The 7/7 bombings across London's transport network in 2005 were originally planned to stop the city winning the right to host the 2012 Olympics, according to a Scotland Yard detective who investigated the case that involved a Pakistani-origin Islamist ringleader.
David Videcette, a former officer with the Anti-Terrorist Squad who worked on the bombings investigation for five years, said derailing the Olympic bid would also have helped protect a fundamentalist sect's project to build Europe's biggest mosque.
He spoke out for the first time to the 'Telegraph' newspaper after plans for Tablighi Jamaat's mosque in east London were finally rejected by UK ministers last week.
He said police had found evidence that the attacks were actually intended to take place 24 hours earlier, in the morning rush hour of July 6, 2005.
He said, "We started out by believing motives for 7/7 were international terrorism, but gradually as we went through it we came up with lots of information that did not fit within those parameters.
"What if we were wrong? What if the motives were actually far more locally based, and we missed them? We found text messages sent on July 6th delaying the attack and we found CCTV of two of the bombers buying ice really early on the morning of the 6th, to cool down their prepared bombs."
The evidence came out at the inquest into the bombings in 2010 but was little reported at the time.
The inquest heard that Pakistani-origin ringleader, Mohammed Sidique Khan, sent a text message to the other bombers at 4.35 am on the 6th saying: "Having major problem. Can not make time. Will ring you when I get it sorted. Wait at home."
Khan's wife had suffered a miscarriage the previous evening.
Videcette told the newspaper that he believed the morning of July 6, 2005 had been chosen as the original planned date to prevent London winning the 2012 Olympics bid.
The International Olympic Committee was to vote on the host city for the Games that day. IOC members, meeting in Singapore, began voting at 11.26 am UK time, three hours or so after the planned time for the attacks.
"Had they detonated those devices on the morning of the 6th, London would not have got the Olympics," said Videcette.
"More recently I have realised that the two lead bombers' travel dates when travelling to and from Pakistan to learn how to make bombs closely corresponded to the Olympic bidding process dates when the London bid was officially lodged and when the IOC visited to audit London as a host city," he added.
