http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1684532,00.ht... By Andrew Ellson, Times Online
Thursday's terror attacks are the latest in a long history of assaults on the capital
London has been on a high level of alert since the al-Qaeda attacks in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001, but until today had been free of terror attacks for almost four years.
In the past 25 years the city has been rocked by regular attacks, mostly by Irish republican groups. But today's attack is by far the most bloody with at least 33 people killed and hundreds injured.
Before today the last attack was a car bomb in Ealing Broadway on August 3, 2001. The explosion, blamed on the Real IRA splinter group, caused no fatalities but injured seven people on a street full of restaurants and pubs.
Earlier in the same year, there were three separate attacks by the Real IRA. In mid-April and then early May, two small incendiary devices exploded at exactly the same spot outside a postal depot in Hendon, North London. No one was injured in the first attack but one passer-by was hurt in the second.
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