Terrorists hit London -- Bombs in Underground and a Bus

[Lanesra]

Originally posted by shamrock_uk: Lol, good site! In a marked contrast to the attitude of most Londoners, the Bush admin has forbidden all American servicemen to visit London or venture inside the M25. The ban lasts indefinitely.

It wasn't Bush or his administration, it was a local commander, hopefully this arsehole will get his come-uppance. The USAAF are standing shoulder to shoulder with us - albeit at a distance of 90 miles!!!

A small victory for the terrorists though.

[Aragorn1]

UPDATE: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4676577.stm

Arrests made in raids on homes in Leeds and explosive filed car found (left by the bombers).

It is now beleived that at least some were suicide bombers.

Just been listening to the news, and there was someone on talking about the opposition to the anti-terror laws and that the people who said the Government had exagerated the threat had been proved wrong. I don't think this is the case. THe majority said the measures were an over-reaction given the level of threat and despite recent events i still beleive this to be the case. Increased phone and e-mail monitoring, ID cards and detainment orders remain a threat to civil liberties and i don't beleive that the curbing of freedom is worth the extra security, which may after all prove fruitless. What price security if there is no freedom to protect? These measures are a move too far towards a police state and open to rampant abuse by a Government, whomsoever they may be.

[ 07-12-2005, 06:21 PM: Message edited by: Aragorn1 ]

[Memnoch]

From the Sydney Morning Herald today:

--------------
Teenage British 'suicide bomber' named
July 13, 2005 - 1:12PM


A British teenager and his friend - the 22-year-old son of Yorkshire fish and chip shop owners - have been named as two of four suspected London suicide bombers.

The Times newspaper named two of the dead suspected bombers as Hasib Hussein, 19, and Shehzad Tanweer, 22, Britons of Pakistani origin who lived in Leeds. The two other bombers, whom it did not name, had similar backgrounds, the paper said.

The Daily Mail said that Hussein carried the bomb that exploded on a packed double-decker bus in central London, while Tanweer detonated a device on the London Underground near Edgware Road station, to the west of the city.

The paper named 30-year-old father of one Mohammed Sadique Khan, also from Leeds, as having been responsible for another subway blast near Aldgate station, just east of the city centre.

The Independent newspaper, however, identified another man, Eliaz Fiaz, 30, from Dewsbury, a town near Leeds, as carrying out the Edgware Road attack.

All the British media reports, which cited a variety of intelligence and police sources, said that the bombers travelled to London together by commuter train from Luton, a town just north of the capital, having arrived there in rented cars.

British police said four men from the north of England probably planted the bombs and all may have died in the explosions.

A fifth man, believed to be involved in the attacks, was arrested during the West Yorkshire raids and more arrests are expected.

The police announcement that they had identified the bombers was a stunning development after explosions rocked London, killing at least 52 people and wounding 700 last Thursday.


According to the Times report, which cited a variety of unnamed intelligence and police sources, Hussein and Tanweer and the other bombers travelled to London by commuter train from Luton, a town just north of the capital.

During Tuesday, police sealed off the train station in Luton and carried out controlled explosions on a car with suspected links to the attacks. Explosives were later found in the car, The Times reported.

The men separated at Kings Cross station in the centre of the British capital before launching their attacks in Thursday morning's rush hour. Three of the attacks were virtually simultaneous.

The police breakthrough came when Hussein, who had told his parents he was going to visit friends in London, failed to answer his mobile phone during Thursday, and his family alerted police, the report said.

Investigators picking through the devastated bus found a body wearing clothes similar to those Hussein was last seen in, and noticed that he appeared to have been very close to the blast, prompting suspicions he might have been the bomber.

Told to look out for someone of Hussein's description on security camera footage from Kings Cross, other investigators saw him inside the station with three other young men, all carrying rucksacks.

The suspected bombers' bodies were identified by driving licences and credit cards that survived the blasts, the paper said.

Citing intelligence sources, The Times said that at least two of the men had just returned from Pakistan, but none were on the files of security services.

The paper said Hussein had gone "a bit wild" as a younger teenager, but had became devoutly religious about 18 months ago.

Tanweer, whose family run a fish and chip shop in a suburb of Leeds, was a good student who played cricket for a local team, friends told the newspaper.

"He was a sweet guy who gets on with everybody," Mohamed Ansaar Riaz, 19, a friend of Tanweer said.

"The idea of him going down to London to explode a bomb is unbelievable; it is not in his nature to do something like that.

