War against terror

[Fork122 0]

A hoax or an failed attempt?

I think it was just an attempt to scare the people of London.

Quote[/b] ]London Underground went to an amber alert with trains taken to the next station and evacuated.

What is an "Amber Alert" in Britian. Here in the US it means a child has been abducted...

[Garcia 0]

Yea, Norwegian telly said the same just now...and they also said that the police thought it were the detonators who failed to blow the main charge...so, sounds like a failed attempt...that's maybe why there also was gunfire...since the terrorist escaped

[denoir 0]

A hoax or an failed attempt?

I think it was just an attempt to scare the people of London.

If they were the real thing, it would have not cost them anything extra to actually kill people. So I'm thinking that either it's a third party exploiting the previous attacks to scare people, or something went wrong with the explosives.

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]London Underground went to an amber alert with trains taken to the next station and evacuated.

What is an "Amber Alert" in Britian.  Here in the US it means a child has been abducted...

Amber alert in the London tube means that they shut the whole system down and evacuate all the people.

There are some reports of a "major incident", an explosion at a hospital

Quote[/b] ]LONDON, July 21 (Reuters) - Armed police entered a hospital

near Warren Street underground station in central London on

Thursday and police immediately cordoned off the building.

"Three armed policemen just ran into the major incident area

entrance of University College Hospital," Reuters correspondent

Gerard Wynn said from the scene.

"The hospital has now been cordoned off," he added.

Earlier, emergency services rushed to three underground

stations after reports of explosions.

I hope it's nothing serious.

They have also police units in full NBC gear checking the blast sites in case it was a question of a biological or chemical agent that got dispersed rather than conventional explosives. Just a precaution, I'm sure.

[Fork122 0]

Yea, Norwegian telly said the same just now...and they also said that the police thought it were the detonators who failed to blow the main charge...so, sounds like a failed attempt...that's maybe why there also was gunfire...since the terrorist escaped

Did they say who was shooting? I wonder if the terrorist was firing or if it was a police officer.

It sounds like they had somebody hiding in some hospital, CNN Headline News was saying armed police were entering the hospital.

[Pathy 0]

Edit: Lol beaten. Thatll teach me for reading it all the way through and then clicking the side links while you lot get on with it

Twats only used detonators.

Dunno if its a bunch of incompitant copy catters or someone trying to shit people up.

Reports say one person injured, believed to be the person who set the detonator off on the bus.

Hope he blew his hands off

[Garcia 0]

Yea, Norwegian telly said the same just now...and they also said that the police thought it were the detonators who failed to blow the main charge...so, sounds like a failed attempt...that's maybe why there also was gunfire...since the terrorist escaped

Did they say who was shooting?  I wonder if the terrorist was firing or if it was a police officer.

It sounds like they had somebody hiding in some hospital, CNN Headline News was saying armed police were entering the hospital.

nah, only that shots were fired...Though, I would think it was the bad guy, as it would be risky for the police to fire, cause they would maybe hit civilians (I guess the tube stations are full of people).

[denoir 0]

Dunno if its a bunch of incompitant copy catters or someone trying to shit people up.

Reports say one person injured, believed to be the person who set the detonator off on the bus.

Hope he blew his hands off

Yeah, if this really was an attempted terrorist attack, there's a good chance this will go down in history as one of the pathetic attempts at one. Killing 50 people in the London tube, which millions use every day was not exactly an impressive feat.. but this certainly takes the price.

It does however again raise the question of vulnerability of public transport. You can't count on all the people who wish to do harm to be this incompetent. In short term they need to either make sure that getting explosives is impossible, or introduce some form of security measures to prevent people carrying explosives to get inside stations and buses. It's really not a trivial task.

Anyway, police have confirmed no chemical agents at Oval, so it appears that a chemical attack can be ruled out.

Edit: BBC says that the nailbombs were "dummies" - not real. This of course makes a stronger case for the hoax theory.

[Panda-PL- 0]

Quote[/b] ]Hope he blew his hands off

Hope it didn't. Dead people aren't really talkative.

If they catch live ones that'll be a great success.

@Ares: he'd bleed to death. Esspecially if he was running away.

[Ares1978 0]

He's not going to die from blowing his hands off.  

Nevertheless, I think it's just a group of idiots trying to prove a point.

[Bernadotte 0]

A hoax or an failed attempt?

Anyone who thinks an attempt has to kill to succeed doesn't understand how terrorism really works. Even if the people present in those stations did not feel terrorised the insurance companies underwriting business disruption surely do.

[orson 0]

Whitneses report that a man , ran onto the tube ... droped or threw his bag down and ran out again , some tried to stop him but he escaped .

 If it is some yahoos exploiting the mess of last time , then they should be treated the same as terrorists , even if all they did was break windows and scare people , they still had the possibility of carrying out a far larger attack .

