French retaliation…?
I’m speaking with a friend now who is in an office five minutes away from the one station. Everybody in her building is convinced that it is a terrorist attack, and she’s arguing with me now trying to tell her it’s not. Apparently people are completely panicked now. Friends who were on the train at the time have been phoning them saying that the train drivers were screaming “Terrorist attack, get off.” etc.
[quote]A bus was ripped apart in an explosion in central London, an eyewitness told news agency PA, and there were reports of at least one fatality.
PA also quoted Union officials as saying sources had told them there had been at least one explosive device on the Underground. [/quote]
BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4659093.stm
Explosions at six stations and aboard one bus? Terrorism is certainly possible, if not likely. And the power company says there was no surge.
Yeah, the power surge thing sounds like a bit of spin-doctoring to stop people from panicking, if you ask me.
BBC:
[quote]Scotland Yard confirmed the bus explosion and said it was dealing with “multiple explosions” in London.
A second bus was reported to have been damaged in Tavistock Square. [/quote]
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4659093.stm
That’s no power surge. I think we’re talking Al Qaeda here.
7-7 ='s 9-11?
[quote=“Dragonbones”]
That’s no power surge. I think we’re talking Al Qaeda here.[/quote] IRA seems a more likely possibility to me.
[quote=“Matchstick_man”][quote=“Dragonbones”]
That’s no power surge. I think we’re talking Al Qaeda here.[/quote] IRA seems a more likely possibility to me.[/quote]
I don’t think the IRA is secure enough anymore to mount an operation on that scale.
Agree …the needed coordination is just not available to the various “IRA”-types since the Omargh bombing.
Do they have such large-scale, coordinated attacks? And do they currently have motivation for such an attack? I’ll leave the answers to those better informed, but my own assumptions on these two points are what led me to mention Al Qaeda.
Guess someone isn’t happy about the olympics in 2012.
timesonline.co.uk/article/0, … 90,00.html
London Times is calling it first I guess:
[quote]A series of bomb blasts that appeared to be a co-ordinated terrorist attack hit London’s transport network today forcing police to close mainline stations and the entire underground system and causing dozens of injuries.
There were no confirmed reports of fatalities from three blasts on the Tube and a series of bomb attacks on London buses, but shaken commuters reported seeing bodies on a tube train at Aldgate and City of London police said it had unconfirmed reports of two deaths.
Transport union sources said three London buses had been hit by bomb blasts - including a double decker at Tavistock Square.
The blasts coincide with the first full day of the G8 summit in Gleneagles and come just one day after London won the right to host the 2012 Olymic Games. The number of near-simultaneous explosions bore the hallmarks of an al-Qaeda attack similar to the one that hit the Madrid railway network in March 2003.[/quote]
This sucks.
Modern “warfare” is indeed scary. The “enemy” is just a faceless blob. Things must have been so much more simple when you could just send the men out to stick swords in each other on some distant hill. Now it’s all around us, it could strike at any time, and even a so-called “War on Terror” that cost lives, money and loss of morale had obviously little effect in preventing attacks like those of today.
SPIEGEL Online reports Al-Qaida claims responsibility for the attacks through a website (authenticity unconfirmed).
All I can think of is: what is “they” had the bomb? G-8 close by; hated Israelis close by; another western center city…
There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that “they” would use it.
Is everyone going to get a bit more serious NOW? Or am I still be paranoid?
NYC
Washington DC
Pennsylvania
Bali
Madrid
Russia (the school)
Iraq, again and again and again
London
Did I miss some? This makes me sick. :fume:
I only noticed this about 30 minutes ago. There’s a lot going through my mind, including the friends I have in London.
One of the scary things that just popped into my mind was, what is going to be the backlash (in the UK) against those that have been purported to support groups like al-Qaeda, or in fact just look like they are from the Middle East…
Perhaps, that hook bloke might finally get booted out for inciting stuff like this!
[quote=“Roach”]I only noticed this about 30 minutes ago. There’s a lot going through my mind, including the friends I have in London.
One of the scary things that just popped into my mind was, what is going to be the backlash (in the UK) against those that have been purported to support groups like al-Qaeda, or in fact just look like they are from the Middle East…
Perhaps, that hook bloke might finally get booted out for inciting stuff like this![/quote]
You know roach, the very same thought went through my mind after the NYC attacks. And you know what happened? Pretty much nothing in a country of 280 million. A couple of drunk idiots shooting at “middle eastern looking people.” As boneheaded as they were, those kinds of attacks were so few and far between, that it made me very very proud of Joe Blow average American.
I doubt that any large scale sweeping anti-“Muslim looking” violence will occur in your land.
Touch wood.
I may be the first to say it here…you Brits are, despite your awful taste for fried foods and for creating the Teletubbies, a thoughtful, reasonable and peaceful minded sort, not prone to form mobs.
Peace and hope your family and friends are safe and well.
jd sufferswithyou
Roach,
I think the british have less of a propensity for racism than the Americans do. So while there may be some backlash to the middle eastern residents, I doubt it will be as intense as it was in the US.
You gotta remember that we’ve got the experience of the IRA and the terrorist acts that they’ve instigated against mainland Britian…
In terms of deaths, I’m not sure how today compares with IRA terrorism in the UK. However there have been many attacks and many, many deaths due to torrorism before today.
I could start getting angsty about how Americans supported the IRA and thier terrorist activities. But I wont.
jdsmith,
You must have been far away from me. We had an upsurgence of hate crimes in backwoods Texas. I was in South Texas at the time in a little town called San Marcos and while San Marcos had little crimes, the smaller towns near by had many. And many of the little convienience stores closed down.