"He is the kind of guy who would always condemn extremism, like any good Muslim should."
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke of Scotland Yard's Anti Terrorist Branch.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke of Scotland Yard's Anti Terrorist Branch.
Photo:AP

Police are trying to determine whether the four received help in planning the bombings from people outside Britain.

"Early on, the investigation led us to have concerns about the movement and activities of four men, three of whom came from the West Yorkshire area," said Peter Clarke, the deputy assistant commissioner for anti-terror for London's Metropolitan Police.

"We are trying to establish their movements in the run-up to last week's attacks, and, specifically, to establish if they all died in the explosions."

Police had been largely silent about the investigation, leading to concerns that the bombers had escaped and might be planning more attacks.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Clarke declined to say who else might have been involved in the attacks.

But terrorism experts not involved in the investigation said it seemed clear that the four men had help.

One expert, Magnus Ranstorp, the director of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Police Violence at the University of St Andrews, in Edinburgh, Scotland, noted that police believed the bombs were made of military-grade explosives.

"Military explosives are not that easy to get a hold of [in Britain]," he said.

Police suggested yesterday that their first leads to the bombers' identities came when the family of one of the men reported him missing.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Clarke declined to provide details about the individual, but British news reports identified him as a British national of Pakistani descent in his early 20s.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Clarke said rescue workers found documents of the missing man aboard the bus, where survivors had described a young, olive-skinned man acting very nervously and fiddling with a package just prior to the explosion.

Police later determined that the man had travelled by train from Leeds on Thursday morning and was joined by the other three during the trip.

Police didn't say if all the men rode from Leeds, but yesterday afternoon they found a car that they said was connected to the attacks in the parking lot of the rail station at Luton.

Promotional materials describe Leeds as an affluent, lively metropolis of 700,000, half-way between London and Edinburgh. But in recent years, the area has become known for the growth of radical Islam.

The Jerusalem Post reported in 2003 that radical Muslims in Leeds were recruiting university students and harassing Jews.

Others said that the group al-Muhajiroun, whose members in the past have praised the September 11, 2001, terrorists, were recruiting near Leeds.

Still other media reports have talked about the growth of Taliban support in West Yorkshire and how groups of masked young men have burned cars and attacked motorists.

Police, however, were quick to discourage assigning blame to the area's Muslim population.

"The work last Thursday is that of extremists and criminals," Assistant Police Commissioner Andy Hayman said. "So, that being the case, no one should smear or stigmatise any community with these acts."

AP/AFP
Source: www.smh.com.au
---------------

Geez the Pommies work bloody fast when they need to eh. Amazing to have come up with all this in such a short span of time.

[Timber Loftis]

The paper said Hussein had gone "a bit wild" as a younger teenager, but had became devoutly religious about 18 months ago.

There's a lesson here folks. If it comes to choosing between having your kids be druggies or religion-nuts, go for the lesser of two evils.

[Morgeruat]

from Memnochs article: One expert, Magnus Ranstorp, the director of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Police Violence at the University of St Andrews, in Edinburgh, Scotland, noted that police believed the bombs were made of military-grade explosives. "Military explosives are not that easy to get a hold of [in Britain]," he said.

Origin of the explosives?

http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/

[ 07-13-2005, 02:18 PM: Message edited by: Morgeruat ]

[Morgeruat]

The Financial Times reports that the explosives in the London bombings were almost certainly military TNT from Eastern Europe. It quotes a leading UK British explosives expert who said that the force and nature of the London explosions "suggest that the perpetrators acquired either military or high-quality commercial explosives, possibly from eastern Europe".

The most dramatic events of the day unfolded in the Hyde Park Road area of Burley, says The Independent, where a convoy of police vehicles arrived at around 11.30am and 500 houses were evacuated as police carried out a series of controlled explosions. Police discovered what a senior source described as a bomb factory, with high explosives thought to have been used in the suicide attacks.

The Independent says the four young Asian men carrying rucksacks last Thursday would have attracted few second glances from rush-hour commuters at King's Cross station. "They looked as if they were off on a walking holiday," a senior security source said. The friends, only three of which have yet been identified, had travelled from Leeds that morning and are believed to have picked up the mobile bombs from a house in the Burley district of Leeds. The gang is then thought to have made their way to London in two or three hire cars.

[wellard]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: quote: The paper said Hussein had gone "a bit wild" as a younger teenager, but had became devoutly religious about 18 months ago.

