Devices go off in London again

Remove all ads!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4703777.stm

[ July 21, 2005, 15:37: Message edited by: Son of Bhaal ]

 

At least it looks very minor at the moment.

 

The wierd thing is there are no reported injuries... yet, and all the devices were small, rumours saying they were pipe bombs or nail bombs that were detonated by remote, doesnt sound right to me...

 

So far, it seems the only reported injury was to one of the bombers. From that, it follows that only detonators have gone off, not full devices. There's something going on at UCH, too; apparently 3 policemen with SMGs went in to A&E, which is odd because no casuaties have been taken there. Still, this looks much less serious than a fortnight ago, thankfully.

 

So 5 more bombs. Wonder if something freaked these bombers. Or were these somekind of sick hoax. Wonder who these idiots are.

 

Possibly the bombmaker(s) screwed up, and the detonators didn't set off the main explosives...

If that's the case, gotta be one heck of a mind**** for the people in those carriages...

 

looks like a copycat bombing to me, only these guys were untrained unlike the suicide bombers of 2 weeks ago. I mean for you bombs not to go off with the detonators... you gotto be pretty green.

 

I could accept that one bomb failed to explode but all of them? It seems to me that it was a kind of warning, a demonstration of power with a message like "no matter what security measures you're taking, we can strike whenever we want, wherever we want". I've just heard in the that Foxnews has claimed that the bombs were made by the same materials as bombs of the previous attack.

 

If something like BOC suggests is true, it is brilliant. You create fear with no chance of crossing the line of creating resolve.

Psychological warfare at its finest.

 

Terrorists with a conscience?

 

No, they seek place fear in people’s minds, but must be careful not to take too many lives. The terrorists learned a lesson from 9/11, and that if they kill too many people it is counterproductive, as instead of creating fear they create resolve and anger.

There are those who argue that it really isn't fear that they want, but really it is to create animosity between the infidels and all of the Islamic population, thus creating a true war of culture or religion from which one side will emerge dominant. If this were the case we would expect to see larger and larger attacks. Instead we have seen an increase in the number of attacks, (though it could be argued that the only real increase is in Iraq) of lesser severity (relative to 9/11).

This is a circumstantial argument at best, and it may well be the aim of Osama and his ilk intends to create a world culture war. However the actions of the current wave of terrorists are more subtle, and they appear to be attempting to spread mostly fear and discontent, not escalate this up to a full blown world war (which they cannot win IMO).

Today's attack provides them with the ability to say, "see, we can still get you, even with your heightened security", creating pure fear without thought of reprisal. Too many attacks made too quickly could induce the opposite reaction, a strong desire to go on the offensive and weather these attacks without giving in to despair.

I doubt there is a repeat of today's performance. They will either be more effective, or shift to a new target, whichever they think will be most effective.

 

There was a guy in Utah a few years ago who was sending bombs all over the place -- he got caught when one of his own toys blew up in his car -- with him in it!! Fooling around with explosives without proper training is dangerous business. All I hope is that no one else gets hurt.

 

Well, after the bombs of late in London even large firecrackers would be perfectly suitable to discupt traffic, to revive the uneasy fealing from after the bombings. In terms of spreading terror even smoke bombs would have worked.

See? Had we wanted, we could have placed real ones. Don't you forget that.

That's the message. In the end it doesn't really matter if they just ran out of explosives, screwed up building the devices or maybe even wanted low casualties - or whatever - they achieved their objective. Not even Al Quaeda kills for the sake of killing, they always aim on an objective.

Terror is not an end in itself but a means to an end.

 

There is talk in the news today that the bombs were either badly made, or they were intended to fully detonate when the emergency services arrives taking out police and paramedics, but I believe these were copy cat bombers with no real training what so ever and in my eyes you could almost point and laugh at their efforts.

One witness said they saw a bag thrown on to a train and everyone panicked, but when the bag made the sound of a champaign bottle everyone had no idea what had happened, it still caused people to run in fear so even though there was no threat and the passengers were aware of it, it still caused terror.

EIDT: it seems the hunt has begun already and one of the suspects has been shot down in a tube station:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4706787.stm

[ July 22, 2005, 12:17: Message edited by: Son of Bhaal ]

 

Beaten to it.

[ July 22, 2005, 14:58: Message edited by: Cúchulainn ]

 

Don't know if it is true or not, but heard on the news this morning that that law enforcement supervisors in London are countermanding long standing policies regarding the use of deadly force and telling their people to be much more aggressive if they believe that they are confronting a terrorist, to the point of shooting them if they are not instantly 100% compliant.

 

Sounds good to me, let them know we mean business! Pictures have already been issued by the police to help hunt down 4 more suspects in connection to the thusdays bombings.

 

Of course the major problem with shooting people who may be suicide bombers is they may still explode on you, also if you confront them and they are near lots of civilians they may take that opportunity to go out in what to them is a 'blaze of glory'. Even missing the explosives or detanator while eliminating the suspect is no guarantee the bomb won't go of once you factor in the possibilty of pressure switches, 'dead man' devices set to go off once the hearbeat is eliminated etc.

I imagine the Israeli's, to choose the obvious example, having had vast experience of this have developed strategies to cope with it. It would seem to me though that you would have to accept a risk of civilian casualties when dealing with such a situation and that there would be no guaranteed way to avoid them.

 

Just heard on the news this evening that one of the supposed bombers were shot five times in the head.

I tend to agree with Darkwolf on this one. Terrorists don't want another 9/11, because this would too trigger much more anger in the minds of civilians. The terrorists know that they would not win anything by angering the masses, thus triggering a uniting of the western people and countries. They would have a sh*t load of trouble on their hands if they woke up one morning and found out that entire, or most of Europe had agreed to 100% support the war against terror.
They are much better of spreading fear, and the

is a much more efficient tactic, and, imho, what they're aiming for.

 

I don't think they were aiming to show that our heightened security is not a foolproof guard (however much the media may like to try and assure us it is) or anything of a similar nature. Rather I think this was either a) a copycat attack by amateurs or b) an attack by people in a cell linked to the original group but much less well organised and planned.

One possibilty some people have pointed out is that the group from two weeks ago may have been trained or had their materials and bombs provide by a far more experienced operative who may now have departed the scene. If that was the case these people may now be attempting to put together bombs with limited knowledge and training. A parallel can be found in the Provisional IRA who spent quite a lot of time until they became skilled at bomb making blowing themselves up more often than their targets.