 If it turns out to be the second wave of attackers then it may be down to incompetence or lack of motivation at a crucial time for the individuals involved .

London is no stranger to bombings , the IRA carried out some horrific attacks during the mainland campaign over a 4 year period .

[denoir 0]

A hoax or an failed attempt?

Anyone who thinks an attempt has to kill to succeed doesn't understand how terrorism really works.  Even if the people present in those stations did not feel terrorised the insurance companies underwriting business disruption surely do.

On the contrary, if you think that attempt doesn't have to kill, then you do not understand the basic psychology of violence, terrorism included.

People were scared now because the last time around killed people. Next time, they'll be less scared because of this failure (or hoax). Now they know that when something explodes and the tube gets evacuated, it isn't necessarily serious. For any type of terrorism to work, a credible threat of violence must exist. Without it, it's impotent.

Did America panic after the first world trade center attempt? Or was there a significant reaction first after lots of people were killed?

Sure this thing was a disruption to transport and communications. It affected the stock market and the value of the stirling pound. It's not however because of what happened today, but because of what happened two weeks ago. Thanks to what happened today, the next time an incident happens, people won't directly assume the worst. The credibility of the threat of violence is signficantly weaker today than it was yesterday.

[Bernadotte 0]

If I were a terrorist I would spend thousands of dollars buying up cheap hardware store smoke detectors.  Hell, I'd even steal them from public restrooms and where ever they are easily available.  Then I'd force open the tiny Americium-241 container from each detector with vice-grips.  I'd gathering all the impregnated pieces of resin and mix it in with the high explosive of my bomb.

Americium-241 emits ~85% alpha particles and ~8% gamma radiation with a 400 year half-life.  The authorities will easily be able to detect radioactive contamination long long after the explosion.

The interesting part is that nobody has to die and nobody probably ever would die from such low residual radiation.  But the public would refuse to see the shades of gray.  For the public, the affected area would either be hot or not.  And for someplace like a transit system that lives off of public patronage such a bombing would be a disaster.

[Bernadotte 0]

On the contrary, if you think that attempt doesn't have to kill, then you do not understand the basic psychology of violence, terrorism included.

Try and tell that to the people who were thrown in prison for sending small quantities of flour and baking soda through the mail in late 2001.

[Sophion-Black 0]

This is getting old, those Bass words have to be stopped. i say bomb the snit out of everything labled terrorist (with resonable doubt).

hopefully it wasn't some dumba$$ that thought this was cool and did it.

[denoir 0]

The interesting part is that nobody has to die and nobody probably ever would die from such low residual radiation.  But the public would refuse to see the shades of gray.  For the public, the affected area would either be hot or not.  And for someplace like a transit system that lives off of public patronage such a bombing would be a disaster.

There would be panic at first, because of the bad connotation that the term "radioactive" has. But it would subside after people would be told over and over again that it's not dangerous. And the next time somebody would use a "dirty" bomb, people wouldn't be at all that scared.

You can scare people by crying wolf, because people have been taught that wolves are bad. But if you do it repeatedly, without ever producing a wolf, people won't be scared any more. To have a successful terrorist campaign, you need to have credibility that you can back up with violence. De facto, you need an escalating campaign of violence to keep people scared.

Fear works on the basis of perceived danger - not necessarily actual danger. This latest attack lowered that perceived danger. Thanks to the previous bombings, people were scared this time, but thanks to these bombings people will be less scared the time after that.

Quote[/b] ]Try and tell that to the people who were thrown in prison for sending small quantities of flour and baking soda through the mail in late 2001.

Well, you can get away with scaring people with that once or at best a few times, but do it often enough and people won't care. It's the same as yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre.

And AFIK, the people who were sending flour and baking soda weren't thrown in jail for terrorism.

[Bernadotte 0]

Well, you can get away with scaring people with that once or at best a few times, but do it often enough and people won't care.

Well, first have a look at a tale I posted a week ago...

...my first night ever in London was disturbed by an IRA bomb exploding down the street in a rubbish bin.  The next day, I found myself unable to carry two heavy suitcases up the stairs out of an old underground station so I made 2 trips.  In the 90 seconds it took me to go back for the second suitcase a small aggitated crowd had gathered around it.  Post all the WereNotAfraid websites you like, but this is the real cost of living with terrorism.

Did my unattended bag cause a moment of terror?  Yes.

Am I a terrorist?  No.

Do you honestly believe my unattended bag was the only one or at best, one of a few unattended-bag-scares that occurred that week?  ...that day?  ...that hour?  I suspect that the ratio of unattended-bag-scares to actual bombs is far higher than "just a few."

[Bernadotte 0]

You can scare people by crying wolf, because people have been taught that wolves are bad. But if you do it repeatedly, without ever producing a wolf, people won't be scared any more.

