Terror in London: "A Blessed Attack"

"Rejoice, Islamic nation. Rejoice, Arab world. The time has come for vengeance against the Zionist crusader government of Britain in response to the massacres Britain committed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"The heroic mujahedeen carried out a blessed attack in London, and now Britain is burning with fear and terror, from north to south, east to west.

"In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate, may peace be upon the cheerful one and the dauntless fighter, Prophet Muhammad, God's peace be upon him."

Although the claim could not be verified, a previously unknown group, "Secret Group of Al Qaeda's Jihad in Europe," claimed responsibility in the name of Al Qaeda for the blasts that shook London's public transportation system.

On an Islamic militant website, the group said the bombings were in retaliation for Britain's involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. They also extended a warning to Italy and Denmark to withdraw their troops from those two countries.

Text of Tony Blair's statement

I'm just going to make a short statement to you on the terrible events that have happened in London earlier today. And I hope you understand that at the present time we're still trying to establish what has happened. There's a limit to what information I can give you. And I'll simply try and tell you the information as best I can at the moment.

It's reasonably clear there have been a series of terrorist attacks in London. There are, obviously, casualties, both people that have died and people seriously injured. And our thoughts and prayers, of course, are with the victims and their families.

It's my intention to leave the G-8 within the next couple of hours and go down to London and get a report face to face with the police and the emergency services and the ministers that have been dealing with this, and then to return later this evening.

It is the will of all the leaders at the G-8, however, that the meeting should continue in my absence, that we should continue to discuss the issues that we were going to discuss and reach the conclusions which we were going to reach.

Each of the countries around that table has some experience of the effects of terrorism. And all the leaders, as they will indicate a little bit later, share our complete resolution to defeat this terrorism.

It's particularly barbaric that this has happened on a day when people are meeting to try to help the problems of poverty in Africa and the long-term problems of climate change in the environment.

Just as it is reasonably clear that this is a terrorist attack, or a series of terrorist attacks, it's also reasonably clear that it is designed and aimed to coincide with the opening of the G-8.

There will be time to talk later about this.

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.

Whatever they do, it is our determination that they will never succeed in destroying what we hold dear in this country and in other civilized nations throughout the world.

Thank you.

"A Blessed Attack."

This is the enemy. They consider the slaughter of innocents and mayhem to be "blessed."

Think about that.