With what mind do we approach the data (and identify what data we consider relevant)? Can we weigh each incoming piece of evidence, or each exposition of the case for any/each of these hypotheses, with a dispassionate mind, without indulging in wishful groupthink or denial, pet hobby-horses or angry aversiveness?

I will first list the 9 main hypotheses and then go over them again.

1) Evil Al-Qaida mastermind recruited British Muslims as suicide bombers.

2) Evil Al-Q mastermind recruited British Muslims for indiscriminate attacks, but duped them in so far as the latter did not know they were going to die in the explosions.

3) Evil, but homegrown and autonomous, action by four British Muslims with no Mr Big.

4) Any of the above plots could have been monitored by one or more secret 'service' (MI5, MI6, CIA, Mossad) but they let it happen on purpose (LIHOP) in order to exploit the subsequent situation.

5)The men thought they were going to strike a blow for Palestine, Iraq, etc and go to Heaven as 'martyrs' because they had been groomed and encouraged and equipped by an evil Al-Qaida mastermind who actually was working for one of the State agencies or a rogue network straddling one or more of them with their own agenda (and/or a fascist group or UDA-type group aiming to stir up racial or religious hate).

6) The four officially designated terrorists (said to have been identified in a CCTV still outside Luton railway station) thought they were going to be delivering drugs (or money?) to various locations round London, but were deceived, set up and murdered along with the others on their tubes/bus when their back packs exploded.

Please note that the above was written before the Sept 1st screening of the chilling statement by Mohammed Sidique Khan with additional comment from 'Al-Qaida's Number Two', which is still being analysed concerning its authenticity and the implications if it is true. See preliminary comment in purple at the end.

7) As above but the lads thought they were carrying dummy 'bombs' because they were participating in an exercise testing London transport's defences against backpack bombers.

8) The four lads were chosen or lured in to be patsies in a classic 'false flag operation' or frame-up by a network involved with one or more of the intelligence services. Far from getting on the 3 tube trains and the Number 30 bus, the lads may not even have made it as far as Luton, but were in any case murdered separately with quite some other system(s) for causing explosions on the tubes and bus (possibly masked by the cover of the 'exercises' on that morning).

9) The Antagonist's theory: Ignore the four lads, the tube deaths were caused not by bombs but by the powersurge which MertroNet all along reported. The exploding bus in Tavistock sq was related to a long-planned 'exercise'. When the three industrial accidents happened, then the powers that be saw their opportunity to tack them on to the narrative concerning the 'terrorist=Muslim explosion' of the 30 bus, so as to avoid being overwhelmed with compensation claims.
 
 

1) Evil Al-Qaida mastermind recruited British Muslims as suicide bombers.
Comment: This is the mainstream story, even though the details have all along kept changing without explanation, and still do from time to time:
e.g. On mastermind's identity and movements; on military versus homegrown nature of explosives, on timers versus bomber-ignition - by buttons versus pulls - versus mobile phone switches, on the location - floor or laps - and size of the army rucksacks/urban backpacks, on the supposed bomb-maker, on bombs in boot of one or two cars in Luton car park, on how devout and/or political or neither the four men were, etc. Matthew Parris of The Times, not previously known for his 'extremism', is among many who have protested at the way the media and the State keep changing and exaggerating the story: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1065-1704834_1,00.html .

The idea that home-grown independent terror-cell couldn't have carried out this action is linked to three supposed functions of a terrorist network:

• Recruitment/motivation management;
• Technical help, including with making the bombs and possible provision of high-grade explosives;
• Selection of targets.

The press tells us (for what that is worth!) that still unshown CCTV footage (from either the Luton station car park or one of the Kings Cross stations) shows the men engaging in a brief collective prayer together. IF this is true, it is consistent with several scenarios other than starting a suicide murder mission, including if they thought they were going to raise money to send to an Islamic cause.

