Terror in London - Panic cannot justify shoot to kill policy

FEARS of a long hot summer of terror in London were heightened yesterday when armed police gunned down a suspected suicide bomber at a tube station in a city suburb.

But, in a horrendous example of how things can go badly wrong in panic situations, it emerged the dead man was not one of the four bombers from Thursday’s abortive assault on the capital.

While the police insist he was linked with terrorism, the fact that the victim of the first shots fired on British soil in the war against terror proved not to be a suicide bomber, turns a potential coup into a public relations disaster.

Inescapably, it raises the spectre of Muslims being targeted indiscriminately just as ordinary Irish people were hounded by police during the IRA bombing campaigns in Britain.

The shooting raises serious questions about the rules of engagement under which the police are now operating in these dangerous times?

Does it mean, for instance, that a Belfast-style shoot-to-kill policy is now in force.

In a portent of things to come, wild rumours swept the city yesterday amid a fast moving series of incidents as police closed stations, cordoned off roads, and searched houses, including an internet cafe. At one house, shots were fired and police arrested a man.

In the day’s most chilling incident, the man wrongly suspected of being one of four terrorists on the run, after the failed bomb attacks on three stations and a bus, was shot dead at Stockwell tube station.

Failing to stop when challenged, he was chased down the escalator and shot five times when police overpowered him on a waiting train.

Given the importance of intelligence gathering in these investigations, it has be asked why the suspect was shot and not arrested after he was overpowered?

The obvious inference to be drawn is that police believed he posed an imminent threat to life and feared he would trigger a suicide bomb. Nevertheless, the event has heightened growing concerns about the quality of intelligence on terrorist activities in Britain.

Following the July 7 atrocity which killed 56 innocent victims, Thursday’s attack demonstrated that for the second time in two weeks, Islamic fundamentalists were able to penetrate security defences designed to protect a tube system which carries millions of people every day.

Not surprisingly, the security services are coming under intense pressure to stop suicide bombers infiltrating the transport system.

Fortunately, in the fast-moving London scenario, the use of CCTV cameras is proving invaluable in identifying Britain’s homegrown terrorists. The incredible clarity of TV images of the four men suspected of targeting the bus at Hackney and the Oval, Shepherds Bush and Warren Street stations, shows the suicide bombers had no fall-back plan as they fled the scene.

Pressure is now mounting on the British Government to stop Islamic leaders who incite terrorism from entering the country. It is undeniable that firebrand clerics, preaching a doctrine of hatred against the West, are converting seemingly normal young Muslims into fanatical terrorists.

Facing the greatest operational challenge in British police history, the authorities insist they are not targeting any community. But having shot the wrong man, they will find it hard to convince Muslims of this.

Persuading ethnic communities to root out extremists will be difficult unless social and political reforms are delivered.

Hopefully, the clarity of CCTV images will be enough to deter other extremists from launching copycat attacks in Britain. But given the sheer fanaticism of the suicide bomber, that forlorn hope is unlikely to be realised.