish state.
”Israel has always been on the top of al-Qaeda’s hit list … Every al-Qaeda strike at Israel has failed, but this does not mean the danger has passed,” wrote the daily’s military-affairs analyst.
For mass-selling Yediot Aharonot, the bombings were the result of a failure of normally superior British intelligence that makes ”frightening” the prospect of ”terror prevention in the rest of the European intelligence services”.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon spoke of his deep shock at the ”awful crime that was committed against innocent Britons” and stressed that ”the entire world must unite in the war against terrorism”.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Silvan Shalom said: ”Israel, which has a long experience of terrorism, shares in the pain of the British people … I hope that the free world will now be less lax in its attitude towards terrorist organisations.”
G8 sticks to agenda
Sticking to their agenda despite the terror attacks, leaders of the world’s top Group of Eight (G8) industrial nations on Friday were opening a final day of talks expected to focus on fighting poverty in Africa.
Leaders of the G8 voiced horror at the blasts but said they would not yield to terrorists’ apparent efforts to disrupt their annual summit.
The meeting is being chaired by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who returned to the Gleneagles hotel in Scotland late on Thursday after rushing to London on hearing of the attacks.
G8 leaders are set to announce a major aid package for developing countries and meet several African heads of government to discuss the continent’s development problems.
Following tough negotiations on climate change between the United States and other G8 nations, the summit will also vow joint action to fight global warming.
The eight leaders — from the US, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Canada, Japan and the Russia Federation — will once again condemn terrorism, urge more transparency on world oil markets and promise to complete talks on world trade liberalisation by the end of 2006.
G8 sources said the summit is set to issue a total of eight declarations and an additional ”chairman’s summary” to be issued by Blair.
The focus on Africa on Friday follows intense pressure from aid charities, rock stars and celebrities who have campaigned long and hard for an increase in aid for the continent.
Security at the summit has been intensified, with police on heightened alert following the attacks. – Sapa-AFP