More London Attacks?
 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8655541/

LONDON - British police said Thursday that emergency services were responding to reports of incidents at three London Underground stations.
Incidents were reported at Oval, Warren Street, and Shepherds Bush stations, and the Metropolitan police said incidents were “ongoing.”

Separately, a spokesman for the transit system said there were no reports of casualties.

An eyewitness reported seeing a bag explode at one of the stations, Sky News reported. Other reports said that smoke was seen coming out of a train, a fire brigade spokeswoman told Reuters. The reports could not immediately be confirmed.
More than 50 people were killed two weeks ago when four bombs hit three underground trains and a red London double-decker bus.

The attacks have been blamed on four Muslims from Britain and police say they believe al-Qaida were behind them.

Just heard. Damn. Here, they're reporting "bomb explosions" right now. The entire underground has been stopped.

Early reports are of detonators, but no explosions set off. A bus had it's windows blown out, but no injuries. May have been a nailbomb on the underground, but it failed to explode. Only one injury reported so far.

Hopefully the news doesn't get any worse.

Only one week left before I go to London.

Hard to go about 'business as usual' if you're a Londoner from here out I would think...

...

CNN is reporting 3 "small devices" exploded in on the London transit system.

Probably more the work of a copycat group.

There also reporting that armed police have surrounded a hospital in central London, speculation is that the person who set off one of the explosions may be inside receiving treatment. A live captive could be valuable.

Yeah, this sounds like a group of teenagers out doing a "prank" (I put that in quotes because they're idea of a prank doesn't match mine).

My first impression of this is that it's obvious the first attacks didn't disrupt much of anything, and so some related extremists put together a small, hastily-planned attack to try to unsettle the nerves of Londoners, since the first attack didn't succeed in that respect like they thought it would. I hope no one was seriously hurt and that these things don't continue, but in the big picture, this seems like a positive indication.

I kind of agree with this. There's bound to be alot of fear/anxiety after the attacks, and this is probably (hopefully?) something minor that is getting carried away.

Remember how many false alarms, diverted airliners, etc.. we had after 9/11?

I lived there for a year when the IRA was most active, we had a bomb destroy a house two blocks from the house we were renting. It fries your nerves for about a day, then things are back to normal. The English are very proud of standing up to the German bombing during WWII. This is only going to piss them off.

London couldn't exist without mass transport. Many Londoners wouldn't even think of owning cars. Terrorists would have to blow up every single tube station before people would stop using the underground.

Edit: as I read more about this, I think the intent was not to hurt people and the group that did this may well be one of those weird college protests and has nothing to do with Muslims.

England has been dealing with lots of false alarms since the initial bombings.

I've been in England all summer. My wife and I were in London yesterday. She has now flat refused to go back into London till the day we leave.
I tend to agree with the above comment that it was a copycat job. 3 tubes/1 bus..same as 2 weeks ago. Luckily there were no falities, and the London police has been quick to respond. I'm really impressed with the way they've handled everything over here in the wake of the original attacks.

p.s. Just on a different note, one of the people to have been tragically killed in the original attacks was a young Arab woman, very attractive with a bright future. I'm a bit surprised that she hasn't turned into more of a figure for the West to show how ruthless these terrorists are that they are killing ones of their same faith (though the terrorists sense of "faith" is warped when compared to real Isalm.)

I was in central London (Oxford Street/Soho area) when the bombs went off. Most of the subway system was stopped and the streets became fairly congested, but there were no sense of alarm, people took in the news and went on with their daily lives. The Brits are determined to live through this as usual, even if the awareness is up high. We walked to our hotel in Bloomsbury to collect our bags and went on to start walking towards the train station to catch a train to the airport. Luckily, we found a cab and got to the airport only 15 minutes later than planned.

Dear Lord. Glad you got home okay.

ABC news (tv) just said that (authorities) are saying in some ways todays bombs were more sophisticated then the ones from last time. That the chemicals were not mixed correctly though.

