Explosion heard in London

[Shogun Gunner]

Horrible, horrible news.

[lord of the mark]

BTW, there were much larger than usual numbes of police and security at my local DC metro station this AM (several hours after the London attack)

[tired_jim]

45 feared dead and 1000 injured....according to sky news.

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-1188265,00.html

[Drake Tungsten]

Godspeed to all those folks in London...

Nothing to do with the olympics, no-one expected us to win. It's all about the G8.

Or the trial of Abu Hamza.

[Ninot]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
BTW, there were much larger than usual numbes of police and security at my local DC metro station this AM (several hours after the London attack)

CNN was mentioning that in major cities, bomb sniffing dogs would be used just in case the terrorists planned a double dose of terrorism.

[Brundlefly]

They still haven't confirmed the authenticity of the al-Qaeda claim for responsibility. Who else could it be, though? Does the IRA operate like this? Wouldn't they have made a statement by now?

[DarkCloud]

Yes, they probably would have.
-
I initially suspected anarchists, anti-globalists, etc. But the facts seem to be pointing to militant islamists.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by bfg9000
They still haven't confirmed the authenticity of the al-Qaeda claim for responsibility. Who else could it be, though? Does the IRA operate like this? Wouldn't they have made a statement by now?

I dont think IRA has ever used suicide bombers, have they? Not that suicide bombers have been confirmed, but that would seem the most likely way to get a bomb on a bus, trains, etc. If you leave it in a bag or something, someone is likely to get suspicious - youd think folks in London are on alert for suspicious packages. And multiple bombings is an AQ trademark.

[Standup]

Scotland Yard has issued the following casualty hotline number 0870 1566 344 for anyone still worried about friends and relatives.

[child of Thor]

Churches are opening their doors to the 'walking wounded' .

And people are being told to not travel unless essential in central london at the momment.

I wonder what kind of warning they got for this, like if it was specific or just a generic "we are going to bomb you inx mins"?

lots of sirens going by earls court, but then there is a hospital near the exhibition centre. It will be a while before we know the full numbers i guess

[Caligastia]

Did any of the explosions go off on the trains or buses that service Clapham? My sister lives there and I haven't heard from her.

[Pax]

My prayers go out to the UK.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by bfg9000
Does the IRA operate like this? Wouldn't they have made a statement by now?

The I.R.A. is still recovering from the public relations debacle of the Robert McCartney murder.

In the normal course of things they either would or would not have released a coded warning, either on time or not.

Their bombs in the 90s tended to be larger too- the 1996 Docklands Bomb was the one that blew in my bathroom windows from several miles away- luckily they were open slightly, so no broken glass, just a very surprised me taking a bath.

Then there was the Arndale Bomb in Manchester, and the bomb which devastated the City of London in 1993.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/10/newsid_2539000/2539265.stm

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by child of Thor


I wonder what kind of warning they got for this, like if it was specific or just a generic "we are going to bomb you inx mins"?

Im not sure there was a warning - i saw somewhere a denial of the report that the Israelis got a warning from Scotland Yard. I think that was only a rumor.

[GePap]

Terrible news.

I found the CNN coverage horrible-they were spending more time talking about what Bush did after being told and how they told him, and other nonsense instead of actually talking about what happened. Had to turn to MSNBC to get some real news.

I think people are jumping on UR without merit. He posted two things- one, a joke (in poor taste), but if you look at the first half of the posts, the talk was of power outage. Then he rolleyed at a response, and that was it. Had he been joking AFTER it became clear it was a terrorist attack, that is excrable, but at that point? Come on.

I think it is extremely difficult if not impossible to defend large transportation systems like that of London, Paris, Moscow, Tokyo, NY, and so forth. You can;t put in airport like security, because it would stiffle and kill the systems. So if you don;t get info as these guys plan, I don;t know if it is possible to really catch them.