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.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.