July 21, 2005

ITS SNOW SUPRISE

I didn't put this snowmail up from 7/7:

When the blast finally came
================================

It has all the hall marks of a Madrid style attack, co-ordinated brutal
and targeting the very softest of targets. But politically
devastatingly timed as in Madrid were there was a general election pending within
three days - here it was the meeting of the G8 that clearly attracted
the terrorist attention. The victims were ordinary people going about
their ordinary business in an ordinary way, aboard ordinary trains and
ordinary buses.

The searing brutality of the bombs, four of them, destroyed a London
double-decker bus, and caused chaos aboard three tube trains. The force
of the bomb on the bus blew the roof, many feet in the air and horribly
injured many of those aboard. Those on the tube trains exploded first
at Aldgate East at 8.49 am followed by the other two at Moorgate and
Edgware Rd.

Those first two stations are at the epicentre of the City of London
which was immediately brought to a standstill. The other one was right
next to door to Paddington Green station, which is where terror suspects
are held and indeed where Guantanamo detainees were returned when they
were released earlier this year.

It's too early to know precisely who did this, but it does not feel
Saudi. Iraq as a cause cannot be ruled out, and North Africa as a base
seems more than probable - for it was from that quarter that the Madrid
bombers hailed. But these are early days, and the attack that had been
feared for so long and then which gradually seemed to recede as a threat
has come when we least, and should have most, expected.

----------------

You can tell that the newsreader does not suspect the cause could be homegrown jihadis. In two weeks we have moved to a situation where the Pakistani govt is accusing Britain of "Not doing enough to tackle Islamic extremism."

who would have thought it?

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