On the Pakistan connection: It is hardly unusual for British-Pakistanis to visit Pakistan! The BBC now reports that Hasib Hussain did not visit Pakistan in July 2004, at least not that Hasib Hussain!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4704427.stm
Initial reports that Tanweer spent lots of time at a particularly questionable centre near Lahore now aqppear to be untrue: he spent most of his visit with relatives near Faislabad. As for supposed corroboration of 'terrorist links' to the 4 designated 'suicide bombers' being supplied by those held in Pakistan or Egypt, where torture is routine, surely these are especially dubious to the point of worthless.

More subtle pressures may also account for reported switch away from 'Prove it!' by Jamal's wife, Samantha Lewthwaite, who so far as we know could well remain in police supervised 'protection'.

We have been told of two different claims of responsibility: one by a 'group' who have a record of implausible claims in the past, and the first one was by 'The Secret Al-Qaida Organisation in Europe' which no one had heard of and who made a slip in their quoting of the Qu'ran, prompting one BBC translator to discount the genuineness of their claim.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2005/080705provenhoax.htm
This is especially significant as the message about 'London is now burning in its southern, northern, western and eastern quarters' is taken to refer to the supposed plan of the 'bombers' ' handlers (whoever they may be) to send them in these four directions from Kings Cross.

One report which gives credence to the idea of an older foreign supervisor of the Pakistani-British men comes from the Whitewater Rafting Centre the men are believed to have attended on June 4th: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22989-1816225,00.html

2) Evil Al-Q mastermind recruited British Muslims for indiscriminate attacks, but duped them in so far as the latter did not know they were going to die in the explosions.

Comment: The Mirror raised this possibility on Saturday 16th   (followed by the Sunday Telegraph the next day).
http://www.infowars.com/articles/London_attack/mainstream_media_doubts_suicide_bombers.htm
According to the only CCTV picture released so far [if genuine - see below at 8] the four men seemed very relaxed. They are also reported to have bought return tickets and a day (week?) pay and display ticket (tickets?) for Luton station car park for their one (or two?) cars – though others might well argue that even if they knew they were not coming back, they may have bought return tickets to allay suspicion in case they were stopped. The Mirror also pointed to a complete absence of any video of the soon-to-be 'martyrs' explaining their actions.

[And still others might argue that this whole debate on whether or not they bought return tickets at Luton and what that means, if true, could simply serve to lock us deeper into the assumption that the men ever did reach Luton .... see #8 or #9  below]

3) Evil, but homegrown and autonomous, action by four British Muslims with no Mr Big.

Comment: The story of the bath in North Leeds full of TATP (Mother of Satan) - or with 'bomb-making materials in it' - or merely with 'traces' of explosives in it - suggests the men could have concocted their bombs themselves – or with help of the 'Egyptian chemist' who is said  to have been linked to Jamal and/or Hasib through having them (or them having him) on their mobile phones (though he says he hardly knew Hasib), and who has now persuaded the Egyptian police that he is innocent, resulting in his release from his ordeal to face the world's press ... hmm.

But perhaps this flat in Burley, North Leeds really was used to make the explosives? We have to consider the possibility that this police story is true and not a plant  (and vice versa). In this connection we should recall that an early  report by Christophe Chaboud, France's new antiterrorism coordinator, stated that he knew ‘the nature of the explosive’ in the London bombings:  It ‘'appears to be military, which is very worrisome,’' he said (Le Monde, 11th July). www.iht.com/articles/2005/07/17/europe/web.0717rift.php
Other experts, both British and European, also indicated that the explosive used was of 'military quality' or at least 'technically advanced' :' British intelligence officials have asked their counterparts elsewhere in Europe to scour military stockpiles and commercial sites for missing explosives, three senior European-based intelligence officials said.' (International Herald Tribune report of 13 Juy)
www.iht.com/articles/2005/07/12/news/london.php

Channel Four News told us that the men had bought their rucksacks in a shop in Leeds, and also four fairly sizable plastic boxes in which to sit both the explosives and the timers (boxes would need to be loaded vertically in the men's large attention-attracting rucksacks – actual explosives only weighed less than ten pounds we are also told).

