WHAT HAPPENED AT EDGWARE ROAD?

[astro3]

This text was submitted to the www.julyseventh.co.uk site a couple of months ago. For whatever reason, they haven't used it, and it might be of interest to have it up here.

WHAT HAPPENED AT EDGWARE ROAD?

Mark Honigsbaum’s testimony
Guardian columnist Mark Honigsbaum was outside Edgware Road during the morning of July 7th. He had been speaking all morning to survivors as they were evacuated, and his phone call put through from the Hilton Hotel opposite the Edgware Road tube was made around noon to The Guardian newsdesk. He first filed this audio report, after speaking to a good eyewitness source at Marks and Spencers who believed the Edgware Road bomb was under the train, and then he later composed and sent off a written account (1). His written account did not make it into the next day’s edition of the paper, despite his vivid, first-hand accounts of the terrible event.

His audio-report has a Guardian URL: http://stream.guardian.co.uk:7080/ramgen/sys-audio/Guardian/audio/2005  /07/07/honisbaum_070705.ra but is not indexed in the Guardian’s audio-report library, www.guardian.co.uk/audio/. It thus hovers in a limbo condition, where it could not be deleted because too many people had copied it, yet remained unpublished and un-archived. What was the problem?

If there was a problem, it was just that of a journalist telling the truth.

The shattered survivors filed into the nearby Marks and Spencers, and then into the London Hilton opposite, to be treated for shock and burns. ‘What seems to have happened is that ... passengers had just left Edgware Road when they heard a massive explosion under the carriage of the train’ he explained, which had caused all this mayhem. Just as their train left for Paddington, passengers felt the blast as ‘tiles and covers on the floor of the train suddenly flew up, and then, the next thing they knew, there was an almighty crash which they now believe was from a train opposite hitting their train which had been derailed by the explosion. Then everything went black and the carriage filled with smoke. A man caught by the blast had "very, very bad injuries to his legs". www.nineeleven.co.uk/board/viewtopic.php?p=248 www.nineeleven.co.uk/board/viewtopic.php?t=157
On Saturday, The Guardian published an anodyne, chopped-up version of the Honigsbaum report www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1524554,00.html. ‘Davinia’, Mark reported on the audio, experienced a massive fireball coming towards her, and the next thing she knew she was burned all over. That is the only part of the above story which got into print. Otherwise, the printed account gave more space to a witness in the eastwards-travelling circle-line train. In seven paragraphs it described how the train slammed to a halt after the blast, and then on the track ahead ‘There were huge pieces of metal which had been ripped out of their rivets lying about.’ It tells of windows being broken, but gave no indication as to what caused the train to stop – as did Mark’s initial report, so clearly (2).

The London Assembly hears Evidence
Personal testimonies were heard this year by the ‘7 July Review Committee’ of the London Assembly. It was given a mandate ‘to review some of the lessons to be learned from the 7 July bomb attacks on London’. http://www.london.gov.uk/assembly/resilience/ No-one seems to have commented on the striking corroboration of the Honigsbaum thesis here given.
www.london.gov.uk/assembly/resilience/2006/77reviewmar23/minutes/trans cript.pdf
7th July Review committee 3rd session 23 March 2006:

Here is the disturbing testimony of ‘John’: ‘Just after the train left Edgware [Road] station, there was a massive bang followed by two smaller bangs and then an orange fireball. I put my hands and arms over my ears and head as the windows and the doors of the carriage shattered from the blast. Splintered and broken glass flew through the air towards me and other passengers. I was pushed sideways as the train came to a sudden halt. … Shouting and screaming were now coming from the train that had stopped next to us … Passengers left by the trackside door, that had been blown away.
‘I walked into an unknown hell… I got to the centre of the carriage and my foot slipped beneath me, and I fell into a hole in the floor. My arm stopped me going right through and on to the live rail beneath. My bag, which I had been carrying on one side, jammed me to a standstill. My other arm was resting on what I thought was a soft bag. My forearms were keeping me from falling through the hole. I could not see a thing. I thought I was going to die; there was no one there; they had all left the carriage. I put my knees into the foetal position to stop them from touching the live rail beneath me. I tried to swing my legs to see if I could find a ledge or a bracket underneath the carriage to rest my shoes on, but there was not any (He is rescued from the hole) I could not see anything below my waist, but managed not to fall into any of the holes…’
‘Jason asked me to look after another man, who I will call Stan, who was halfway through a hole in the floor. This is where the double doors of the carriage should have been. There was a massive hole in the floor and the roof; the metal all around it was all jagged and bent from the explosion. Parts of the metal were covered in blood.
I went to a little ledge – all that was left of the floor – to see if I could get close to Stan to give him some water from my bottle, but I could not because of the jagged pieces of metal. I went inside the hole and tried to reach Stan, but I slipped on a blood-coated sheet of metal. I thought that I might try to jump into the hole, but decided that, if I did, I would get impaled on the large, jagged, pointed piece of metal that was protruding from the hole.
‘The maintenance light from the Tube wall threw a soft beam of light on to Stan’s face. All the other areas of the floor were dark with no light. I told him and Stan that I would go and get help. I could not get out of the train from that side, so I had to return back the way I came. I could not see anything below my waist, but managed not to fall in any of the holes.’

