All language subtitles for Attack on London.Hunting The 7.7 Bombers S01E01

I wanna talk to you
in a language that you understand.

I, and thousands like me, we are at war.

You will be our targets.

We will fight.

With our blood.

At 26 years old,
you almost think you're indestructible.

You do stupid things.
You think you're untouchable.

That day, I'm running late.

I'm starting to get a bit wound up,

and a bit narked
at just how shit my morning's going.

I'm standing on a train.

Crammed in like sardines.
It's incredibly hot.

Trying to punch
a text message into my phone.

Back then,
mobile phones aren't what they are today.

If I wanted the letter C,
I had to push number two three times.

Big man, big hands,
small phone, complete carnage.

I looked up. I was like, "Oh shit.
I've now missed my stop."

Can this day get any worse?

Just as we entered the darkness
of the tunnel,

I could feel somebody staring at me.

It was just this really unnerving feeling.

It was one of those stares
where he didn't blink.

He was totally fixated
on what was in front of him.

Almost like he was staring through me.
It was that intense.

Um, then I was just about to go, like,
"Is there a problem, mate?"

"What you looking at?"

I just went to open my mouth to say it,
and I just see his hand go, and then...

Explosions across all of central London.

The worst terrorist
attack the capital has ever seen.

Need ambulances in King's Cross.

Fifty-two people are now known
to have been killed.

Someone somewhere
knows who planted the bombs.

What we now had was a manhunt.

The greatest operational challenge

ever faced
by the Metropolitan Police service.

Our anxiety was
there would be other attacks.

London is attacked once again.

Terrorists want fear and division.

This was a major intelligence failure.

How you looked identified
how you were treated.

An innocent man might've been shot dead
by the police.

I've never spoken about this publicly.

This will be the only time
I'll talk about it.

I can't explain the feeling.

The world is falling apart.

Suicide bombers.
We'd never experienced anything like that.

Hidden in plain sight,
and we didn't see it.

These guys that I knew,

never did I have in my mind

that they'd bring war
to the streets of London.

Going to work. Get on the Circle line.

Headphones in. Zone out as you do
on the London Underground.

Typical young person.

And then suddenly, bang.
The train lifts off the track.

Everything just went to black.
Then you start hearing the screams.

This is King's Cross St. Pancras.

The next station is Russell Square.

Breaking news, reports of an explosion.

Could've been power-related,
is some speculation we're hearing.

There are trains stuck in tunnels.

I heard reports of events
on the Underground network.

British Transport Police
is quoted as saying

that it's difficult to know exactly
what's going on...

Multiple incidents across three
different stations within two minutes.

I was able to monitor
police transmissions live.

I decided to get a sense
of what was going on.

Do a detour.

Go back that way now.

This was more than power outages.

Everybody, stop walking up here, please.
Stay there.

A growing suspicion
that London was under attack.

It's not safe for you to stand here...

A sense of foreboding.

All units, stand by. Stand by.

The tunnel was completely silent.

One minute, I was stood on the train,
the next minute I'm on the tracks.

I was like, "What the fuck
am I doing out here?"

Very thick, heavy, like, dust and dirt
was in the air,

hitting your teeth
and hitting your tongue.

And then you'd hear

one voice, and then another,
and then another.

I'd never heard screams like this.

I tried to sit up, and I couldn't.

I could see something sticking up from,
kind of, right in front of me.

The pole that I'd been leaning against
had sheared off and gone through me.

I had something digging in my back.

I managed to grab it and pull it out,

and it was part of someone's lower leg,
and their foot,

and it still had the shoe
and the sock on it.

So I'm holding this thing,
looking at it, thinking,

"Fuck. This is-- I'm in a bad situation."

There was the body
of a young girl behind me.

There was a body of a young man
close to where I was.

I could see the carnage around me.

It was like opening the gates of hell.

And I just thought to myself,
"I'm fucked."

"I'm gonna die."

Reporter is in the SkyCopter
for us this morning,

and look at those pictures, Sarah.

Clearly, this causing
absolute chaos in central London.

Roads around the City of London
are completely closed off.

Fire engines, ambulances,
police cars, absolute chaos.

Move away from the area.
Move away from the area, please.

Morning, Steve. What did you see?

Well,
I was on the platform at Edgware Road

and then felt this massive thud.

Got evacuated from Edgware Road.

Text my boyfriend and said, "I think
a bomb just went off on my tube."

This area needs to be used
for paramedics and police attention.

Tube stations are being shut down,

people coming out of the stations...

