Terrorist blasts cripple London

[Tami]

Please feel free to post and discuss your thoughts--within the Cross Fire Guidelines of course.

[b]Terrorist Blasts Cripple London[/b]

By TERRY WEBER
Thursday, July 7, 2005 Updated at 8:58 AM EDT
Globe and Mail Update

Half a dozen explosions plunged central London into a state of chaos Thursday, killing at least two people, crippling the city\'s transit system and sending scores of people to hospital in what a shaken Prime Minister Tony Blair called a \"barbaric\" act of terrorism.

The co-ordinated blasts hit just before 9 a.m. local time and coincided with the first working day of the G8 summit in Scotland. The attacks came one day after the city beat out Paris as the host of the 2012 Olympic games.

Televised images from across London showed seemingly endless numbers ambulances and helicopters taking people to hospital. Images from an affect train shot on a cell phone showed broken train windows. People on the packed car appeared to remain relatively calm given the circumstances.

London\'s entire transit system was in a state of lockdown with buses and subway trains halted. Officials took to the airwaves warning residents to stay put.

Police say the casualties are numerous and would only confirm \"a number of fatalities.\" Although the scale of situation remained uncertain, police confirmed at least six explosions, three on city buses. Two people are confirmed dead.

Early reports linked the strikes to al-Qaeda, which five years earlier said it was responsible for the devastating attacks on the United States that forever changed the face of that nation.

A group calling itself \"The Secret Organization of al-Qaeda in Europe\" posted a statement of responsibility for the series of blasts in London, saying they were in retaliation for Britain\'s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The statement, which also threatened attacks in Italy and Denmark, was published on a Web site popular with Islamic extremists, according to Elaph, a secular Arabic-language news Web site, and Der Spiegel magazine in Berlin.

\"Rejoice, Islamic nation. Rejoice, Arab world. The time has come for vengeance against the Zionist crusader government of Britain in response to the massacres Britain committed in Iraq and Afghanistan,\" said the statement, translated by The Associated Press in Cairo.

A clearly shaken Mr. Blair, speaking live from Scotland where he was attending Thursday\'s G8 meeting, vowed a strong and united front in the face of attacks, the likes of which he said are all too common across the world.

\"Each of the countries around that table has some experience of the effects of terrorism and all the leaders, as they will indicate a little bit later, share our resolution to defeat this terrorism,\" he said.

\"It\'s particularly barbaric that this has happened on a day when people are meeting to try to help the problems of poverty in Africa, the long-term problems of climate change and the environment.\"

He also said the determination to defend the values of the free world are greater than those of extremists looking to impose their own views on others at the expense of innocent people.

\"Just as it is reasonably clear that this is a terrorist attack or a series of terrorist attacks, it\'s also reasonably clear that it is designed and aimed to coincide with the opening of the G8,\" Mr. Blair said.

\"Whatever they do it is our determination that they will never succeed in destroying what we hold dear in this country and other civilized nations throughout the world,\" Blair said.

Mr. Blair planned to return to London Thursday morning. He urged the remaining G8 members to continue their talks.

From Buckingham Palace, the Queen said she was \"deeply shocked\" by the attacks and sent her sympathy to those affected.

A joint statement issued by leaders from the G8 also condemned the attacks and vowed solidarity with those affected.

Swarms of ambulances congregated outside King\'s Cross subway station, where there was a rescue operation for people trapped on a train. There were reports of several possible deaths on that train.

\"There have been a number of dreadful incidents across London today,\" said Home Secretary Charles Clarke, Britain\'s top law enforcement officer. He said there were \"terrible injuries.\"

Sir Ian Blair, London\'s police chief, said he was concerned the explosions were a co-ordinated attack but said he wouldn\'t speculate on who was responsible. He said officials had found indications of explosives at one of the sites.

Bloodied and bandaged witnesses reported panicked crowds fleeing as the blast rained glass and other debris onto the street.

European Parliament President Josep Borrell blamed terrorism for what he called a series of \"barbaric attacks.\"

Italy\'s European commissioner, Franco Frattini, called the explosions a terrorist strike, the Apcom and ANSA news agencies reported. London\'s police chief said he was concerned they were a co-ordinated attack but he said he wouldn\'t speculate on who was responsible.

U.S. President George W. Bush, also in Scotland, told reporters he has also been in touch with Homeland Security officials in the United States and told them to be \"extra vigilant\" as people begin the work day in that country. He also commended the resolve of G8 leaders and chastised the group responsible for attack while nations work together on humanitarian issues like poverty and combatting the spread of AIDS.

\"The war on terror goes on,\" Mr. Bush said.

\"I was most impressed by the resolve of all of the leaders in the room. Their resolve is as strong as my resolve, and that is that we will not yield to these people.