His rescuer had just finished putting a tourniquet on a man’s leg. Another person asked for help in putting a tourniquet on ‘David’s leg’ …. ‘There had been screaming in the carriage alongside, which I had ignored, but now the screaming was coming from the end of our carriage … After all the death and destruction in the carriage, we had to get a result: he must not die. The screams were getting louder, “We are all going to die. It is a waste of time. Al-Qaeda planted bombs in each carriage,” they screamed. I walked alongside the track to find Jason with two women. He said their feet had been severely injured by the blast. The women continued screaming, ‘It is all a waste of time. We are all going to die.’ I said, ‘That might be the case, but you still have your legs. Other people have lost their legs down the carriage, and are in a far worse state than you.’

Let us try to summarise. People have legs or feet blown off, never their arms: that is a recurrent theme. No hint appears of any Muslim with a bomb – that is common to all witnesses in this sixty-page report. There is a huge hole in the floor between two doors, with jagged, blood-coated metal sticking upwards everywhere. And, there was more than one hole: after being rescued from one, ‘John’ then managed to avoid falling into ‘any of the holes.’ More than one blast was experienced, with people screaming about multiple bombs. More than one train was involved – and, it may not be our business to fathom exactly how this event was arranged.

Moving on to other testimony from the London Assembly hearings: ‘Ben’ was in the approaching train, travelling from Paddington towards Edgware road, when at 08.51 there was a very loud bang, and ‘Our train came to a very sudden stop, as did the train travelling in the opposite direction. I initially thought the two trains had struck each other… ‘Tim’ was likewise in the approaching train at Edgware Road: ‘When the explosion occurred, the noise was both vast and quiet. Darkness came immediately,’ He was able to get through into the damaged circle-line train where he could use his medical skills: ‘So many questions flooded my brain as I worked to tie up leaking blood supplies, observe the dead and move swiftly to those who showed signs of life. A man already referred to by John this morning, half in and half out of the floor, was still breathing. He had no shirt, just a charred torso….’ He saw ‘Alison,’ ‘a person blown out of the doors and into the wall of the tunnel …. Her right leg was not the right shape.’

Mr Biddle remembers
These are real and vivid human testimonies. We now turn to a different case, not included in that London Assembly testimony, which demonstrates, I suggest, the condition of ‘False Memory Syndrome’. Danny Biddle was in a coma for six weeks after losing an eye and both legs in the Edgware Road blast that morning and is lucky to be still alive. As he lay recovering, he watched the ‘Khan’ video of 5th September and it exerted a deep effect upon him. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=16167609%26method=full%26site id=94762%26headline=tube%2dbomber%2dstared%2dme%2dstraight%2din%2dthe% 2deyes%2das%2dhe%2dset%2doff%2dthe%2dexplosion%2dthat%2dblew%2dmy%2dle gs%2daway-name_page.html From being in that vulnerable state, he had placed before him the powerful images of this terror-video. Then, almost three weeks after watching that video, he was ready to share his memories of the event.
The first version of Biddle’s story (24th September) had him standing in the tube and seeing Khan, who was ten feet away and sitting down, fiddle in his rucksack and then 'pull a cord.' Biddle 'was then hurled out of the carriage and left lying with the carriage doors crushing his legs.' A South African Army officer rescued him by prising the train doors off his legs. The doors had fallen onto him and chopped them off. It sounds as if ‘Khan’ were on the crowded train before he was, as he was sitting down while Biddle was standing up. (The Mirror, 24th September)
Two months later his story appeared in The Sunday Times, and now we hear of Biddle getting on the Circle line train at Liverpool Street station that morning. He found himself standing right next to ‘Khan’: 'That morning I got on the front of the train, which was closest to the stairs, and stood next to the bomber, Mohammad Sidique Khan. I looked at him, as you do. He seemed quite calm. Nothing, in retrospect, made me think: "This guy's got a bomb." He looked at me, and as he did so he put his hand inside his rucksack, looked at me again, looked away, and pulled back his hand.' Biddle is now claiming to have survived being right next to the bomb – which supposedly splattered ‘Khan’ all over the walls! Biddle does not say 'I got on at Liverpool street, then four stops later Khan got on and stood next to me,' but he rather implies that Khan was already on the train; still less does he say, 'I saw Khan sitting down ten feet away from me'. (3)
Next, 'I was slammed straight out of the train by the force of the blast, bounced off the wall of the tunnel — that's how I got the big scar on my head — and skidded along like a rag doll. As I landed, the train came to a halt and the doors, opened out by the blast, closed violently — guillotining my legs.' The blast caused the doors of a moving train to open, so Mr Biddle could be thrown against the wall of the tunnel - then have his legs chopped off by a tube door? Tube doors are rubber, gentle, and unable to cut anything, least of all a leg.
(4th December: www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2099-1891957,00.html )
Mr Biddle recalled how his large, South African rescuer (Adrian Heili) climbed under the train, and while doing so checked as to whether the ‘live rail’ was still live by laying his hand upon it. This has to be a dream-hallucination, as such things do not happen in the real world. We respectfully suggest that Mr Biddle may not as yet have fathomed the dire memories, of what blew his legs off that terrible morning.