Total shock.

Move away from this road!

It was disorienting.

Everybody was kind of like,
"We don't know what's going on."

What happened?

Uh, yeah, there's people
screaming and wailing.

"People are dying in here. Help us."

I couldn't see anything.
It was just horrible.

I just wanna get home.

I remember just looking
around for bus numbers.

I felt completely lost.

I had no idea where I was.

I didn't realize that day
my world would be turned upside down.

Everyone back that way, please!

We were dealing
with a series of crises on the tube,

in three different places.

I was trying to make sense and understand
what had happened.

MI5 is asking its sources
if they know any information about this.

They're reviewing its coverage.

It soon became clear

it appeared to be a pretty serious crime.

We had no intelligence
it was going to happen.

We got numerous casualties,
and in desperate need of ambulances.

The Prime Minister was at Gleneagles.

The G8 summit in Scotland.

Leaders came together.

I was having a bilateral meeting
with the President of China,

and someone passed me a note

um, saying there'd been a serious incident
on the London Underground.

Multiple casualties.

It was not clear exactly
what had happened,

but you develop an instinct
over time, and I...

I thought, "I'm sure
this is going to be a terrorist attack."

I'm not frightened of death.

Dying alone terrified me.

People talk about your life
flashing before your eyes.

You become fixated
on the things that you'll never do.

That I'd never finish my degree.
Never get married.

Never have kids.
I was gonna be robbed of that.

I started to scream for help.

I've never screamed like that in my life.

And there's 100-plus on the train still.

After the blast,
I remember being thrown around,

hitting my head against the glass panel,

the panel breaking.

You could hear people crying,
screaming in pain.

I was an ex-military medic.

I was able to help people.

You're walking towards these people
that were on the railway line.

They weren't moving.

A lot of them had been burnt
beyond recognition.

I just remember this big,
dark shadow just appearing in front of me.

Deep, booming South African accent.

He said, "What's your name?"
And I shouted back, "It's Dan."

Dan was breathing. He was talking to me.

He had a chance. I was gonna give him
the best chance that I possibly could.

My left leg had been blown off,
kind of near the knee.

I'd severed the femoral artery,
and the blood was pumping out of me.

I took my belt off,
and I used that as a tourniquet.

He said, "I'm not gonna lie.
This is gonna fucking hurt."

And one thing Adrian isn't is a liar.

He pushed his hand
into what was left of my left leg,

found the artery, and pinched it shut.

I kept saying to Adrian, "You've got
to remember my name's Danny Biddle."

"I'm 26 years old."

I kept reiterating it to him, and he went,
"You're not going anywhere."

I didn't believe that.

I thought that at any minute,
that was it, I would go.

I didn't know when it'd be,

but I was sure I wasn't getting out
of that tunnel alive.

Please, remain calm. As soon as
we're ready, we'll get everybody off.

We were stuck on the train,
about 45 minutes.

Through windows,
you see people on the track,

just regular people in suits and whatnot.

Every now and again,
you'd see someone really badly injured

with their face covered in blood.
You think, "My God, what's happened?"

There's no way of opening the doors.

The only way out
is through the front of the train

or the back of the train.

There was a horrible burning smell.
I just wanna get out of this tunnel.

It was kind of this weird,
somber, zombie-esque walk.

That's when I took out my phone
and started taking pictures.

When we get to the main ticket area
of the station,

it's, like, just complete chaos.

Sheer horror.

- Views of the people commuting...
- Sarah, I'm gonna interrupt you.

People are streaming out
of Aldgate tube station covered in blood.

Excuse me. What happened?

It was just this almighty bang.

I just thought,
well, I thought I was dead.

At least 150 are known
to be seriously injured.

It's not known how many people have died.

The fire services and the ambulance crews
are now in a desperate race against time.

The police quite panicky.

Can we press back, please...

They asked for our names.

And then it's like, "Mustafa. Oh, really?"

And they ask if they can search my bag.

When they see the name Mustafa,
or Mohammed, or Ahmed, or whatever,

it's like, "Okay, he's one of them."

I don't remember them
searching anyone else,

but after 9/11, for them,
it was like a red flag

when they see the name Mustafa.

When I arrived,
it was all hands to the pump.

Radio networks
were absolutely clogged with traffic.

It became difficult
to communicate with colleagues.

But understanding precisely
what we were dealing with was imperative.

What we had feared for so long
was actually happening.

Multiple scenes,
no warnings, mass casualties.

The hallmarks of extremist,
directed terrorism.

