London Bomb Plot Looks Like Al Qaeda Operation
There are reportedly stylistic fingerprints all over the operation involving the discovered bomb plot in London — and all signs (and a surveillance photo) point to an Al Qaeda operation, ABC News reports:
Al Qaeda’s mantra, “If at first you don’t succeed, try again,” appears, according to officials, to be behind today’s foiled car bomb plot in London with the same kind of bombs aimed at the same kind of targets by, officials say, apparently some of the same kind of people.
British authorities tell ABC News a “crystal clear” surveillance photo of the driver of the silver Mercedes, discovered early Friday morning, bears “a close resemblance” to one of the associates of an al Qaeda operative now behind bars.
If so, it would also fit an Al Qaeda pattern: lots of patience. It’s an organization that will carefully plan its operations and bide its time as to when to strike. MORE:
Officials say a surveillance camera caught the suspect “staggering from the Mercedes” shortly after parking it outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub in Piccadilly Circus at the heart of London’s nightclub and theater district.
Last year, al Qaeda operative Dhiren Barot was convicted by a British court for a plot to use limousines to carry similar bombs as those defused today to similar targets as the nightclubs allegedly targeted today.
In his own personal manual, Barot described how the cylinders, “if carefully orchestrated can be as powerful as exploding TNT,” and “are easily available to the general public,” designed for a “synchronized, concurrent (back-to-back) execution on the same day and time.”
More details will surely follow. Underlying question: what other operations are pending — and where are they pending? Hopefully the outcome for those will be as positive as in this one…discovered before they’re carried out.
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5 Responses to “London Bomb Plot Looks Like Al Qaeda Operation”
*Sigh* Well, I guess I won’t be able to take that canister of propane in my carry-on next time.
Seriously. I’d like to weigh in on a couple of things here.
First, do you think that this will lead to the UK or the US thinking about banning portable propane tanks? Considering the fact that it is illegal in Texas to privately purchase an Erlenmeyer flask, shouldn’t the government also ban cylinders “as powerful as exploding TNT†for RVs?
But perhaps even more unsettling is the absolute nonchalance about the fact that these people were under surveillance the whole time. Had the bombs exploded, the victims would have still been dead. Remember, almost every corner of London is under an almost Orwellian survellance, people will cheer the fact that it might help find the people who wanted to do this. Forgotten will be the fact that it wouldn’t have prevented it.
The only reason this plot got foiled was because of dumb luck – not investigative action. If there hadn’t have been a number of really appropriate reactions by people on the scene, I’m sure yesterday would have had much different headlines.
I don’t consider this a classic success. It simply shows the fact that it is impossible to really stop these kinds of attacks if the terrorists are even minorly intelligent; the car was full of smoke for goodness sake. This plot was discovered before it happened not due to intelligence operations, wiretaps or the 140,000 CCTV cameras installed in London. It was discovered because the right people were on the right place and reacted to an evolving situation correctly.
I cry uncle, as I said in a previous post you need an oxidizer to make explosives, from every report I’ve seen the total lack of such a element is sure a sign that these bombers were not well trained or prepared. Insidently the smoke in the car is a sign that they didn’t have any. If these guys were al Qaeda then at least their training sucks.
I’ll hold off on judging whether or not it was al queda. Britain has had multiple terrorist acts committed by home-grown Islamic extremists, and usually al queda takes credit for their plots. Not sure if they will this time, since it was foiled before the bombs could go off.
I think we’re far to willing to ascribe any incident to an entity rather than to the worldwide anti-Western hate-culture. These people have the same access to the internet and to information about explosives, ignitors and bomb making techniques. They get CNN and they read newspapers.
All that which glisters is not gold nor is everything that smells kinda Qaeda made in Afghanistan. I agree that the odds favor local talent. It was badly bungled, after all.
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