It is of interest to compare Biddle’s memory with that of another who was sitting fairly close to him, and who likewise lost a leg. But, Mr David Gardiner recalls being blown upwards and hitting his head on the roof of the coach; his testimony only occurred a year after the event: he was a mere three feet away from the bomb when it went off, the Evening Standard revealed - '... three feet from Mohammed Sidique Khan' - but gave no evidence of Khan being there (June 21, p.2). Sitting next to the perspex barrier, Gardiner reckons this helped to save his life: 'Everything went black. I remember being lifted, floating through the air, hitting my head. Next thing I was sprawled on the floor. It was dark and murky, people were moaning.' His left leg had to be amputated above the knee. Mr Gardner described his sensation as the blast went off: 'I was floating through air, wondering if I'd be alive when I came down' (4).


Seeing Khan?
‘Tell Tony he’s Right’ blared The Sun’s headline for November 8th with a horrific picture of Professor John Tulloch, who was slowly recovering from his wounds, having been not far from Mr Biddle when the blast occurred. Mr Tulloch had not been consulted over this front-page exposure. He had been was sitting directly opposite where the media and police were placing Khan the supposed (but curiously unseen) master-bomber, and no shortage of people had asked him if he could remember this. Was he not sitting just three feet away from Khan? (5) The image of the bomber failed to trigger his memory, and he remains unconvinced whether he saw the man who may have been sitting opposite him. "I don't know if I did see him," he said. "I'm still not sure.” (6) http://www.team8plus.org/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?1411
Going back to his very first interview on July 13th, he had there stated: ‘I don't remember hearing any noise or blast. But I could see a strange nasty yellow light and then it all went black … Then I saw another train next to us. I assumed it must have been a train crash’ (7) Three months later, an interview with the Western Mail proclaimed ‘Survivor may have seen bomber moments before explosion’, and gave a detailed account of the events ( – but with no hint of him seeing Khan. He merely described a gruesome bright yellow colour, by which everything had seemed distorted, a sudden yellow snapshot of the carriage.
Commendably, Prof. Tulloch protested at The Sun’s ‘using my image to push through draconian and utterly unnecessary terrorism legislation.’ http://politics.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,15935,1638843,00.html . The comment he made about Blair’s initial response to the news of July 7th, from his bed in Paddington hospital, remains of interest:
‘I saw those photos of Blair at Gleneagles. I saw his performative act, the way he put his head down and held his hands. Of course he was ready for it. Of course he had his performance all ready for it. I was very angry about that."
As a professor of media studies, he should know.


Two Trains – or Three?
Let us here bear in mind that which Bridget Dunne has mulled over in her column, as follows. The Metropolitain Police reported that the event happened on a
Westbound Circle Line train coming into Edgware Road station, approx. 100 yards into the tunnel. The explosion blew a hole through a wall onto another train on an adjoining platform. The device was in the second carriage, in the standing area near the first set of double doors. The MPS website
Witnesses are fairly unanimous that Westbound Circle line train had just left Edgware Road station. Both Westbound and Eastbound Circle (and District) lines run adjacently from that station with no wall between them: so somebody just dreamed up a hole being blown in a wall! But, the blast did happen in the second carriage.
‘Transport for London’ counted six fatalities from the Edgware Road blast. It added: ‘A Hammersmith & City line train at Edgware Road sustained damage, while passing Circle line train 216 when the device exploded. No fatalities or injuries were recorded on the Hammersmith & City line train’. http://bridgetdunnes.blogspot.com/ The status of this damaged Hammersmith and City line remains a bit of a mystery.
The anonymous ‘Official Account’ or ‘narrative’ of May, 2006 concerning the events of July 7th had no comment on which trains were involved in the Edgware Road event, while the London Assembly’s report of June 6th just stated, ‘At 9.07 am, Fire Control received a call alerting them to the location of the incident on the Hammermith and City Line at Edgware Road.’ – and that was all! (9) The main blast cannot however have been on this line.

