The Road to 7/7

A Personal and Historical Reflection

Jul 06, 2025

Russel Square station, London - July 7, 2005

On the morning of July 7, 2005, I was woken by a phone call from my manager at the bookstore in Moorgate where I worked. He told me not to come in—there had been “an incident” on the Underground. I remember feeling relieved, even joyful, that I had the day off. His silence in response surprised me—until I turned on the radio while making breakfast.

London was in chaos. Four suicide bombers had attacked the city’s transport system, targeting three Underground trains and a red double-decker bus. One of the explosions occurred near Aldgate, just a stone’s throw from my workplace. Another took place at Russell Square, near my old university. Fifty-two people were killed, and more than 700 were injured.

It was a moment that changed everything. Just the day before, Britain had been jubilant after winning the bid to host the 2012 Olympics. Now, the mood had collapsed into grief, fear, and confusion.

In time, we learned that the attackers were four British Muslims: Mohammad Sidique Khan, Shehzad Tanweer, Germaine Lindsay, and Hasib Hussain. Three were from Leeds, and one from Buckinghamshire. They seemed, at least outwardly, like ordinary members of their communities—one a teaching assistant, another a sports-loving graduate, the youngest just 18.

They left behind martyrdom videos claiming they acted in revenge for the UK’s involvement in the Iraq War. It later emerged that they had been influenced by radical preachers and online materials. Al-Qaeda’s direct involvement was unproven. Still, the ideology that inspired them was deeply rooted—and had been growing for more than a decade.

A Decade in the Making

To understand how 7/7 happened, we must look back—not just to Iraq in 2003, but further still. These attacks did not emerge from a vacuum. They were the product of a cultural and ideological ecosystem that had taken shape long before.

One of the key incubators of this worldview was the Afghan jihad of the 1980s. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, a call to arms swept the Muslim world. The United States, still reeling from Vietnam, saw a chance to strike back at Soviet influence. Alongside Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, it funded and armed the Afghan resistance. The conflict drew foreign fighters from across the Muslim world, inspired by figures like Abdullah Azzam and Osama bin Laden.

When the Soviets withdrew in 1989, many of these fighters—unable to return home due to political persecution—gravitated to cities like London. In the 1990s, London became a hub of Islamist discourse, a sort of ideological Casablanca. Radical preachers like Abu Qatadah, Abu Hamza al-Masri, Omar Bakri, and Abdullah el-Faisal gained followings in mosques, university campuses, and cassette stalls. Their message was fiery, absolutist, and appealing to young Muslims searching for meaning in a post-colonial world.

Other conflicts reinforced this burgeoning ideology. In Algeria, a military junta cancelled democratic elections after an Islamist party’s victory, sparking a brutal civil war. In Chechnya and Bosnia, Muslims were seen as being slaughtered with impunity, with little Western intervention. Graphic videos circulated outside mosques—atrocities on VHS—which shocked and radicalised a generation. I’ve heard firsthand from fighters like Shahid Butt, who watched one of these tapes in a Birmingham mosque and booked a ticket to Bosnia soon after.

‘Londonistan’ and the Digital Jihad

By the late 1990s and early 2000s, this culture of grievance and jihadist romanticism had taken root. A new generation of British Muslims were connecting to global Muslim causes—not just emotionally, but digitally. As the internet spread, so too did jihadist literature and propaganda. Translation forums like At-Tibyan began circulating key ideological texts. Figures like Anwar al-Awlaki gained global reach through online sermons.

Many of these young men saw themselves not as terrorists but as soldiers in a just war. Bin Laden, before 9/11, was not widely reviled in these circles—he was seen as someone who had sacrificed wealth and comfort to fight foreign invaders. The narrative was empowering: the jihad didn’t need men; men needed jihad.

This ideology provided an alternative sense of masculinity and purpose—especially for those who felt alienated by both Western society and the authoritarian regimes of the Muslim world. British counterterrorism officials would later call it a “self-starter jihad”—inspired by grievances, nurtured by propaganda, and ignited by geopolitical events like the invasion of Iraq.

Aftershocks

The legacy of 7/7 was profound as Geneva Abdul points out in her Guardian article on the twentieth anniversary of the attack. It triggered a sweeping overhaul of UK counterterrorism policy, but it also sparked difficult debates around integration, surveillance, and identity. British Muslims—already under pressure—found themselves further stigmatised. So much so that politicians like Nigel Farage referred to Muslim communities as a “fifth column” ten years later. Farage’s comments echoed what Samuel P. Huntington said of America’s ideal enemy: “…ideologically hostile, racially and culturally different, and militarily strong enough to pose a threat…”

The ideological ecosystem that produced the 7/7 bombers has evolved, but it hasn’t disappeared. As I went from bookshop to journalist, I noticed that the personalities have changed, the platforms too, the messaging was slicker but the underlying narrative persists. As I covered the terror attacks in Brussels, Paris, London Bridge and Manchester, I wondered if the attacks would have occurred had 7/7 not transpired.

Twenty Years On

This July marks the twentieth anniversary of the 7/7 attacks. For those of us who lived through it—either as witnesses, citizens, or analysts—it remains a turning point in modern British history.

I’ve explored some of these themes more deeply in the Conflicted podcast series, which I contributed to. You can listen to the 7/7 episodes here.

But above all, I hope this piece has helped to show that these attacks were not random or senseless. They were the product of a long, tangled history—one we should study with objectivity.

It is worth nothing that most Muslim activism remains peaceful, as academic Sadek Hamid author of Sufis, Salafi’s and Islamists, the contested growth of British Islamic Activism, points out:

“After the 7/7 London bombings of 2005, young British Muslims came under unprecedented public scrutiny, such that juxtaposing ‘Muslim’ and ‘youth’ tended to trigger automatic associations with criminality and religious extremism. Since then a growing body of scholarly literature, as well as journalistic accounts, have attempted to explain why some young people from muslim backgrounds have been drawn to religiously inspired terrorism. Whilst this is an important task, securitised perspectives often fail to fully grasp the wider context of Islamic activism, particularly it’s complex religious diversity and how international religious paradigms have travelled and been transformed in the UK. Most of these studies also obscure the fact that the vast majority of young British Muslims participating in faith-based activism do so peacefully, in heterogeneous religious communities unknown to outsiders.”

The Blood-Rep

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