4) Any of the above plots could have been monitored by one or more secret 'service' (MI5, MI6, CIA, Mossad) but they let it happen on purpose (LIHOP) in order to exploit the subsequent situation.
And additional possibility is that the non-govenmental group who carried it out was a British fascist group with intelligence connections, which meant that they could have been allowed to carry out the bombings.
http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/071305Madsen/071305madsen.html

It certainly seems quite possible that (as with 9-11) somebody (could be 'Al-Q' and/or Western) made a lot of money out of advance knowledge of the coming attacks - in this case by 'shorting' the pound 10 cents against the dollar in the run-up to the 7th July. http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/071305Madsen/071305madsen.html
AND AS WITH 9-11, WHOEVER MADE THESE TRADES, THE INFORMATION MUST FOR CERTAIN BE RECOVERABLE (like the Oval Office tapes which brought Nixon down)!

5)The men thought they were going to strike a blow for Palestine, Iraq, etc and go to Heaven as 'martyrs' because they had been groomed and encouraged and equipped by an evil Al-Qaida mastermind who actually was working for one of the State agencies, or a rogue network straddling one or more of the secret services, with their own agenda (and/or they were egged on by a fascist group or UDA-type group aiming to stir up racial or religious hate).

IF what we have been told about Haroon Rashid Aswat is true, this model may be more or less true concerning the 'failed' flour bomb (Daily Telegraph) squib 'attacks' of 21/7, which spread additional fear all round London. (It also just happened to divert attention from the problems with the 7-7 account, as did the subsequent Menezes assassination on 22/7, which has absorbed much of the energy of radicals pushing for proper inquiries, release of evidence, etc. It also just happened to facilitate the passing into permanent law of the Patriot Act in Washington). Just as the hue and cry after Rashid was in full cry, it became clear that this man whom thepolice were hunting was in fact under the protection of MI5! (Which many of us think is absolutely par for the course: Al-Qaida being largely a put-up job 'pseudo gang' on the lines adopted by British counter-insurgency expert Brigadier Kitson in Malaya and Kenya.)
See http://www.infowars.net/Pages/Aug05/100805Aswat.html
http://www.infowars.com/articles/London_attack/mastermind_mi6_asset.htm
http://www.globalecho.org/view_article.php?aid=5053&visitID=083087875ca001efdd2e6e0b34e67336

There is a long history of state use of 'agent provocateurs'. Many 'Al-Qaeda' clerics or other extremist activists turn out on closer inspection to have very close links to the secret services, indeed the name 'Londonistan' was coined by those who reckoned that MI6 was tolerating London being used as a base for certain (useful-to-whom?) attacks in other countries in order to secure immunity from attacks in the UK - an immunity which broke down after British troops backed Bush in Iraq::
http://wagnews.blogspot.com/2005/07/al-qaeda-qatada-madrid-london-and.html
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=MOR20050510&articleId=67
http://wagnews.blogspot.com/2005/07/cut-outs-moles-patsies-and.html

There is also evidence of extremist clerics and websites which turn out to be fronts for UK and European fascists,
http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/Jul%20archives.htm (scroll to July 24th entry)
which puts  a new twist on the obnoxious 'Islamo-Fascist' term of abuse being introduced by the political right!

6) The four officially designated terrorists (said to have been identified in a CCTV still outside Luton railway station) thought they were going to be delivering drugs (or money?) to various locations round London, but were deceived, set up and murdered along with the others on their tubes/bus when their back packs exploded.