I dunno, just what they are saying.

Not to threadjack or anything, but this is spooky.. here we are, two Swedes, and not just Swedes, we're both "Göteborgare".. we've both found this board (the only Swedes on here), we're both football fanatics (not very common in Sweden) and we're going / we've been in London within a week of eachother.. :)

And no, we've never met

Nerds Unite!!!

Swedish Nerds!

Dam strait!

There is information on BBC and other sources saying that explosives were apparently recovered and that they are apparently sophisticated. One source says they are similar to the explosives used two weeks ago. There are also now reports of two arrests. It appears this may have been a serious attack that failed, related to the earlier attacks. However, of course the story is still developing, and the information being reported now could turn out to be wrong.

If this is true, then it definitely points to a concerted attempt to get the UK to withdraw from Iraq like Spain did. Either that or they've decided to ratchet things up and since they either can't or won't strike at America at present, the UK is the next best thing. In any case, it signals an ominous turn in that perhaps the images of mangled buses and trains and storefronts from Israel may be about to be visited on the British (and Americans, at some point) on a more frequent basis.

It's kinda weird, it's not the usual Bin Laden tactic to follow up a terrorist activity with a similar one shortly afterward (at least i dont' think it is). Wonder if this is a new strategy, or if the second group screwed the pooch and missed their original date.

How can you be two weeks late to a terror attack? It's not like they could say the car broke down on the way into town or something. :D

I seriously doubt Bin Laden even came close to ordering these attacks. I think its probably a group that wants to be or is loosely affilitated with Al Qaeda (maybe funding at best). I don't see why we feel the need to always connect things to Bin Laden, as if that somehow makes it worse. Isn't it enough to understand that people are out there who hate others way of life on their own?

Perhaps this should say something about the state of security in general, as in it doesn't exist. You can do everything you want, but you won't stop terrorism. You can stop some of the people, but you can't stop them all. Sickos will be sick, its happened throughout history.

Those wacko Islamo Fascists are at it again.

This from MSNBC.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8655541/

NBC News has learned that British authorities told their U.S. counterparts that the backpacks used in Thursday's planned attacks and the explosives found in the backpacks are identical to those used in the July 7 attacks — evidence that strongly suggests the two sets of attacks were connected.

If this is accurate, I don't know what to make of it. Maybe if their handler had already fled, the second group didn't properly do the final assembly on their own, or maybe these were two separate groups operating loosely under control of one person, and the second group just screwed up. Or maybe something else entirely. No matter what, it isn't good. But perhaps the authorities can learn a lot from the evidence collected.

And they tried again today..

Police have shot a man trying to detonate a bomb on a train at the subwaystation in Stockwell at 10 a.m. local time (that'd be around 5 a.m. EDT).

That is craziness.

They chased the guy onto the train, he started to trip, the cops pushed him down then shot him 5 times in the back. I can't even imagine being the cops in that situation. Knowing you could be killing an innocent, but if you don't make your move they'll blow themsevles up.

All they've said so far is that he had a very thick winter jacket on and no backpack.

thick winter jacket in the summer + running from cops = death

I have no problem with this formula

Even if he stopped and put his hands up they'd probably shoot him. They really don't have a choice if they are confident this is a bomber with a trigger who knows where. Just an insane situation. Has got to fry your nerves if you are one of the cops chasing him.

Well a group linked with Al Qaeda is claiming responsibility, and since Bin Laden is still seen as the head of Al Qaeda ... I think it's pretty clear why they're connected. But you're right, until we know more we don't know if this is a group acting on their own or not. Still the planning, and sophistication (if you believe the news) does sound like something coordinated by an experienced group.

The BBC mentions that the guy was shot three times in the head as the police have been trained to go for head shots as a body shot could set off a suicide bomb. That's pretty chilling.

Some eyewitnesses are reporting that he was wearing a belt with wires sticking out.

