Terrorist Attack Thwarted in London

[Desnudo]

Didn't see a thread on this.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6252276.stm

A car bomb planted in central London would have caused "carnage" if it had exploded, police sources have said.
A controlled explosion was carried out on the car, packed with 60 litres of petrol, gas cylinders and nails, in Haymarket, near Piccadilly Circus.

An ambulance crew saw smoke coming from the green Mercedes, near the Tiger Tiger nightclub at 0130BST (1230GMT).

Two other areas of London, in Park Lane and Fleet Street, were cordoned off as suspicious vehicles were investigated.

[st.cronin]

Good job, Brits.

[Anthony]

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?

[Coder]

Got to love the brits.. when this was reported earlier today, the news said "morning traffic wasn't considerably affected"

I was in London "between" the bombings in 2005 and they were selling T-shirts with the underground sign and a text saying "Not afraid".. I went back to London a few months later, after the second bombings, and found new T-shirts.. "Still not afraid".

[Cringer]

A second car was found. It had been near the first one I guess, but had been towed before the first was even found. They noticed the gas and stuff at the impound yard.

[AlexB]

It sounds a very amateurish terrorist attempt: have you ever heard of a car bomb being neutered simply by a policeman spotting the mobile telephone detonator and picking it up through the window? And the second one we just towed away!

No fuss or bother - just move it on there :D

[AlexB]

It appears the description about the removal of the mobile phone was exaggerated on the report I saw.

And an hour ago a jeep was driven by 'two Asian men' into the passenger terminal doors at Glasgow airport and blew up. From the initial photos on the news it looks like a small explosion, and the two guys got out, so again it sounds pretty small scale.

[sterlingice]

Got to love the brits.. when this was reported earlier today, the news said "morning traffic wasn't considerably affected"

I was in London "between" the bombings in 2005 and they were selling T-shirts with the underground sign and a text saying "Not afraid".. I went back to London a few months later, after the second bombings, and found new T-shirts.. "Still not afraid".

Props to the Brits. Wish we had more people like that.

SI

[bhlloy]

Fricking bizarre. Two very amateurish bombs in London, and then somebody drives a van full of petrol into the front doors of Glasgow airport (hardly a transport hub heaving with people) and causes a small fire? I don't know what to make of it at all - building up to something bigger or a few mentally challenged radicals decided to do something?

Oh and SI... that doesn't surprise me at all. Londoners are the most stubborn, bloody-minded, usually rude and unwelcoming SOB's on the planet, but you can't help but love them when it comes to things like this. Goes back to the war I think when entire parts of the city were bombed to oblivion and they still all went to work in the morning. Stiff upper lip and all.

[JW]

FWIW, these are not necessarily amateurish attempts. They are most likely first-time attempts. In Iraq in many cases you have the same people building the car bombs, so they develop some expertise. You also have many car bomb failures in Iraq that are not typically reported, so it isn't like every car bomb in Iraq detonates. So this was most likely a first-time attempt by Al Qaeda wannabes, but something that came pretty close to being a major disaster.

Here are some comments I read on another forum from someone I trust to have good information.

Talked to a bomb expert for an hour this morning

a guy who spent a year with EOD units attached to a Navy SEABEE Battalion in Iraq.
The bombs in London were the real deal and no they did not require anything else to set them off--no det cord and no "high explosives" are needed.

He said most likely what went wrong was that the charge from the cell phone was insufficient to light the filament on the bulb which was to ignite the butane to start a 3-stage explosion. The butane would heat up and literally shatter its container, much as a zippo will shatter if it gets real hot, that would ignite the propane which would make a big boom.

But the big boom would not be such a newsworthy event without the 33 gallons of gasoline (I think that is the amount mentioned) which would result in a huge fireball--he said 400 feet is probably accurate. He said that it doesn't take all that much gasoline to make a big fire in these circumstances.

The nails were just an added touch which would be dispersed when the propane went off and nails in such devices are as old as the hills.

When I asked him about the skill level of the terrorists he responded quickly:

One difference in Iraq, he said, was that because the US has been jamming and disrupting cell signals, they have actually switched to cordless phones, which in places outside the US with no FCC regulations, have a much longer range than they do here.

The point is he was emphatic that that was a BIG bomb and was extremely close to making a huge mess and there was no need for other explosives or even det cord to make it work.

The scary part about that is all of those ingredients are readily available at Wal Mart.

[Desnudo]

It appears the description about the removal of the mobile phone was exaggerated on the report I saw.

And an hour ago a jeep was driven by 'two Asian men' into the passenger terminal doors at Glasgow airport and blew up. From the initial photos on the news it looks like a small explosion, and the two guys got out, so again it sounds pretty small scale.

Maybe that was Plan B? Throw gasoline around the Glasgow airport :)

[JW]

I find the attempts to minimize the danger from these actions just as laughable as the attempts to exaggerate them, though the Glascow event seems to be of a much more amateurish nature than the London car bombs.

My guess -- A bunch of incredibly stupid Al Qaeda wannabes with brains the size of English peas and no connection with the other group were enraged at the failure of the London car bombs and decided on the spur of the moment to conduct a jihad attack in Glascow. They probably didn't have anything else to do this weekend. But regardless, they could have caused significant injuries or deaths. One report talks about molotov cocktail type containers. One such container thrown into a crowd would have been pretty nasty. Sounds like the idiots lit off one of their little surprises too soon.