Comment: Many of the details people take to support the first three stories could also support explanation 6 e.g. Travel to Pakistan to set up drugs deals; how did the men finance their trips to Pakistan?, Jamal's comings and goings in UK, purchase of rucksacks and boxes and perfume could all fit the drugs hypothesis, either to hide the smell or as a means of laundering money. Drugs are a common way for patsies to be drawn into position, e.g. Many of us who have studied 9-11 believe that Mohammed Attah and co probably thought they were being trained to fly 'puddlejumpers' for the CIA in Afghanistan (see Daniel Hopsicker's fine book, Terrorland, and also here:
www.williambowles.info/911/911_dirty_secret.html )
William Bowles was one of those who set out the drugs version in  Dead Men Tell No Tales: Were the London Bombings A Set Up?
http://www.williambowles.info/ini/ini-0348a.html

Opinions differ as to whether such a rucksack delivery system for drugs is plausible (or would have semed plausible to the four 'mules') - some say that you would drive round London with the stuff in the boot of your hired car(s).(However, they may have set out to do just that, the Luton story and picture could be quite  false - see below at #8.) They may also have thought they were delivering money - not so unusual in some Asian networks.

One analysis tending to support the 'duped' notion (version #6 or #7) is the following
http://www.brushtail.com.au/july_05_on/london_bombers_duped.html

7) As above but the lads thought they were carrying dummy 'bombs' because they were participating in an exercise testing London transport's defences against backpack bombers.

Comment: Crisis-Management consultants, Visor Consultancy (whose MD Peter Power is a retired Anti-terrorist bomb squad policeman who retains close links with Scotland Yard) were running a major exercise that morning with the managers of a company involved in London Transport (presumably Verint Systems, or possibly for the Israeli investor conference that morning at Liverpool Street Great Eastern Hotel) which, amazingly, involved terrorist incidents at exactly the same three tube stations as actually began to be reported for real, at more or less the same times as in the exercise.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2005/090705bombingexercises.htm
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2005/130705newdevelopments.htm
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2005/120705importantquestions.htm

Why not design in 4 backpack bombers??! Visor Consultants had been to the fore in the 'London Resilience' consortium of transport and emergency service organisations, which planned 'Atlantic Blue' exercises in 2003 – an exercise which had involved dummy bombs on tubes; further exercises had followed and a 2003 report tells us that a major British/American one was planned for 2005. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/3320809.stm

Khan is said to have organised trips for the young men he worked with and influenced. In this connection the whitewater rafting excursion the four made on June 4th at Canolfan Tyweryn National Whitewater Rafting Centre could be of particular significance.

As the one with some links to the establishment, Khan may have been the link person who recruited the others for some person or company who (he didn't realise) was working for MI5 – and/or CIA – and/or Mossad. Regarding Mossad there is one story of Khan visiting Israel and there is the extraordinary fact (reported by Associated Press, then denied, but then confirmed by the head of Mossad to the German newspaper, Bild Am Sontag) that the British warned Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to proceed to an Investors conference in central London six minutes before the bombings. http://www.infowars.com/articles/London_attack/netanyahu_warning_confirmed.htm

8) However they were  chosen or lured in, the lads were patsies in a classic 'false flag operation' or frame-up by a network involved with one or more of the intelligence services. Far from getting on the 3 tube trains and the Number 30 bus, the lads may not even have made it as far as Luton, but were in any case murdered separately with quite some other system(s) for causing explosions on the tubes and bus (possibly masked by the cover of the 'exercises' on that morning).

Comment: The main journalist who has argued this is Fintan Dunne of BreakforNews.com, here:
http://wagnews.blogspot.com/2005/07/how-black-ops-staged-london-bombings.html

He places a lot of reliance on an extraordinary report in the Cambridge Evening News which suggests that the Aldgate bomb exploded beneath the floor of the tube train, as evidenced by metal and floorboards being bent upwards round the hole in the floor of the tube.
http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/region_wide/2005/07/11/83e33146-09af-4421-b2f4-1779a86926f9.lpf

More recently a second report has come to our attention, orginally from the Guardian's Mark Honigsbaum who on July 7th interviewed survivors of the Edgeware Rd bomb who also reported a powerful under-carriage explosion, leading to derailment of that carriage
http://nineeleven.co.uk/board/viewtopic.php?p=248#248