More than likely with al-Qaeda
having its fingerprints all over it.

9/11, thousands of people killed.

We had to fear

al-Qaeda were looking to mount
a terrorist attack in this country.

I was concerned we were going to face
other attacks imminently.

It really was a matter of life and death

that we found these people
as soon as possible.

I just happened to see the number 30 bus.

I just got straight on it.

Straight for the back row,

just like I did on all the buses
I'd got on in school as a kid.

Definitely a sense of relief.

My phone buzzes.

Read the text. It was from my boyfriend
at the time, and it said,

"You were right. They were bombs."

"Lucky you weren't involved."

And as soon as I put
the phone back in my pocket...

The roof had blown off.

Carnage everywhere.

I was inside the bus.

I could hear people in pain.

It's like a war zone.

I was crawling through bodies,
just trying to escape.

I was trying to scream for help.

Screaming, but nothing would come out.

The next thing, this man took my hand,
and he helped me.

I just lay down on the ground.

I couldn't actually feel my body.

My neck was broken.

People looked very frightened.

They were looking up at buildings,

afraid that something
was going to explode again.

Get off the edge of the road
as quickly and as safely as possible!

We did hear another bang
just a few moments ago.

We don't know if it was another bomb.
This is still an evolving situation.

The scale of the devastation was horrific.

The bomb in the bus
cemented in everybody's head

this was
a multiple-sited terrorist attack.

I'm just going to make a short statement

to you on the terrible events
that have happened in London.

Our thoughts and prayers, of course,
are with the victims and their families.

It's important, however,
that those engaged in terrorism realize

that our determination to defend
our values and our way of life

is greater

than their determination to cause death
and destruction to innocent people

in a desire to impose extremism
on the world.

When you're in a position of leadership,
you just have to focus on the job in hand

'cause there are decisions
all the time that have to be taken.

You have to do that.

I'd have to go back to London and...

take charge of how we handled it.

You know, 9/11 had happened in America,
but this was happening here.

Our anxiety was that this was the first,

and there would be
other attacks that would come.

Four explosions
have rocked central London.

The capital paralyzed,
one of the terrorists' intended effects.

Obviously,
roads in central London are closed.

Roads headed out of London
are completely gridlocked.

Those people trying to flood out

along the hard shoulder,

walking, dragging
their suitcases behind them.

Someone somewhere
knows who planted the bombs.

Tonight, an unprecedented
investigation is underway.

This has been, and still is,
a fast-moving investigation.

We didn't know what we were dealing with.

We didn't know
whether we had terrorists on the loose.

We had no idea.

But I must emphasize
that it is still in its early stages.

This was gonna be the largest criminal
investigation in the United Kingdom.

Four very difficult, enormous crime scenes
in the heart of the capital.

Thousands of detectives
and forensic specialists

joined in the operation.

The tiniest piece of evidence,
recovered from the tunnels and the bus,

could be absolutely vital
in preventing a further attack.

I wanted on the front line.

I didn't want to be sat back
in an office somewhere.

I wanted to catch those
who were responsible.

So I asked to be deployed.

I was sent to Russell Square.

You know...

Be careful what you wish for.

You're going to go down to the track
where the train is.

There's not anyone else.

All of the injured
had been removed from the scene,

so the only people left inside
the carriage were the victims.

There was a lot of pressure
on finding forensic evidence.

It'd effectively tell us what happened,
and who did it.

They said to me, "Look, the bomb scene
itself is pretty horrendous."

"You gotta prepare yourself for it."

There was a sense of fear
not knowing what we were gonna face.

We walked to the rear of the train.

We entered it from the rear carriages.

There was lots of medical equipment,
people had left luggage...

Smoke damage.

And then we walked into

the main carriage itself, and...

you know, nothing could prepare me
for what I saw then.

The injuries that victims had suffered...

It was, you know, it was horrendous. Yeah.

I was trying to avert my eyes
from the horror.

Moving and dealing
with the victims themselves,

that was very difficult.

Holding people and carrying them
as if they were sleeping.

You know, I didn't want to knock
or jar or do anything.

I thought I was doing an important job
to try and catch those responsible.

No one needed to say anything

because we all just got it.

This was now a manhunt.

Police are conducting
the biggest ever trawl of CCTV

to try to identify the bombers.

There was a lot of pressure from above.

Everyone was relying on us
for information.

Hundreds of hours of footage.

Cameras outside the station.

In the ticket hall, down the escalators,
all the different tunnels.

Everyone's carrying something.

