The London bombings were an atrocity to be utterly condemned. As with the similar attacks in Madrid, these bombs were designed to kill commuters on their way to work. The attacks were clearly carried out by a wing of the al-Qaeda network.

This is a reactionary group guided by a medieval world view and led by a former section of the ruling elite from the oil rich gulf states.

Their idea of a war of the muslim world against the peoples of the west has nothing in common with the national liberation struggles of the peoples of the neo-colonial world in past decades. The instinct of these movements and of the best of their leaders was to make common cause with the working class of the west, not to indiscriminately attack them.

The policies advocated by al-Qaeda have nothing to do with national liberation at home either. Al-Qaeda was a prop of the oppressive Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

The real question is why an organisation of this character has been able to sustain its international network despite the military opposition of the major imperialist powers.

The fact that four young British citizens were prepared to act as suicide bombers has confounded the convenient explanation that these attacks - and the ongoing insurgency in Iraq - is all down to "foreign fanatics" who don't share the values of the "civilised" world.

There have been attempts to explain this away by trying to find some personal quirks that would have turned these four young men into suicide bombers or by showing that they were "indoctrinated" by visits to Pakistan.

The real explanation is more straightforward. The 1.3 million strong muslim community in Britain has been alienated and enraged by the invasion and ongoing brutal occupation of Iraq.

Up to 100,000 people have died since the invasion and Iraq has been destabilised to the point where it could disintegrate into civil war. The Saddam dictatorship has been replaced by a US military dictatorship which is prepared to use very similar methods.

It is clear that the Bush regime is preparing to stay in Iraq for the long haul. With their efforts to establish a puppet regime failing by the day, they see ongoing occupation as the only way to protect their strategic and economic interests, especially their control over Iraq's vast oil wealth.

In this situation it is not so difficult to understand why some muslims who don't see any force in Britain able to challenge Blair and stop the slaughter in Iraq, can be influenced by reactionary groups like al-Qaeda.

Unlike the situation after 9/11 in the US, the mood in Britain after these attacks is not to rally behind Tony Blair. There is outrage and anger at the bombings, but also an awareness that his actions have made such attacks inevitable.

Socialists must now attempt to rebuild the movement against the occupation of Iraq. Millions demonstrated before the war but did not stop it. One reason was the fact that the organised working class were not involved. There was no strikes against the war.

Building an anti-war movement of this character is not made easier by socialist groupings who refuse to condemn the London bombs.

In failing to recognise the reactionary nature of these attacks they are not only in danger of alienating working class people from the anti-war movement, they are doing a disservice to all in the ex-colonial world who find no difficulty in opposing imperialist domination and, at the same time, struggling against local oppressors such as the Taliban.

Terrorism is always used as an excuse for repression. Blair will use these attacks to further erode civil liberties and try to minimise opposition to ID cards (despite the fact that the existence of ID cards in Spain did not prevent the Madrid bombings).

Such measures invariably end up used against the working class movement and should be opposed. There should be no scapegoating of muslims, who, like the rest of the British people, were appalled by these attacks.

The response to the bombings must be to develop the unity of the working class in a movement to oppose terrorism, to defend civil liberties and to demand the immediate withdrawal of the occupying troops from Iraq.

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