IF three or all of the bombs were not backpack bombs, it is worth reflecting on the fact that many neo-con firms seem to have a piece of the action concerning London transport and tube security (they also stand to gain from increased security, repairs, etc)  http://www.team8plus.org/forum_viewtopic.php?9.38
http://www.fortressgb.com/press/prdetail.asp?dfs=18

Those of us who have studied 9-11 are particularly suspicious of the role of Mayor Guiliani that day and subsequently. Visor Consultancy managing director Peter Power has co-addressed conferences along with a business associate of Guiliani's principal business partner, and Guiliani was in town on the morning of 7/7, based near Liverpool Street station in the same Great Eastern Hotel as Netanyahu. The head of London Transport, American Bob Kiley, is a member of the influential Council on Foreign Relations and one-time CIA high-flyer, and his head of London Underground is also a wealthy American executive.

Since September 2004 an Israeli company had become heavily involved with the tube network, having been contracted by Metronet to supply the video technology for platform surveillance and 'certain remote portions of the track'.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=69208
http://www.rense.com/general67/sisr.htm,
which becomes of possible relevance if we remember how many Israeli companies (like US or I guess British) co-operate with or act as vehicles for intelligence agencies. IF the bombs weren't in backpacks inside the carriages, but underneath them, then a powersurge (reported by London Underground and Metronet and denied by the Electricity company) could have been used to detonate the bombs, and or knock out video-systems?
(Famed 9-11 researcher, Nico Haupt, even speculates that Hernandez could conceivably have been targetted for assassination as an electrician who knew too much - but admits London is a big place and he does not know where the Brazilian had actually been working!)

Remember that we have still no CCTV footage being shown to us of any of the men at Kings Cross Thameslink, Mainline or Underground stations, or getting on to the relevant tubes/bus: how likely is it that all these many CCTV cameras weren't working? The fact that we are now told that no footage is available from Stockwell tube on the day Menezes was assassinated (even though Tubelines say the camaras were working) just adds to suspicion - suspicion which could surely be easily scotched/reassured.

The still photo we were shown from Luton is extremely blurred (even if real). By contrast the quality of photos we are shown is extremely good
a)  of the failed bombers of 21/7 - one of them at Stockwell, another on the 26 bus, both remarkably empty;
b) of three of the men in London a week before (allegedly), allegedly on a 'dry run' - though what Baker Street has to do with what actually happened is far from clear;
c) of Hasib allegedly leaving Boots at Kings Cross at 9.00 that morning.

A London transport bus worker has said how well maintained are the CCTV cameras on buses, making it extemely unlikely that all of them on the No. 30 bus would not be working that day (the cameras are a nice little money earner for Stagecoach). She also alleges that at the previous weekend the buses at that depot were visited for their regular camera servicing by someone who wasn't the usual person and who stayed much longer than usual.
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/july2005/150705busbombing.htm

As for the supposed visual identification of Hasib Hussain on the 30 bus, it would be a hilarious joke if 'Richard Jones' wildly conflicting and off the wall accounts hadn't found their way into lots of media outlets that day and the next. Confused, Confabulator or probably MI5, who knows? see this hilarious cross-examination of this supposed eye-witness to Hasib Hussain being in London. http://www.faulkingtruth.com/Articles/CommentaryToo/1037.html

The identification of three of the four designated terrorists took place at a remarkably early stage (12th July) – with only one or two  of the other 52 dead people identified! - Some have asked how the police knew who to connect up with whom, as only one of the bombers is said to have left ID in two places!? (It is said to have been achieved through credit card, etc details not mortal remains.)
http://www.team8plus.org/forum_viewtopic.php?9.1439

Fintan Dunne believes that the men could have been murdered elsewhere using explosives, and their cards (and maybe body parts too for good measure) could have been collected up and inserted into the scene of the London explosions.
http://wagnews.blogspot.com/2005/07/how-black-ops-staged-london-bombings.html
(A possibly similar contamination of the scene of the Lockerbie disaster is alleged by the former head of Dumfries and Galloway police against the CIA who 'found' a vital piece of circuit board in a forest miles from the explosion:
http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1855852005  )