Very chilling, but smart.

I think Al-Queda is making a large mistake here. A very large mistake.

If they think the Brits are like the people in Spain, they must have forgotten the IRA. I don't see the British backing down. I see them stepping up.

The most chilling thing to me is that I think we are getting closer and closer to "end game." People can call me a war monger or a hater or any other choice of words they like, but I can promise you at some point the terrorists are going to cross the line where the US, Brits, and Israeli's have no other option than to take off the gloves and do some things that aren't very nice.

I think a concerted effort to terrorize the British speeds up that scenario drasticly.

what would that be?

Do the words "black glass" mean anything to you?

No it doesn't

Nuclear extermination? As in drop nukes on every middle eastern country, knowing that we'll kill about a billion or so innocent people but we might, just might, get a handful of terrorist in there. :confused:

And then all the ones out of the ME survive

Sky News are reporting that the police had identified the man they shot as being part of yesterday's bombers based on surveillance cameras. They "quickly located him and put a shadow on him, trying to follow him to any of his contacts". However, as he approached the Stockwell subwaystation, the undercover officers got worried he was planning a new attack. They pulled their guns and shouted warnings to people around them and told him to stop, that's when he started running, eventually tripped and then shot.

Let's say that I believe Congressman Tom Tancredo's recent remarks were accurate & appropriate.

You think we should take out Islamic holy sites as a retaliation? Because that will stop them from terrorist attacks?

Right now, we have a handful of islamic extremist causing terrorist issues (and most people of islamic faith are very peaceful btw). If you bomb islamic holy sites, you'll guarantee to seriously piss off all 1.3 billion people of islam faith. Sounds like a great strategy. :rolleyes:

Well, if that tactic is going to become available, can I start bombing christian churches as my way to prevent them from attacking abortion clinics?
:)

I gotta agree. You can push us around for a bit, but once we get our backs up against a wall we will fight. I think a lot of people forget, the only country (right, wrong, or indifferent) to have ever used the Bomb in anger against a foe is the US.

The Brits will not back down from this.

Thing is, these few moronic muslims who are doing these attacks, are HOPING that some moronic westerner will retaliate against muslims who are NOT supporting the radicals. By doing so, the westerner will alienate more muslims, including the ones who weren't previously interested in destroying any bonds there are between the majority of both sides.

Don't fall into their trap.. don't alienate the general muslim.

Then those 1.3 billion people of islam that are not extremists need to stand up and start telling the extremists to stop smearing islam.

The Christian whackos over here are pointed out, tried, and convicted by other Christians here. You don't see the same thing happening with Muslims.

You nutty republicans*.







*Statement directed at a select few who probably think Anne Coulter should be president, not all republicans.

I don't see that happening, but I do think it's possible that at some point if the terrorists push too far you'll see the US take off the gloves in dealing with international issues. I could see it getting to the point that we'd ignore other countries "international rights" and use strike forces to go after all known terrorist targets no matter where they are. Perhaps even the use of tactical nukes, although I don't imagine they would come in handy in very many instances if it all. I would imagine just an overall much stricter enforcement of Bush's "you're either with us or against us" approach. But I don't see any massive nuclear strike by us when there are much more efficient ways of dealing with things.

Turns out the man shot today was an American tourist upset over ice not being in his fucking drink.

Problem is, I dont' think we know where they are. Heck, we know some of them are in Iraq, yet we can't get them.

And all this talk of nukes is silly. If we knew where they were and they were willing to stand and fight, we could easily take them out with conventional weapons.

To borrow a useful analogy ... I can't always find every single rattlesnake in a field, but if I bush-hog that field, I sure do make it harder for them to hide.

not funny

I believe after the Madrid bombings further bombs were found on the train lines which were supposed to go off after the original ones. So I'm not sure we can't claim this isn't an Al-Qaeda taught tactic.

Unless you are going to a costume party dressed as the terminator and suddenly that bran muffin kicks in?

