At least 50 people were killed in three explosions in London's subway system during rush hour on Thursday in a strike that resembled the train bombings in Madrid in 2004, Middle East Newsline reported. A fourth explosion destroyed a double-decker bus filled with people.

"Over time, the cornerstone of Al Qaida's religious and political rhetoric has remained consistent: Muslims should view themselves as a single nation and unite to resist anti-Islamic aggression on the basis of obligatory defensive jihad," a Congressional Research Service report, entitled "Al Qaida: Statements and Evolving Ideology," authored by Christopher Blanchard, said.

"Non-Islamic government is unacceptable, and Muslims should join Al Qaida and other sympathetic groups and movements in opposing those seeking to establish secular democratic governments or maintain existing governments deemed to be insufficiently Islamic," the congressional report, published in June 2005, said.

Al Qaida employed at least 20 people from the organization's sleeper network to carry out the bombings, the intelligence sources said. They said operatives maintained surveillance on London's mass transit network for at least six months to determine vulnerable points.

Since 2002, British authorities disrupted plans to twice attack the London subway system, the sources said. They said they believe the attacks, including Thursday's strike, were organized by Al Qaida, including operatives loyal to Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi, the most lethal insurgent in Iraq.

In June 2005, the British Joint Terrorist Analysis Centre reduced the threat level of an Al Qaida attack from "severe-general" to "substantial." The sources said the move was based on an assessment that Al Qaida remained incapable of mounting a coordinated attack in Britain.

The sources said "The Secret Organization of Al Qaida in Europe," which claimed responsibility for Thursday's bombings, appeared to be part of a new Al Qaida network established in the continent in 2003. The sources said the network could have included planners or operatives involved in the 2004 train bombings in Madrid in which 191 people were killed.

The intelligence sources said Moroccans played a central role in the Madrid train bombings. They said Al Qaida has benefited from support by a growing number of young Muslims, many of them converts from Christianity. Young European Muslims have also been recruited to fight the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq.

"Investigations made by the intelligence and security agencies of West Europe after the Madrid blasts of March, 2004, revealed that the Al Qaida had a large number of supporters in the Muslim diaspora of West Europe," B. Raman, a former Indian Cabinet secretary and a leading Al Qaida analyst, said. "Morrocans and Pakistanis constituted the largest number of terrorist suspects arrested and questioned in West Europe last year."

Raman said Al Qaida, drawing from its experience in Iraq, could advance to suicide car bombings in Western European countries. He said suicide attackers could be expected to develop bombs designed to explode the fuel of any automobile, a device that would be nearly impossible to detect.

"While the devices used for triggering off an explosion are becoming more and more sophisticated, the explosives actually used are more and more commonplace," Raman said. "The use of sophisticated explosives, such as Semtex, RDX, has been replaced by more commonplace ones such as nitrogenous fertilizers, whose acquisition is unlikely to give rise to suspicion."

British authorities have recovered key parts of the timing devices that set off the bombs. The sources said the timers and bomb components could be similar to those used for the Madrid attacks. They said plastic explosives appeared to have been used in the bombings.

The Secret Organization of Al Qaida in Europe said Thursday's attacks were meant to retaliate for Britain's military involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. The cell also threatened attacks in Denmark and Italy, which also deploy troops in these Asian countries.

"Rejoice, Islamic nation. Rejoice, Arab world," the statement, which appeared on http://www.qal3ati.net, used previously by Al Qaida to issue messages, said. "The time has come for vengeance against the Zionist crusader government of Britain in response to the massacres Britain committed in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Al Qaida has maintained two key networks — one in Iraq and the other in Algeria, the sources said. The sources said that over the last year Algeria's Salafist Brigade for Combat and Call and the Iraqi network led by Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi, have been cooperating in operations in Europe.

Islamic insurgents from Algeria first targeted European mass transit a decade ago. In 1995, operatives from the Armed Islamic Group, the parent organization of the Salafist Brigade, detonated several bombs in Paris in a strike that killed eight people and injured about 200.

"A framework of lenient asylum laws has allowed the development of the largest and most overt concentration of Islamist political activists since Taliban-ruled Afghanistan," Stephen Ulph, a leading analyst from the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation, said. "Just ask the French, whose exasperation with the indulgent toleration afforded to Algerian Islamic activists led them to dub the city dismissively as 'l'antechambre de l'Afghanistan."

In wake of the London attacks, Britain has improved security around bases and installations abroad, particularly in the Middle East, the sources said. Britain maintains two large bases in Cyprus and security was enhanced on the island.

The United States has raised the terrorism alert level for mass-transit systems to Code Orange in wake of the British bombings. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said authorities have not received credible intelligence on an imminent attack on U.S. mass transit.

"We have asked state and local leaders and transportation officials to increase their protective measures," Chertoff said. "We ask the public to remain alert and to report any suspicious activity, particularly in and around transportation systems."

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