Yes... obviously.  Who said there would never be a wolf?

[Panda-PL- 0]

I suspect that the ratio of unattended-bag-scares to actual bombs is far higher than "just a few."

Statistics say that since the first attack there's been around 100 suspicious objects reported to the police in London.

Seems like people are still careless with their baggage. It just happens.

Some other people, however, are now much more aware of the danger and so the bags and suitcases are being reported to the police instead, for example, to the hotel employees.

[hellfish6 7]

Not to speculate unnecessarily, but I will:

Has anyone considered that the bombs weren't bombs at all, but rather chemical or biological weapon dispersers? I mean, you only need a small explosive charge to disperse a toxin (like artillery shells).

Of course I'm sure they've tested for such an occurrence, but is it possible that there are agents that can't easily be detected? You've got all those dozens (hundreds) of people who have potentially been exposed to a toxin - has there been any consideration about testing all of them first?

[Pathy 0]

Thats why there were men in chem suits inspecting the bomb remains, they found nothing apparently.

[Badgerboy 0]

No signs of NCB weapons. However, it seems the bombs were the same design and composititon as the weapons used 2 weeks ago, a acetate compound.

THankfully, someone seemed to have dropped the ball on this one, and they all failed to detonate. Seems the bombers legged it in fear once the realised they were not going to Allah, and didn't want to get torn to pieces by angry londoners.

Good new out of this is that no-one died, and possibly the only casualty was a bomber blowing his hand off with a half arsed attempt at a bomb. The police now also have a stack of forensic evidence to play with.

Feel sorry for that guy walking near Downing street with a rucksack on his back. Lots of agitated armed police men shouting and pointing guns at you can't be fun.

[Bernadotte 0]

The interesting part is that nobody has to die and nobody probably ever would die from such low residual radiation.  But the public would refuse to see the shades of gray.  For the public, the affected area would either be hot or not.  And for someplace like a transit system that lives off of public patronage such a bombing would be a disaster.

There would be panic at first, because of the bad connotation that the term "radioactive" has. But it would subside after people would be told over and over again that it's not dangerous.

But saying that it's not dangerous would not be absolutely true.  It's a gray area and the threat level would remain elevated in the affected area for a very very long time.  And anyone in the affect area would undeniably be increasing their risk of getting cancer, although by a very small amount.

And just look at the nuclear energy industry.  Haven't the authorities been telling the public "over and over again that it's not dangerous" for decades?  Even with all the evidence proving that nuclear plants are far less dangerous than the coal plants they are replacing the public remains deeply sceptical.

[denoir 0]

But saying that it's not dangerous would not be absolutely true.  It's a gray area and the threat level would remain elevated in the affected area for a very very long time.  And anyone in the affect area would undeniably be increasing their risk of getting cancer, although by a very small amount.

Well, had it remained contaminated yes, but it would surely be cleaned up. There's nothing magic about Americium, you can scrub it off, just like any other chemical compound. In the worst case they would have to remove a bit of the walls on the contaminated sections. Sure, it would be expensive and would create traffic problems for a while, but in the end, people would fear dirty bombs less when they in practice saw that nobody died.

Plus the authorities could point out that those of us who live in Stockholm are exposed to much higher levels of radiation in our radium filled tunnels.

Quote[/b] ]And just look at the nuclear energy industry. Haven't the authorities been telling the public "over and over again that it's not dangerous" for decades? Even with all the evidence proving that nuclear plants are far less dangerous than the coal plants they are replacing the public remains deeply sceptical.

Sure they're sceptical, but in practice it means nothing. Plants aren't being dismantled. I think that the current objections against nuclear plants are that they are ecologically unsound (burying the crap under ground for 10,000+ years isn't exactly the model for "sustainable development"), rather than that they pose an imminent danger to human health.

Sweden is supposed to be nuclear-free by 2010 (decided in a referendum in 1980). Yeah, right, that's going to happen.. not.

Anyway, from what we know now it seems like this indeed was a failed attempt as the would-be terrorists were packing some heavy-duty explosives, that failed to explode.

I think that the really big question at this stage is how can one prevent this happening again two weeks from now? I don't think we can count on them messing up the wiring on the explosives twice. Hopefully the police will be able to get some suspects - but there's the real possibility that these two attacks weren't ordered by a centralized organization.

But yeah, in a way this attack does make London more unsafe - especially since it now seems like it was only a technical glitch that prevented people from getting killed. More than one attack opens up the possibility that this will be happening on a regular basis..

[Bernadotte 0]

Plus the authorities could point out that those of us who live in Stockholm are exposed to much higher levels of radiation in our radium filled tunnels.  

All you try to achive is get me not to publicly accuse nuclear energy of all the evil in the word.