Guest blogging by Anoushka Marashlian

Anoushka is a friend of mine from Oxford, and a Middle East expert. She wants to share her thoughts on the London bombings. I also invite you to follow and participate in the on-going discussion about the attacks in a previous posting of mine.

Thursday the 7th of July started off as a pretty uneventful morning. The only difference was that I was running a little late. I should have left home by 7.15 latest but it was 7.30 and I was still waiting for a train. For some reason I was pretty knackered that morning and dozed off on the train en route to King’s Cross. I get the Piccadilly Line every morning to King’s Cross where I change and get the Circle Line to Farringdon. It was about 8am that someone on the train gently tapped me on my shoulder. I opened my eyes to see an old friend of mine with whom I had lost touch with. It was great to catch up and the journey seemed more pleasant than the usual grind. I think it was about 8.10 that we got to Gloucester Road and we were told that there was a defective train or something and we were advised to get off. We were told that we could stay on the train if we wanted to but it was likely there would be delays down the line. It was a split second decision and my friend and I just got on the Circle Line at Gloucester Road. With hindsight it is now surreal to think that we went past Edgware Road and Kings Cross literally minutes before the bomb blasts. About 2 minutes after we passed Kings Cross out train was stopped in the track between Kings Cross and Farringdon. People had absolutely no idea what the problem was and I remember some where cracking jokes about the deficiencies of the London Transport system and how ill equipped it will be to meet the demands of the Olympics. Only a day before London had won the bid to stage the Olympics in 2012. I was sat on the train thinking damn I should call work and tell them that I am stuck in the train and will be running late for working. The time recorded on my mobile phone was 8.54.

I got into work at 9.10 and it was very slowly that things started to fall into place. It is strange that when you are in the middle of an event it takes much longer to make sense what is going on around. People watching the drama of the day unfold on their TV screens probably had a much better idea of what was going on than people working in the city that day. Increasingly, news started to come in via news wires and it became clear that this was no power surge but a major terrorist incident. The site of the No 30 bus with its roof blown off was the image that brought London to a standstill. Suicide bombers had transported their agenda to the streets of London and a sense of fear and uncertainty prevailed. Businesses came to a halt and it was clear that with the transport system totally suspended city workers would have to find alternative means of transport. I was very lucky that my boyfriend also works in the city since I certainly didn’t want to be alone in London that day. We walked about an hour and a half from the city, reflecting on the events of the day and trying to make sense of the senseless loss of life. It very easily could have been either of us or one of our friends who make that daily underground journey.

The question raised by the London bombings is why would five seemingly ‘normal’ British Muslims resort to taking their lives and the lives of innocent bystanders on the underground? The answer in part lies in the autocratic systems of the Middle East, in the madrasas of Pakistan and in the halls of the American Congress and the British parliament. Although Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestinian are a major part of the problem I think it would be unhelpful to view the radicalisation of Muslim youth simply through this lens. If we are to tackle and defeat the threat in our midst, then I believe it is necessary to incorporate the Muslim community who will be instrumental in preventing such outrages from occurring in the future.

The attacks have it seems strengthened rather than diminished support for Blair's Middle East policy which in turn is likely to reinforce the Prime Minister's resolve to stay on course in Iraq.