\"We will not yield to the terrorists. We will find them. We will bring them to justice, and at the same time, we will spread an ideology of hope and compassion that will overwhelm their ideology of hate.\"

In London, one witness, Darren Hall, said some passengers emerging from an evacuated subway station had soot and blood on their faces. He told BBC TV that he was taken out along with others near the major King\'s Cross station and only afterward heard a blast.

Police confirmed an explosion destroyed a double-decker bus at Russell Square in central London and said they suspected a bomb caused the blast. Dow Jones Newswires reported that police said there were explosions on two others buses.

A witness at the Russell Square blast said the entire top deck of that bus was destroyed.

\"I was on the bus in front and heard an incredible bang, I turned round and half the double-decker bus was in the air,\" Belinda Seabrook told Press Association, the British news agency.

She said the bus was packed with people.

\"It was a massive explosion and there were papers and half a bus flying through the air,\" she said.

Police said incidents were reported at the Aldgate station near the Liverpool Street railway terminal, Edgware Road and King\'s Cross in north London, Old Street in the financial district and Russell Square in central London, near the British Museum.

London Ambulance Service said several vehicles had been dispatched to the area near Liverpool Street station.

\"We believe there was some sort of explosion. There are some walking wounded at Aldgate,\" said a spokesman for City of London police, speaking on condition of anonymity. \"We are not sure of the scale of the incident. Reports are still coming in.\"

Despite the timing of the attacks, Giselle Davies, spokeswoman for the International Olympic Committee, said the decision to hold the 2012 games in London remains unshaken.

\"From what we understand, this is not at all related to the Olympic Games,\" she said. \"We have full confidence in the London authorities in securing the event.\"

[b]Blair heads home from G8 summit[/b]

By CAMPBELL CLARK

Gleneagles, Scotland — British Prime Minister Tony Blair was preparing to leave a summit of G8 leaders in Scotland to return to London after a series of terrorist attacks rocked the British capital, leaving Canada\'s Paul Martin and others to continue a meeting now overshadowed by terror.

Mr. Martin expressed sympathy for the victims and said he had been in contact with his own national security adviser, William Elliott, in Ottawa.

”I certainly want to express my condolences of the families of those who died and certainly to those as well, to those who were hurt in what is happening. I have expressed the same emotions to Prime Minister Blair,” Mr. Martin said at a meeting with European Commission President Jose Manuel Baroso.

”I have been at touch with the national security adviser at home, my own national security adviser, Mr. Elliott. And obviously we are monitoring the situation and we are also in touch with the British officials.”

The G8 leaders, as well as other invited leaders including the heads of China, Brazil, and Mexico, stood behind Mr. Blair to issue a joint statement supporting Britain in its battle with terrorists. The G8 meetings were to continue throughout the day in the absence of their chairman, ”in the interests of a better world,” Mr. Blair said.

”It\'s particularly barbaric that this has happened on a day when people are meeting to try to help the problems of poverty in Africa, and the long-term problems of climate change and the environment,” Mr. Blair said in an earlier statement at the summit site at Gleneagles.

”Just as it is reasonably clear that this is a terrorist attack or a series of terrorist attacks, it\'s also reasonably clear that it is designed and aimed to coincide with the opening of the G8.”

He said all of the G8 countries have experience with terrorism and have expressed their shared resolve in fighting terrorism.

”There will be time to talk later about this. It\'s important, however, that those engaged in terrorism realize that our determination to defend our values and our way of life is greater than their determination to cause death and destruction to innocent people in a desire to impose extremism on the world.

\"Whatever they do, it is our determination that they will never succeed in destroying what we hold dear in this country and in other civilized nations throughout the world,” he said.

The attacks close down the London\'s subway, train, and bus system, although airports remained open.

At least two people were confirmed dead, and more than 100 reported injured.

[b]Islamic group says it carried out attacks[/b]

Cairo — A group calling itself “The Secret Organization of al-Qaida in Europe” has posted a statement of responsibility for the series of blasts in London, saying they were in retaliation for Britain\'s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The statement, which also threatened attacks in Italy and Denmark, was published on a Web site popular with Islamic extremists, according to Elaph, a secular Arabic-language news Web site, and Der Spiegel magazine in Berlin.

“Rejoice, Islamic nation. Rejoice, Arab world. The time has come for vengeance against the Zionist crusader government of Britain in response to the massacres Britain committed in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said the statement, translated by The Associated Press in Cairo.

The authenticity of the message could not be immediately confirmed. The Associated Press was unable to access the Web site where it was posted, which was closed quickly after the reports.

“The heroic mujahedeen carried out a blessed attack in London, and now Britain is burning with fear and terror, from north to south, east to west,” the statement said.