There's a lesson here folks. If it comes to choosing between having your kids be druggies or religion-nuts, go for the lesser of two evils. [/QUOTE]Timber that was a classic! You will never know how much this cracked me up. Thankyou for bringing a laugh into a very sad subject. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

[Timber Loftis]

Thanks, Well'ard.

Geez the Pommies work bloody fast when they need to eh. Amazing to have come up with all this in such a short span of time.

No shi'ite. Maybe they can help us sort out this whole "Where's Bin Laden?" thing when they have a spare 10 minutes. We can't find Elvis, we can't find Waldo, it's no wonder we can't find a 6 and a half foot tall bearded terrorist carrying an AK and surrounded by hooded loyalists videotaping his every move. Actually, I think I may have just described half the gansta rappers in trendy LA and NY clubs on a given Saturday night.

Now, onto more serious ways to rattle the cage. Blair and every other Britt Politico is wasting lots of lip-flapping on telling everyone not to take out any anger (Side topic: do Brits get angry, or do they just reserve themselves to being miffed?) on the Islam population in the UK.

Why so much effort to repeat this mantra? Simple -- it takes lots of repetitive chanting to overcome the very reasonable, logical and sensible conclusion that it is the Muslim population INSIDE Brittain that poses the greatest threat to the islands. Doh! Yep, I said it.

[Memnoch]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: Now, onto more serious ways to rattle the cage. Blair and every other Britt Politico is wasting lots of lip-flapping on telling everyone not to take out any anger (Side topic: do Brits get angry, or do they just reserve themselves to being miffed?) on the Islam population in the UK.

Does this qualify as anger?

July 14, 2005 . Fears of backlash in Scotland as boy and mosque attacked By Shirley English . POLICE patrols have been stepped up around mosques and Muslim communities in Scotland amid fears of a racist backlash in the wake of the London bombings. . The greater police visibility in Edinburgh follows an unprovoked attack on a teenage Asian boy, who was beaten up on a busy street in broad daylight by a white skinhead who shouted racist abuse. . The 16-year-old boy, who has not been named, was with an 11-year-old friend on Leith Walk when the man began shouting at them at about 2pm on Tuesday. The man then punched the older boy repeatedly, knocking him to the ground, before running off when an elderly Asian man intervened. . The teenager was taken to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary with a suspected fractured cheekbone, bruising and cuts. Police are appealing for witnesses. . The assault follows attacks on the Shah Jalal Mosque in the city and a Pakistani community centre, both of which were defaced with racist graffiti last Thursday. Doors were daubed with the words “Islam Scum” and “This centre sympathises with terrorists”. . Source: www.timesonline.co.uk

July 13, 2005 . Nine held over race killing . Muslim leaders appealed for calm yesterday amid fears that the murder of an Asian man was a backlash attack after the bombings. Nine men were being questioned by police over the attack on Kamal Raza Butt, 48, a Pakistani citizen, as he left a corner shop in Nottingham. . Police would not disclose how the man, who had been staying in the city with friends, was killed but local sources said he had been punched unconscious after leaving Carol’s Cabin corner shop, in the Meadows area of the city on Sunday. . He was pronounced dead at the Queen’s Medical Centre after being found at 4.30pm by paramedics. . Source: www.timesonline.co.uk

[Lanesra]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: Thanks, Well'ard. quote: Geez the Pommies work bloody fast when they need to eh. Amazing to have come up with all this in such a short span of time.

No shi'ite. Maybe they can help us sort out this whole "Where's Bin Laden?" thing when they have a spare 10 minutes. We can't find Elvis, we can't find Waldo, it's no wonder we can't find a 6 and a half foot tall bearded terrorist carrying an AK and surrounded by hooded loyalists videotaping his every move. Actually, I think I may have just described half the gansta rappers in trendy LA and NY clubs on a given Saturday night.

Now, onto more serious ways to rattle the cage. Blair and every other Britt Politico is wasting lots of lip-flapping on telling everyone not to take out any anger (Side topic: do Brits get angry, or do they just reserve themselves to being miffed?) on the Islam population in the UK.

Why so much effort to repeat this mantra? Simple -- it takes lots of repetitive chanting to overcome the very reasonable, logical and sensible conclusion that it is the Muslim population INSIDE Brittain that poses the greatest threat to the islands. Doh! Yep, I said it. [/QUOTE]On the contrary - it is the Muslim population inside Britain that offers us the best chance of defeating the terrorists.

You really don't understand us at all TL. That's okay though - no reason why you need to.

BTW - glad to see you retain the double T!