A protest by hundreds of Osama Bin Laden supporters sparked fury outside the US Embassy in London today as they staged a mock ‘funeral service’ for the terror leader.
Police stepped in to separate the protesters and members of the English Defence League amid threats of violence from both sides.
Radicals carrying placards proclaiming ‘Islam will dominate the world’ branded US leaders ‘murderers’ and warned vengeance attacks were ‘guaranteed’.
For many, it was a shock that the protest was allowed to go ahead in the first place as it came shortly after the verdict into the 7/7 inquest was released by Lady Justice Heather Hallett.
She recorded that the 52 victims had been ‘unlawfully’ killed when four terrorists attacked three London Underground trains and a bus in 2005.
Lady Justice Hallett made a string of recommendations to both MI5 to prevent further atrocities and to 999 workers to react more effectively to major events.
Relatives of the victims wept openly as the judge announced her verdict and she paid tribute to their ‘quiet dignity’ before reading the name of each person who died.
However just three miles from the Royal Court of Justice, Muslim protester Abu Muaz, 28, from east London claimed ‘it is only a matter of time’ before another attack and that the ‘West is the enemy’.
The capital has seen heightened security in recent days over fears of a revenge attacks by Al-Qaeda members.
The protest against Bin Laden’s death was organised by controversial preacher Anjem Choudary - who praised both 7/7 and the September 11 attacks.
The former UK leader of the outlawed al-Muhajiroun and member of the ‘poppy-burning’ Muslims Against Crusades extremist group called on the U.S. to return bin Laden’s body to relatives.
He has already warned of another 7/7-style terror attack in the wake of Bin Laden’s death.
Britain has followed the US in placing its embassies, diplomatic missions and military bases around the world on heightened alert in recent days.
An EDL member did manage to slip through police lines to unveil an effigy of Bin Laden in the middle of the 300-strong group of extremist Muslims.
It prompted screams of ‘USA, burn in hell’ and ‘Obama, burn in hell’ from angry protesters.
The protests from both sides left onlookers in Grosvenor Square unimpressed.
Mary Smythe, 38, from Croydon, south London, said: ‘I think both sides are pathetic, quite frankly.
‘It’s disappointing and horrible to listen to the threats. They are all an embarrassment to this country.’
Bin Laden, who masterminded the attack in 2001 on the Twin Towers in New York, was killed on Monday by U.S. forces in Pakistan.
The CIA spied on Osama Bin Laden for months from its own top-secret safehouse in Abbottabad, it has since been revealed.
In one of the most intricate intelligence operations in CIA history, spies moved in to a property next door to Bin Laden’s fortified compound to establish his ‘pattern of life’.
President Barack Obama yesterday visited New York to place a wreath at Ground Zero.