“We warned the British government repeated. We have carried out our promise and carried out a military attack in Britain after great efforts by the heroic mujahedeen over a long period to ensure its success.”

“We continue to warn the governments of Denmark and Italy and all crusader governments that they will receive the same punishment if they do not withdraw their troops from Iraq and Afghanistan,” the statement went on.

It was signed: “The Secret Organization of al-Qaida in Europe.”

The last major attack in Europe claimed by al-Qaeda was a string of bombs that hit commuter trains in Madrid in March 2004, killing 191 people.

All articles from [url=\"http://www.theglobeandmail.com\"]Globe & Mail[/url]

[mobil1_oils]

[b][i][color=\"gray\"][font=\"tahoma\"]This is a very sad day, not only for London and Europe, but for the world as a whole. Another reminder that Terrorism is still a very big threat, even in our most major cities, and a solemn reminder that none of us are really safe at any given time.

I was watching this with mates at DNA coffee today, and i say 87 confirmed deaths at London Hospital, around 6 blasts, and still more bombs in "The Tube" that hadn't been detonated yet. The "Cairo" or "Al Qaeda in Europe" group that claims to have done the attacks, i am still yet to be a believer on. I am doubting that it was them who carried the attacks out, but merely someone else doing it as a result of either the G8 summit, or the Paris defeat, and Cairo is claiming the glory.

It's just depressing that people need to kill other people to get a message across. Stuff like this just hits me so hard. I don't know why, it just really gets me in the heart. Innocent people died, and whats worse is innocent people died as a result of someone else deliberately planning it too.
[/b][/i][/color][/font]

[Tami]

I was discussing the attacks with Vulture in messenger, and a thought occured to me. What if this wasn\'t Al Qaeda at all. What if it was some operative branch of one of the African countries being run under a military dictatorship. What better way to divert attention from their country and the poverty they impose on its citizens than to time an attack such as this, and make it appear to be Al Qaeda?

Certainly this doesn\'t account for the reports of one of Al Qaeda\'s splinter groups taking responsibility via their website, but then some fanatics, as we discussed in chat while all of this was happening, will take credit for a car backfiring and giving someone a heart attack if it makes them appear to be more of a threat.

Whichever group was responsible for this attack has already accomplished several things-besides killing and injuring innocent people and causing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage. They succeeded in getting Tony Blair away from the G8 conference, allowing Bush to appear to have taken over as host/leader. They have also diverted the talks away from the poverty in Africa-which again, has been in a big part caused by militaristic dictators running those countries.

As a side issue, they have also given Bush the opportunity to renew his push for more aggressive targeting of terrorist groups, which in his mind all seem to lead back to Al Qaeda-effectively pushing the environmental issues to the far back burner. After Bush\'s refusal to sign on at Kyoto, it doesn\'t take a great stretch of the imagination to think that Bush will be all too happy to be able to not have those issues in his face right away. Hopefully when the conference does manage to resume tomorrow (according to reports I\'ve seen), the other world leaders will be able to keep the talks on target and on subject in dealing with the original issues.

I am not saying that the acts of terrorism and the threats they impose around the globe should be ignored, far from it. I feel that if poverty-and ostensibly the dictatorships and corrupt government officials responsible for many of the poverty issues are dealt with, then little by little other issues in the world will improve. There will always be fanatics in the world, we all know they\'ve been around since before the appearance of Jesus (not saying he was a fanatic but some of his followers were) and they will continue to be around long after we are gone.

What we all need to be concerned with right now is taking back our planet, and one little bit at a time work towards improving and repairing whatever is humanly and/or technologically possible. Some leaderships in this world need to stop thinking \"what\'s in it for me\" and start thinking \"what\'s better for the greater good of the world and its citizens.\" It is all well and good to tout how much good a country (or countries) is (are) doing in the world...but having to work now to correct events that never should have happened and using them to your credit does not erase the fact these events may never have happened if some earlier government body hadn\'t seen some benefit in providing weaponry to some hot-head future fanatic who later turn around and kick his former beneficiary in the head. It has happened many times over history, the USA is certainly not the only country to have been involved in such circumstances-however being human, we all tend to look at the facts of recent history when making judgements and and forming opinions.

It would be nice (in a sad kind of way) if all of the G8 leaders could sit down over the next few days and figure out a way to tie the environmental, poverty and terrorists issues into a nice tidy bundle and come up with a stepped plan of advance to begin tackling these issues. Unfortunately, I bow to the cynical forces encircling today\'s society and realize that no matter how much the global citizenry may want for situations to improve, they will forever be at the mercy of government-democratic, monarchist, or dictatorship-it doesn\'t matter because those with the power will always wield it to benefit their own circumstances.