Hello, ETA?

So what you're saying is that we should act like terrorists, right?

You scare me.

That's impossible. You can't be a terrorist unless your targets are westerners.

Uh-oh...

Jon is playing stick in the beehive again!

Further, groups change tactics. The goal of these attacks might be to slow the economy of Britian by attacking the transportation infrastructure. It may be that the plan is to have numerous attacks spaced out over several weeks until they cause either the security to be so tight that it slows down the rate of business, or the shut down of the tube system which would be a major problem for businesses in London.

How did we turn this into another political/policy thread anyways? Can we save this thread for updates on the bombing / investigation?

So, by extension, you'll be advocating the nuclear razing of Great Britain, seeing as how that's where the London bombers originated from?

I'm not saying I agree with what will eventually happen, I'm just saying I think it WILL happen. Fear does some really strange things to people. Eventually, they are going to take it one step too far. The people of Israel, Britain, the US and other countries are going to stop thinking of the terrorists as a pest and they are going to be genuinely afraid for their lives.

When that happens, I can PROMISE you things are going to turn ugly.

And if the terrorists want that to happen, they are stupider than even I thought they were. Because if that happens, they won't have to worry about a ton of Muslims running around to take up the fight.

No what he is saying is we should take up the "Final Solution" to the problem. He is for the complete annihilation of anyone that does not think like him.

I'm guessing we have a ton of suspicous sites on our list and I'm guessing if it gets to the point that Troy was talking about, they all get bombed. I don't see nuking the entire middle east or anything remotely resembling that, but I do see us getting to the point that we start taking out suspicious locations without full confirmation that they are terrrorist training grounds, bomb making factories, etc.

And if it gets to the point that Troy was talking about, I'd also expect to see a major rounding up of suspects beyond what we saw after 9-11 and probably not just in the US but worldwide with extractions being performed all over without regard to international rights, etc.

Like I said, I could see the possibility of tactical nukes on specific targets if deemed appropriate, but that's a far cry from the kind of nukes that you are talking about.

Yeah, along those lines, a very plausible tactic that they could try would be to trigger a lot of nuisance false alarms. Things like leaving an empty knapsack in the subway or the airport, checking in for a flight but not boarding the plane. They shut down entire airports when they investigate these potential threats--imagine what it could do to the economy if the airport or the subway is shut down every other day. And they could do this without detonating a single bomb...

As could every other group of nutjobs under the sun.

- "Can you imagine some pretty unattractive alternatives?"

- "Not without slides..."




Sorry, just trying to lighten the mood a little.

Yep, with the global nuclear fallout resulting from a massive strike, we'd be killing a whole bunch of ourselves, too. Also, I hope we've switched to alternative fuels by then.

Sounds like a well-thought out and clever strategy to me!

Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner.

Nope. Look back in the thread, it wasn't me who brought it up. I just offered an explanation to a reference that Kevin didn't understand.

I probably should.

Jon, if you feel obliterating Mecca (and/or other sites of importance to Islam) with "tactical" nuclear weapons is the solution to terrorism, you are woefully misguided.

As a counter-example, what would you, as an American, do if someone, say, blew up the White House, Pentagon or World Trade Center?

Please stop.

I'm with you on this one. Tell them they have a week to hand over Bin Laden or whoever you want to put on a list or the nukes are dropping. We'd probably have to drop one but after that watch how easy it will be to locate these scumbags.

Or, alternatively, you instead radicalize the entire Muslim population, and now get to deal with 1.3 billion terrorists. Are you willing to take that chance?

Again, how would you react if terrorists blew up the White House, Pentagon or World Trade Center? Would you give up and accede to the terrorists' demands?

They already blew shit up. We didn't start this.

If none of the 1.3 billion muslims are willing to help bring to justice the terroists than f-ck em, they are all terrorists.

