Tony Blair was forced on to the defensive over the London bomb attacks for the first time on Tuesday after a leaked British intelligence report bolstered claims that the Iraq war had increased the terrorist threat.

The threat assessment from the Joint Terrorist Analysis Centre, which brings together Britain’s security services and law enforcement agencies, warned less than a month before the July 7 attacks that “events in Iraq are continuing to act as motivation and a focus of a range of terrorist-related activity in the UK”.