Jenny Nicholson, 26, who died that morning, seems to have been on the eastbound Circle line service she had boarded at Paddington station (She had phoned her boyfriend, James White, minutes earlier) (10). www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/story/0,,1725371,00.html. This suituation turned out to have theological implications, as the mother of the young lady, the Rev Julie Nicholson, found herself unable to celebrate communion for her parishioners, and announced that she was resigning from her parish, because the ‘wound within’ had to heal. The Bishop of Bristol commented that ‘These situations in life shake the faith of everybody, because they immediately bring into focus the 'why' question.’ This ‘why’ question did not, we gathered, allude to how someone could be killed in a train going in the opposite direction to that on which a suicide bomb is said to have exploded, but was solely addressed to the Deity.
The Eastbound Circle Line train was just passing by the westbound train and coming into Edgware Road, when its driver Geoff Porter experienced ‘a bright yellow glow’ (he mentioned no sound) and "My first thought was that the other train had derailed and hit me." He jammed on the brakes, and then allowed his passengers to disembark out from his driver’s compartment. Later, he walked through his train to check that everyone was OK. Passengers had soot on their faces but he saw no injuries. (Mr Porter added, curiously, ‘Two guys had gas masks on, I don't know where they got them from.’ http://the-inquirer.net/default.aspx?article=24542 ) Thus any death of Jenny Nicholson could not have been on this train (11).
It would appear that several trains were involved, and that the rush to pin the blame on a single (unseen, unphotographed) suicide bomber has led to the marginalizing of debate over how the explosions really took place.


From the BBC Archive
Chris stones: ‘The window behind me had exploded in, part of the ceiling was on the floor and there was a large hole in the floor…. We broke through into the next carriage where it was even worse.’ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/4659237.stm
Will Thomas: ‘I was on the eastbound Circle Line train from Paddington … I thought we had collided with the westbound train.’
Sharan: ‘I was in the last carriage of the Circle Line train that had just left Paddington. The tube had just left when there was a sudden explosion and the square marked area in the centre of the tube exploded … There was black smoke everywhere and a very strong smell as if the wiring in the carriage was burning. … After a painful 30 minutes we were told to walk up to the front carriage and down the tunnel. As I walked I began crying because I could not bear to see the state of the front 3 carriages. There was smashed glass everywhere, the carriage had almost melted.’
Yotty Toda: When I reached the end of the first carriage, I thought I would see the driver's compartment, but it was totally blown off. I saw parts of the compartment - such as the doors and the roof - scattered around the track.

These typical testimonies, collated by the BBC from eyewitness Edgware Road survivors, do not localise the blast to a single carriage; they reaffirm that the blast came from below; and they have the train windows imploding, not exploding as they would have done, were the bomb inside the carriage. http://z13.invisionfree.com/julyseventh/index.php?showtopic=12
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4662423.stm


A Comparison with Aldgate
One would like to see a photograph of the floor of the coach, or even have a journalist be allowed to see the floor of the coach. Instead, the coaches have been hidden away, no-one knows where: the primary evidence at the scene of the crime has been removed. We have no pictures whatsoever of any part of the Edgware road incident!
In the absence of this, a comparison may be of some value, with the memory of a survivor of the synchronous Aldgate-Liverpool Street blast, Mr Bruce Lait:
“I remember an Asian guy, there was a white guy with tracksuit trousers and a baseball cap, and there were two old ladies sitting opposite me…We'd been on there for a minute at most and then something happened. It was like a huge electricity surge which knocked us out and burst our eardrums. I can still hear that sound now…We were right in the carriage where the bomb was … The policeman said 'mind that hole, that's where the bomb was'. The metal was pushed upwards as if the bomb was underneath the train. They seem to think the bomb was left in a bag, but I don't remember anybody being where the bomb was, or any bag."
The blast came from below – with not a Muslim or a rucksack in sight. His local newspaper the Cambridge News reported this on July 11th www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/region_wide/2005/07/11/83e33146-09af-442 1-b2f4-1779a86926f9.lpf His testimony was given in a mere day or two after the blast which tends to make it reliable, in contrast with Mr Biddle’s which only came to him more than two months later, after seeing a suggestive video on the subject.