So how many right now out of 1.3 billion muslims are actually terrorists? Hmm...can't be a big percentage. What's wrong with the rest of them sitting on their asses while their evil breatheren blow shit up.

HA!

You'll have to forgive rkmsuf, he spent his last five years out in the woods hunting down Eric Rudolph, while the rest of us sat on our asses playing xbox.

:p

Heh heh, xbox players are all terrorists!

Edit: the one's not hunting down Eric Rudolph, that is...

If I catch a Muslim playing Xbox there is going to be trouble.

Jon, just expressing your opinion stirs up the bees. I'm not blaming the stick; it is what it is.

Eh, had a fairly long reply written, but realized that you should know by now pretty much exactly what my take on this is & that the post would be irrelevant -- you already know the answer to what you asked.

You totally missed his point.

oh well. I try hard.

Aren't you forgetting that after every attack of this sort, Muslims are interviewed and condemn the attacks. Or isn't that shown on Fox News? Maybe some media outlets aren't interested in shifting the blame from the entire faith of Islam to just a few ultra conservatives?

Sky News is non-stop showing interviews with Muslim Clerics, "regular" British Muslims, all saying the same things. According to a poll they've run today, 88% of the British Muslims think there's NO justification for the attacks in the Koran.. only 5% thought there was.

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0...391671,00.html

Several of the busdrivers and tubedrivers in London are Muslims.. do you think they consider these attacks a brilliant idea? Do you honestly think that just because they're not out there with guns hunting down any potential neighbours who could be planning the next attack they're Al-Qaeda supporters?

http://www.sky.com/skynews/home

Ah well.. no one listens to a Swede anyway :(

Jag lyssnar...

What's 5% of 1.3 billion? Just curious...

65 million? :)

Holy crap, bring out the nukes and bomb the islamic holy site of Jerusalem.

Quick!

Probably the same percentage of Americans would sympathize with or claim the same sort of justification in the bible for the abortion clinic and gay club bombings. Doesn't make 'em terrorists though...

Of course, the 5% was only British Muslims. I'll go out on a limb and guess that the percentage would be higher in some of the more "radical" muslim countries...

Didn't say it did. But it's interesting to see how many feel the attacks are justified and what size "pool" the terrorists have to draw from. Although as I posted above, I'm guessing the 5% is a pretty low percentage overall considering it's based on British Muslims (unless they are far more radical than I've been led to believe) :D

I have to pretty much stay out of this one due to recent events.

I'll just say this: the innocent Muslims around the world need to do more. They need to cast the violent aggressors out of the religion entirely. Their condemnations so far seem very weak and support of terrorism (5% in Britain) is enormous.

Things have just gone too far. They are quickly reaching the point where they have less credibility than Tom Cruise and his Scientology friends.

Terrrorism being spawned from the middle east is still going to happen. No need to retaliate with nuclear weapons against a group of people who have absolutely no say in what's going on inside their borders.

But there is a need to stay the course. Continue to over-throw rogue regimes that fuel pro-terror propaganda. Continue to install governments that take responsability for their actions with regard to terrorists groups. Continue to offer the people more information than just one sided information. Continue to empower the people of the region to make the choice on a government-scale on whether they which to support terror or not.

We could also help stop terrorism by not harboring those wanted by other countries for blowing up planes.....

Umm... in other news, they released pictures of several of the alleged bombers (or failed bombers).

Ok, I've read somethig like this a couple times on this thread, and it's crap. The Spanish people were not cowed by terrorism. Every Spaniard, regardless of political affiliation, wants to stand up to terrorists, the same as in this country. It's just that the left leaning components, as in this country, believe that going to war in Iraq is an idiotic way to combat terrorists (90% of the Spanish were against the Iraq war), and so they (we) get labeled soft on terrorism. Furthermore, the right leaning parts lost the Spanish elections because of a cover-up of the bombings where they continued to blame a Basque group even though it was clear that it was Al Queda. They lost all credibility with voters then.