But one should not underestimate such dreadfully earnest idiots. Every once in a while one of them gets lucky and kills a few people.

I hope both the fools involved were burned severely enough to remain in pain for a long time, but not seriously enough to die.

[Critch]

Fricking bizarre. Two very amateurish bombs in London, and then somebody drives a van full of petrol into the front doors of Glasgow airport (hardly a transport hub heaving with people) and causes a small fire?

Glasgow Airport is actually the 6th busiest in the UK and is especially busy at this time of year with vacation traffic. If they'd managed to get their car to explode, there would have been a large number of injuries.

[molson]

Glasgow Airport is actually the 6th busiest in the UK and is especially busy at this time of year with vacation traffic. If they'd managed to get their car to explode, there would have been a large number of injuries.

I still seems like an amateurish target because, really, what's the point of attacking an airport and not a plane? Why go to the public place with the greatest security when the same flaming car into a crowded supermarket or downtown area would be a million times more effective, and have far less security to restrict you?

[Critch]

They can't attack the planes due to the security around the runways. I guess they go for an airport terminal over a supermarket as it's a better symbolic target.

The days coming will show if it's an amateurish attack, or part of a larger campaign.

edit - Apparently Liverpool Airport has been closed now too.

[molson]

They can't attack the planes due to the security around the runways. I guess they go for an airport terminal over a supermarket as it's a better symbolic target.

The days coming will show if it's an amateurish attack, or part of a larger campaign.

edit - Apparently Liverpool Airport has been closed now too.

I understand that they can't hit the planes, it just seems pointless to to get the outer wall of the airport. It's like if someone wanted to hit the White House, but there was too much security, so they destroyed a fence outside the White House.

If there's more attacks in the coming days, it's even more amateurish, as now you're up against extremely increased security and civilian vigilance.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that terrorists are so dumb.

[JW]

Actually the Jeep hit the main terminal entrance but was stopped by security posts. They knew what they were doing and where they were going, despite the amateurish aspects of the attack. From AP:

The green Jeep barreled toward Glasgow's main airport terminal shortly after 3 p.m. Witness Scott Leeson said bollards — security posts outside the entrance — stopped the driver from driving into the bustling terminal, but the nose of the vehicle smashed the glass doors.

"If he'd got through, he'd have killed hundreds, obviously," he said.

AP photographs from the scene showed the car hit the building at an angle and was poking into the terminal. The Jeep struck the building directly in front of check-in counters, where dozens of passengers were lined up, police said.

Lynsey McBean, a witness at the terminal, said the driver kept trying to push the car forward after it got stuck, and "the wheels were spinning and smoke was coming from them."

[Ryan S]

My guess -- A bunch of incredibly stupid Al Qaeda wannabes with brains the size of English peas and no connection with the other group were enraged at the failure of the London car bombs and decided on the spur of the moment to conduct a jihad attack in Glascow.

It is being reported that at least one of the cars found in London was driven down from Scotland last week as it was caught on a license plate recognition camera.

[JW]

Yes, looks like my guess was wrong and that all the incidents are connected. This morning I'm hearing that it all may have been done by one small group that law enforcement already had some knowledge of. But that may change, too.

[Desnudo]

Actually the Jeep hit the main terminal entrance but was stopped by security posts. They knew what they were doing and where they were going, despite the amateurish aspects of the attack. From AP:

The green Jeep barreled toward Glasgow's main airport terminal shortly after 3 p.m. Witness Scott Leeson said bollards — security posts outside the entrance — stopped the driver from driving into the bustling terminal, but the nose of the vehicle smashed the glass doors.

"If he'd got through, he'd have killed hundreds, obviously," he said.

AP photographs from the scene showed the car hit the building at an angle and was poking into the terminal. The Jeep struck the building directly in front of check-in counters, where dozens of passengers were lined up, police said.

Lynsey McBean, a witness at the terminal, said the driver kept trying to push the car forward after it got stuck, and "the wheels were spinning and smoke was coming from them."

They knew what they were doing and what they were doing, but they forgot to measure the door entrance...good thing it wasn't a KIA Spectra.

[Critch]

It seems that these bombers aren't British Muslims, police have said that two of them are Iranian doctors working in the UK. One of them was a doctor at the hospital where the burnt terrorist from Glasgow Airport is being treated, his car was destroyed in a controlled explosion at the hospital earlier today.

[molson]

They knew what they were doing and what they were doing, but they forgot to measure the door entrance...good thing it wasn't a KIA Spectra.

Right, they knew what they were doing, but failed to account for one thing - the security device (posts), put in place to defend against this very attack.

Stupid terrorists.

[sachmo71]

So I've seen ages of suspects, and something about an Iranian doctor, and also some mention of Asians? Has anyone seen anything on whether they think this was Muslim terrorists, or someone else? And yes, I realize there are millions of Muslim Asians.

[Critch]

So I've seen ages of suspects, and something about an Iranian doctor, and also some mention of Asians? Has anyone seen anything on whether they think this was Muslim terrorists, or someone else? And yes, I realize there are millions of Muslim Asians.

Asians in the UK normally means Pakistani or Indian.