Shocking London attacks remind the world of terrorists' existence

The key event of recent days, the G8 summit, paled in comparison with images of blood-stained panicking people in London's center

A series of terrible explosions in London are likely to be followed with other acts of terrorism, Sergei Goncharov, a spokesman for the Russian rescue group Alpha said. The expert believes that it is important for terrorists to attract global attention to their activities. “The fact of G8 summit taking place in Great Britain and London's yesterday victory in the Olympic Games voting pushed al-Qaeda terrorists to organize a series of terrorist attacks in London and remind the whole world of their existence,” Sergei Goncharov said.

The horror in the center of London - Photo gallery

”Terrorists have proved it again that they are far more organized than the structures, which coordinate the activity of anti-terrorist services. The result has been negative for special services so far. One has to acknowledge that only a well-organized structure could plan a series of terror attacks, which London had to experience in one day,” the expert said in an interview with Strana.ru.

Mr. Goncharov also pointed out that official news messages about the number of victims in London fortunately report a relative small number of casualties for such a monstrous attack. “It is not ruled out that terrorists did not have a goal to kill as many people as possible. It was more important for them to attract global attention. The most important thing now is to take adequate measures in return and finally start the non-verbal struggle against terrorism,” the specialist stated. Sergei Goncharov believes that new terrorist attacks are likely to occur in other countries of Europe, including Russia. “Russian special services have to be extremely careful at the moment, he concluded.

The debate held on the threshold of the G8 summit in Scotland has lost its meaning because of terrorist attacks in London. Tony Blair's tour of G8 member-countries' capitals prior to the summit will become a small piece of his political biography in the office of the British Prime Minister. All the events, which made G8-related headlines of world's major newspapers only a couple of days ago, paled in comparison with images of blood-stained people and exploded double-deckers in the center of London.

One may only guess why Great Britain, the chairing state at the G8 summit, did not give the first priority to the subject of terrorism. British authorities probably disliked the issue because of the fact that several people that were legally persecuted in their natives states as terrorists, were given political asylum in Great Britain later (it particularly goes about the emissary of Chechen extremists, Akhmed Zakayev). Probably, London did not want to give the initiative on the matter to Russia and the USA – the two most experienced states on national security issues.

It would of course be naive to believe that it would have been possible to avoid the attacks in London, if only Britain had put the issue of anti-terrorist struggle on the top of the G8's list of problems. In this case, however, the Group of Eight could prove that top level international summits do not waste anyone's time and money.