Many people may consider this is all rather unlikely, but it is worth remembering just how little we really do know for certain beyond the four men with rucksacks at Luton station that morning. In fact since the CCTV snapshot of the four designated bombers walking into Luton station at 7.21.54 a.m that morning has now come under attack as faked, we don't even know for certain that they were there at all!! One obvious problem is the railing running in front of the arm of one of the men, even though he is walking well in front of the rest of the railings!
http://wagnews.blogspot.com/2005/07/london-bombers-did-they-board-at-luton.html
http://wagnews.blogspot.com/2005/07/evidence-luton-cctv-image-is-fake.html
http://mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=297418

A second extraordinary allegation has now emerged to the effect that on that fateful morning, because of delays,  there was no 7.40 Thameslink train from Luton to London as the police have repeatedly reported the men as catching !! To have been photographed 'shortly before 8.30' at Kings Cross, as the police have claimed at the highest level, the men would have to have caught the 7.24. left 7.25, which seems unlikely according to two independent investigators. Further detail and links here
 

9) 'The Antagonist's' theory: Ignore the four lads, the tube deaths were caused not by bombs but by the powersurge which MertroNet all along reported. The exploding bus in Tavistock sq was related to a long-planned 'exercise'. When the three industrial accidents happened, then the powers that be saw their opportunity to tack them on to the ready made narrative concerning the 'terrorist=Muslim explosion' of the 30 bus, so as to avoid being overwhelmed with compensation claims.

This theory seems very strange at first, but has one great merit: it takes seriously some of the survior accounts which clearly suggest that the power surge happened and happened before any blasts (if explosions are mentiones at all).
http://antagonise.blogspot.com/2005/08/london-77-lest-we-forget.html
http://antagonise.blogspot.com/2005/08/another-77-survivor-supports-metronet.html
http://antagonise.blogspot.com/2005/08/77-london-bus-explosion-kicker.html
http://antagonise.blogspot.com/2005/07/london-77-in-response-to-bridget-dunne.html
 

Since writing the above we have come cross some interesting material on virtual reality technology - please see the relevant Investigative Topic - under Leeds
 
 

PRELIMINARY CONCLUSION:

WE NOT KNOW WHICH OF THESE  NINE MAIN HYPOTHESES IS CORRECT (combinations of some of them are also possible)

Although many of the specific allegations aired above may turn out to be false or irrelevant, are they all wrong?! THE SAD TRUTH IS THAT AFTER ALL THE LIES AND POOR REPORTING CONCERNING GOING TO WAR ON IRAQ, MANY OF US ARE COMING TO THE CONCLUSION THAT WE CAN TRUST ALMOST NOTHING THE MEDIA AND THE STATE TELLS US! (which doesn't mean we can necessarily trust what Islamic radicals, friends of the dead men, etc tell us either!)

ONLY IF THE AUTHORITIES RELEASE FULL - NOT SELECTIVE - DETAILS OF CCTV FOOTAGE, PHONECALLS, BANK ACCOUNTS, INTERNET USAGE, FORENSIC REPORTS, TUBE RECORDS, VISOR CONSULTANCY 'EXERCISE' RECORDS, ETC WILL WE HAVE ANY BASIS FOR TRUSTING THE OFFICIAL STORY. HOPEFULLY THE POLICE WILL INDEED MAKE FULL DISCLOSURE TO INDEPENDENT JOURNALISTS, RELATIVES OR THEIR NOMINEEES, ETC AND/OR TO A FULL AND CREDIBLE PUBLIC INQUIRY WITH A WIDE ENOUGH REMIT AND ADEQUATE RESOURCES.

BUT IF, LIKE BUSH AND 9-11, ALL THE KEY EVIDENCE IS KEPT SECRET – OR DEEMED IMPLAUSIBLY TO HAVE BEEN INOPERATIVE OR IS DESTROYED – THEN WILL WE NOT BE FORCED TO DRAW OUR OWN CONCLUSIONS?

[see also Politics of Inquiry section on this site]