London Underground 'always a terror target'

Terrorists will always target London Underground, the network's boss said yesterday, but the method of using suicide bombers will "burn itself out" because it is not "sustainable". London Underground's managing director, Tim O'Toole, made the comments to MPs on the Home Affairs Select Committee. He said the London transport system would "never drop off the radar" as a target, especially the Tube, because of its "iconic" status.

"People will always be interested in the Tube because it is such an iconic institution," said Mr O'Toole. "Personally I believe this madness will burn itself out. It has always done so in the past. We will confront other things in the future. I don't believe that suicide is a sustainable business practice... I think that Baader Meinhof went away, the IRA went away, and this will go away."

He praised the efforts of staff to restore services quickly after the bombings of 7 July 2005. "I believe that bringing the service back following 7/7 makes us more secure, because if you don't reward these people with the chaos they are looking for, they go and look elsewhere." He said that when ongoing station upgrades are complete, there will be 12,000 CCTV cameras on the network.