Hundreds of people.

Who is getting on and off that tube?

We certainly didn't know
who we were looking for.

Whether it be a man or a woman,
whether it be from one race or another.

We didn't know if they were
on the tube with a device,

whether a device had been planted,
and they'd got off and disappeared.

We were viewing people getting on,
just going about their ordinary life.

They're getting on, and they have no idea
what's about to happen.

It was hard.

They're just innocent people.

We've got to find out who's done this.

We didn't sleep,
but we needed to find them

before anything worse happened.

Britain's security services
have raised the terrorism threat

to its highest-ever level
as the hunt for the bombers continues.

The thing about today's attacks
is there was absolutely no warning.

Are you still sticking by the stated idea

that there was absolutely no intelligence
and no warning of this attack?

We, um, will rely entirely

on what the security service,
uh, can tell us about this.

Everything is being looked at.

There is nothing to suggest
intelligence has been missed in any way.

At the time I was sent to report
on the 7/7 attacks,

a massive plot had slipped
through the net.

Bombers had actually
successfully bombed London,

so the intelligence failure
was there for all to see.

Absolutely calamitous for MI5
and counter-terrorism police.

We were shocked by the horror
and the atrocity of it all,

but it wasn't altogether a surprise.

After 9/11,
we had already warned the government

the threat from al-Qaeda was increasing,

and we were not big enough.

We weren't even covering
50% of the problem.

It was a crisis.

Britain was facing a crisis.

So what would've been foremost
in people's minds in MI5?

Could there be a follow-up attack?

The reality is
there were too many people on our radar

to have them all under surveillance.

At that time,

I was the country's leading expert
in improvised explosive devices.

Bomb scenes are total chaos.

This was a big explosion.

A scene from hell, really.

I was joined in the tunnel by Cliff.

The bomb-maker is making a device,

and maybe his fingerprints
are on some of the plastic.

Maybe his DNA
is on some of the device itself.

The bomb has some clues
to who the bombers are.

What kind of device was it?

Was it something like a large pipe bomb?

Was it high explosive?

You go through the rubble,
bit by bit, looking for pieces.

Pieces of the explosive device,
effectively, sadly, go into victims.

There is a depression

on the ground.

It was packed with human remains.

Looking at where this depression was,

I'm pretty sure that this device
has been placed on the ground.

So there's this one body that struck me.

Pretty much all of the ones
that I looked at had traumatic amputations

to their lower limbs,

and yet this one had extensive damage
to the upper trunk,

and particularly to the face,
which pretty much didn't exist.

There wasn't a face.

That, to me, indicates

that quite likely this person
has been crouching down

with his face close to the device
when it's gone off.

I think it's a suicide bomber.

But am I right?

I'm scared
because it can make a big difference

to the line
the police investigation will follow.

I'm just crossing fingers
and legs and everything else

that I've made the right call here.

Forensics said, "Right,
that's the suicide bomber there."

I was like, "Right, okay."

I had to pick up and handle
the suicide bomber's lower jaw.

This belonged to the person

who had created
all this carnage around me.

It just confirmed every fear that I had.

They were here, in amongst us.
They were capable.

You know, we felt like we were at war.

It was the first time
that we'd experienced

suicide attacks in Britain.

The new level of lethality,
it was the worst-possible scenario.

Suicide bombing was a new dimension.

It'll be the first time
we've seen a suicide bomber

here in Europe,

and a significant shift
in the war on terror.

We were really concerned
about this type of terrorism.

People who do it are prepared to die
in the course of doing it.

The consequences are profound.

We were stepping up security measures,

giving the police additional powers
to deal with this situation.

But you're never going to have
100% protection against this.

The worst terrorist attack
the capital has ever seen.

There are scores
of patients still in hospital tonight.

Some have had limbs amputated.
Others have multiple fractures.

Many are critically ill in intensive care.

I got home in the early hours.

Of course,
one of the things you think about is

did we miss something
that could've prevented this?

It's easy with the benefit
of hindsight to say,

"We should have spotted these people."

But the biggest concern,
straight afterwards,

is not to go back and ask,
"Why didn't you spot those people?"

The biggest concern is what happens next.

I am a soldier.

Our words are dead.

Until we give them life with our blood.

We will not stop this fight.

Friday morning, this is 5 Live Breakfast.

Papers report 52 people killed
after yesterday's attacks.

The Metropolitan Police
at this point have only confirmed 37,

and 700 injured.

London's commuters
back to work this morning

in a world which for many,
will never be the same.

