The July 7 London attacks were the first suicide bombings in Europe. A year later, what lessons have been learned from this atrocity? Such attacks by jihadist groups inspired by al-Qaeda ideology pose a particularly difficult challenge to those assigned to protect the public in an open society — and especially when the terrorists are "homegrown." Three of the four suicide bombers who carried out the London attacks were second-generation British citizens (the fourth, Germaine Lindsay, was a Jamaican-born British resident); the young men blended easily into the Muslim community, and their families and neighbors seem not to have known that they were involved in terrorism. The Dutch and the Canadian security services have discovered the same phenomenon in their Muslim communities.

Yet the term homegrown can be dangerously misleading. This much we know: that Mohammed Sidique Khan, the alleged leader of the London bombers, and Shehzad Tanweer, one of his accomplices, had visited Pakistan, where it is believed they met with extremist groups. Khan may also have been in contact with jihadist extremists in the U.S. The al-Qaeda network

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nginx/1.14.0 (Ubuntu) of networks is a transnational phenomenon, facilitated by the Internet, easy international travel and relaxed border controls, and held together by shared ideology. Its flexibility and lack of formal structure have enabled it to adapt and survive despite the heavy blows it has suffered in the war on terror.

The most significant finding of the investigation into the July 7 bombings is how little we know about the processes of radicalization, recruitment and induction into this network of networks. It is precisely that lack of knowledge that looms largest a year later. The British government has repeatedly stressed that there is no firm evidence linking al-Qaeda to the July 7 bombings. This suggests some confusion in high places about the nature and modus operandi of the al-Qaeda network. It seems odd to deny an al-Qaeda link in the light of a video message from Khan, accompanied by a statement by Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in which Khan identifies the London bombings as part of al-Qaeda's global jihad, and al-Zawahiri threatens further attacks.

Radicalizing

But the extent of al-Qaeda's role is a minor concern, compared with the need to understand the bombers' motivation. What triggers young Muslims' interest in the ideology of extremist Islamic organizations? Research indicates that for many, the invasion and occupation of Iraq has been an important catalyst. Measures designed to prevent terrorism can also have the undesired effect of further radicalizing young Muslims. Many young British Muslims feel that an attempt to change the law to allow terrorist suspects to be detained without charge for up to 90 days, and the use of control orders to incarcerate suspects in their own homes, have been directed solely against their communities. The killing by police of an innocent Brazilian, Jean Charles de Menezes, wrongly assumed to be a suicide bomber, and the recent shooting of Mohammed Abdul Kahar during a raid on his family home in east London — police later admitted that the raid was "wrong," as a suspected chemical bomb was never found — have reinforced these fears.

Yet many of the measures taken by the British government, its domestic intelligence service M15 and the police have been sensible. New antiterrorism legislation includes an offense of "acts preparatory to terrorism" and measures aimed at clamping down on incitement to terrorism by hatemongers. MI5 has been authorized to recruit 1,000 additional operatives, and is establishing regional offices to improve its coverage beyond London and the Southeast. transec, the security division of the British government's Department for Transport, is piloting trials of new security equipment to enhance the protection of public transport.

When preventive action goes wrong, as in the shooting of Menezes and during the east London raid, confidence in the police and the security services plummets. One might reasonably assume the opposite: that the public should feel reassured that authorities are giving primacy to the protection of the general population — and be further comforted by the absence of additional attacks on British soil. The fact that many people say they aren't speaks not only of a concern for civil liberties, but of a broader unease that the government doesn't fully grasp the modern terrorist threat. Until that knowledge gap has been filled and communicated, the clampdowns, arrests and pumped-up legislation are unlikely to reverse the continuing sense of anxiety.

• PAUL WILKINSON
• Is the war on terror undermined by an insufficient grasp of what stokes it?