Which Train Exploded? Official Documents
On March 23, the London assembly heard lots of survivor-testimonies, and they all seemed to be about the Circle Line, both going West and East, as caught in the blast.
On May 11th the ‘Narrative’ was released, the anonymous 'Official Report,' and this says nothing about which trains were involved - not a word.
On June 6th, the big London Assembly’s 3-volume statement appears, Vol 1 of which is called 'Report of the 7 July Review Committee PDF' Its pp. 28-30 are entitled 'The First Hour, Edgware Road' This only mentions the Hammersmith & City Line train as involved - no other! Times there given of interest are: the Ist phone call was from Praed street reporting a fire and explosion, by a member of the public; a fire engine arrives at Praed St. at 9.04; c. 9.07, 'Fire control received a call alerting them to the location of the incident on the Hammermith and City Line at Edgware Road Station;' then, 9.13, a fire engine arrives at Edgware Rd.

The ‘Narrative’: On June 5th, 'The Report on the Official Account of the Bombings in London on the 7th July 2005' (36 pages, no author, nor Editor) obtainable at 'The Stationary Office’ (used to be HMSO but it got privatised) - opposite Holborn tube, cost 8.50 pounds, ISBN 0102-937-745; a printout of the web version that emerged on May 11: www.officialconfusion.com/77/Reports%20Narratives.zip


The London Assembly's 3-volume ‘The final report of the 7th July Review Committee’ Report www.london.gov.uk/assembly/reports/general.jsp#7july was web-published on 5 June, synchronously with the printed 'Official Account'. This runs to several hundred pages. Volume 1, pp.28-30 has a summary of Edgware Road evidence. Volume 3 just has a reprint of the witnesses statements, somewhat abridged, that the London assembly heard earlier, 23rd March:
www.london.gov.uk/assembly/resilience/ that had appeared as a web-text a month earlier. (Or see www.julyseventh.co.uk/, link on the top right hand section to download these.)


References
1. Tony Gosling spoke to Mr Honigsbaum on August 20th, who provided these details.
2. A year later, reviewing the use of his report by ‘conspiracy theorists,’ Honigsbaum endeavoured to detach himself from the thrust of his earlier report www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/story/0,,1806794,00.html, but without saying what was wrong with it.
3. By next January, Biddle is recalling Khan as standing up with the rucksack on his back http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/s...1697438,00.html – a view highly incompatible with people losing their legs and feet.
4. Hampstead & Highgate Express, June 23, p.3.
5. Sunday Telegraph/ Australia, 7/10/05
6. John Tulloch’s book One Day in July (June 2006) appeared more confident that he had, after all, seen Khan.
7. News of the World, 10/9/05
8. Western Mail, 10/11/05 also 12th Oct. http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0200wales/tm_objectid=16238382 &method=full&siteid=50082&headline=survivor-may-have-seen-bomber-momen ts-before-explosion-name_page.html
9. www.london.gov.uk/assembly/reports/7july/report.pdf, pp.27-30, section 2.47.
10. J.N. was travelling in from Reading and got on the Underground at Paddington. As a regular commuter she would arrive at her London office at nine o’clock: so it is hard to have her going in the other direction by mistake, as TV reconstructions have suggested.
11. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4153/is_20050711/ai_n14719 918
http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/story/0,16132,1525969,00.html   July 11th 2005.


Postscript
* On July 7th police entered Edgware Road station, Sky News reported, to perform a ‘controlled explosion’ http://melbourne.indymedia.org/uploads/controlled_explosion_02.avi, and this had the effect of ‘hampering the operation to collect evidence from the scene.’ This was not reported by any newspaper, presumably because the notion of a further, unexploded bomb is incompatible with the ‘suicide bomber’ theory.
* Kurush Anklesaria testified: "I was on the train going from Bayswater station sitting in the first compartment of the train and after passing Paddington station at about 08:50 there was a huge blast just at the side of my feet and part of the floor was ripped open." www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1733932,00.html Its hard to evaluate this because other reports do not have the Eastbound-train getting its floor torn open. But, if you want to believe that Jenny Nicholson really did die in that Eastbound train, this quote may be helpful.

[TonyGosling]

Here's a link to Nick's report in word format

http://www.bilderberg.org/edgrd.doc