Terrifying. I'll never get
on the tube again. I'll never do it.

Terrorists linked to al-Qaeda
are thought to be behind the explosions,

although there's been no clear statement
from any group yet.

Hello, good to see you this morning.

Now, the reality of those
devastating attacks

are of course the personal stories

of what so many people
went through yesterday.

Mustafa, a passenger on the train
between Liverpool Street and Aldgate...

The morning show contacted me,
"Would you like to be interviewed?"

I'm a bit confused still,
like, very dazed.

Mustafa, you feel like you had
a very near miss, don't you?

What happened? What did you experience?

I was about a carriage or two
away from the actual blast, I mean...

We were on there, a normal day,
and then, suddenly, a flash of light.

Terrifying.
Mustafa, what do you feel about this?

- Mind if I ask you if you are a Muslim?
- Yes, I'm a practicing Muslim.

Kate Garraway goes,
"Okay, so, Mustafa, are you a Muslim?"

I was like, "Yes, I am a Muslim."

She says,
"How does it feel to be a Muslim?"

How do you feel about terrorists
who claim they do--

we don't know the proof
of who's behind yet--

Who claim they do carry out attacks
in the name of Islam,

that they're putting
your religion to such atrocities?

Do we know they're Muslims? Do we know...

I mean, a state of paranoia,
like, takes hold of you.

- We don't know anything.
- Not necessarily this attack. Generally.

I was 24 years old,
I'd just seen people die in front of me,

I was in shell shock,

and you're asking me to explain
that I'm not one of the bad guys.

You know...

I mean, my biggest fear now is not
what will the terrorists do to me,

but when people see me
coming out of the mosque,

what will happen to me as a result?

Will people blame me?
I was on the train myself.

Am I gonna be persecuted
on both sides of the coin?

Where do I sit in this?

I think it's about time
we actually kicked back at these people,

sorted them out properly.

Fears of a backlash were heightened

when a local mosque was attacked.

Islamic Human Rights Commission
are advising Muslims

not to travel or go out
unless absolutely necessary.

It was an attack designed to sow division.

That's what they wanted.

Mind the gap.

I was one of the very few
Muslim-background journalists

working for the BBC, trying to understand
British Muslim communities.

When 7/7 happened,
I remember being in East London Mosque

speaking to people there,
going up to Oldham, to Bradford...

They were echoing
the exact same feeling that I had.

There was a fury and a sadness.

So many lives were lost.

This was done in the name
of a religion that I was brought up in,

that for me was a colorful,
happy, peaceful religion,

that was much more about prayer
than it was fighting.

So there was this real anger.

How dare they?

How dare they do this to us?

The backlash that was going to come,

the backlash that was gonna be felt
by all of us British Muslims.

And so for me, it was the fear
of what was going to come next.

I'm looking for my friend.

She's been missing since, um, yesterday.

We can't find him anywhere.
We tried every single hospital...

We don't know
any more information about him,

and it wouldn't be like him
not to get in contact.

And a tie, and he was wearing glasses.

He's about 5'11", white, fairly pale skin,

with freckles on his arms,
uh, and hazel-colored eyes.

Why can't they say, "Look, we're sorry,

but there are people in the train.
We're still waiting for bodies."

"If they're not on the list,
they're dead."

What about us?

When such a catastrophic event
has taken place,

the identification of the dead
is not straightforward.

It was pretty horrific.

Sifting through
what was left at the scenes,

across four separate explosion sites.

There were thousands of body parts.

You owe it to the dead,

you owe it to the bereaved,
and you owe it to the injured

to put your personal feelings to one side
and get on with your job.

I don't even know
how many days we'd been there.

You're not sleeping, you're eating crap.

Our sergeant was saying,
"Go and get a break."

"No, I'm all right. I'm on this."

We just didn't wanna give up.

The direction of the investigation
obviously changed.

There were four suicide bombers.

I thought, "Have I missed something?"

"Did I take my eye off the ball?"
Second-guessing yourself.

And then rewinding.

And double-checking.

Oh my God, look.

Four guys.

Massive rucksacks on their backs.

There's four guys.
There's four bomb sites.

I think this might be them.

It was a massive breakthrough.

We've just found something
that could change the whole investigation,

and we have got to identify who it is.

Where did they come from?

We started going back, trawling back.

How did they get to King's Cross?

We were able
to piece together that journey.

They got on the train
that came from Luton.

It was very soon that we identified
the vehicle that they came in on,

which was still parked at Luton.

We had to find out what was in that car.