major incident in London

From the many muslim leaders seen on our TV screens this week, the message I am getting is that this has been a big wake-up call.

We have known that hatred has been preached (Finsbury Park Mosque) at times, and in a few places , but no-one really imagined it would come to this.

It's no good them saying "this is un-islamic" or such phrases. The fact has now to be faced, that within the muslim community are elements which intend to do us harm. It's no good patting ourselves on the back for being an open and tolerant society, if all these people are waiting for is the opportunity to kill.

So, yes, a big wake-up call is right. Tighter security-related legislation is now being debated.
We will depend too, on the Muslim community doing its part in exposing these people to scrutiny at least, and restraint and admonition where necessary.

So they identified the perpetrators partly thanks to finding personal documents of theirs at the place of the bombings. Those documents are said to be IDs and credit cards. Thanks to that link they have now been able to raid a number of homes.

OK, is it just me or is it a very, very dimwitted suicide-bomber who takes his ID and credit card with him when he goes to blow himself up? "Lessee, have I got everything ... backpack, bomb, passport, credit card ... check"

nimh

If you are a suicide bomber, intent on martyrdom and public recognition of the act you have completed, you'd want people to know who you are, wouldn't you?

KP

At the cost of giving the police a fair shot at unravelling the network you were part of?

Well, I guess we already knew they were lame...

The UK and US or other related countries substitute, currently, themselves for the collapsed Soviet Union in the eyes of the Islamist extremists. The Islamist extremists were targeting at the latter in 1980's. They cannot live with "pagan" cultures, and would attack some of the most influential parts of "pagans."

Just read in the paper that one of the victims that died in the London bombings was from Raeding, which is about 10 minutes from here.

McT, There was an interesting program on Nightline last night about the home-grown terrorists in the Leeds, UK, and Lodi, California, where we have a huge population of people from the Middle East. What is most interesting for me is the fact that most of the speakers from their community claimed that the people the FBI rounded up are not terrorists. Their main concern seems to be that prior to their arrest in Lodi, the people from the ME were treated like everybody else, but now they are treated differently by everybody - including the major. (My brother was mayor of Lodi some years ago.) If these communities wants to win back the trust, they are going to have to cooperate with the police and FBI to turn in anybody they suspect of being a terrorist. Otherwise, people will continue to have suspicions, and they will continue to be treated differently.

I've been reading this thread for some days and would like to have a say.

C.I., I do not think there is any sense in demanding Moslem communities to act so or other way. They live their simple life and will never spy on their neighbours let alone family members. This fact should be taken as it is. And I do not believe that somebody can go to Pakistan, be brainwashed and become a bloody terrorist. They should have been already prepared for it before, unfortunately.

I tend to share an opinion, which now seems to become unpopular, that terrorism emerges where a conflict exists, and one party is so strong that it can afford to ignore the other party's interests, discontent and anger. Resistance is easily suppressed, and the majority can even be on your side, but on the other side not all men are good and one of them can blow up your bus. You can retaliate but it will only increase hatred and they will kill more of your people just because they hate the very name of you. Israel and now (unfortunately) Russia know how it all happens. It only leads to a never-ending violence from both sides.

And to what is Islamic or un-Islamic... I am not an expert in Islam. However, when I studied in a university, there were many Muslims from various Arab countries among my fellow students. Most of them were well-bred, very religious and sincerely hated the West because they thought that the West with all its influence and power is trying to impose their values and way of life on the whole world (are they absolutely wrong here?). These Arabs told me that Koran preaches that every faithful must cut heads of infidels wherever they find them. Some view it as their obligation to fight evil trough all there life. Others see it as a direct appeal to kill all those who do not share their faith whenever they can. This is religion, one can find such things almost in every holy book. Understand them depending on how deeply you feel the very spirit of your faith.

As to restricting freedoms for the sake of common security, I would say the following: In Russia if you have black hair and a "southern" appearance every policeman you meet in the street will stop you, check your papers and frisk you. It does NOT help!

And, sorry for rolling back to older posts, but I cannot help myself:



Only try to avoid such statements when you speak to people from the former Soviet Union. Even though today's elites would most probably agree with you, but as to many common people, who now "enjoy freedom", that is are rid of every opportunity for normal human life they used to live, they could start blaming the entire West for their harsh life instead of their countries' leaders or their own gullibility. If this happened, the next generations of terrorists (God forbid) could be born in Russia..

Sorry for the long post. From what I have written you may see I am very pessimistic. Even if we reach compromise and succeed in peacefully settling all conflicts - which itself will take plenty of time - maybe the grandchildren of our present-day adversaries will stop to hate us.

Excellent post Serso thanks for your insight.

I would say more but have had a little too much to drink.

When are you next at the Royal Gardens Hotel?

Steve, first of all, sorry that I did not answer to your message in May. For some reason I am unable to send a PM here. Are private messages only for seasoned members?

I am afraid when I next stay at Royal Gardens it will be all the same: as I doubt I will pay £150 per night myself, it will be a business visit again, meaning I will have to work with very little spare time. Though I start thinking about dragging my wife to London, because I want to let her see the city I like so much. But it will require a different and more difficult procedure at the embassy to get our visas - please do not think they easily let people in.

Serso, I was really sorry to have missed you and Steve in London. I did my best to arrive in London a day earlier than planned, but it didn't work out with your work schedule. I'm looking at revisiting Russia again, so maybe we can meet in Moscow later next year.

No problem about communication serso will send you my email address.

(I dont know why some members on a2k cannot send private messages)

Its a shame that you find it difficult to take your wife to London, as I think and hope you know, most ordinary Brits like Russians.

(Even Chelsea supporters)

About personal messages on A2K, I think the requirement is to have at least 500 posts.

Well that sounds good. I hope y'all meet up and have a nice time.

I am off to France (well, the quayside at Cherbourg, anyway) tomorrow.

Be good while I'm gone.

McT

happy hols McT

and to Mrs McT

Cherbourg eh? From Portsmouth?

IN MEMORY Of THOSE WHO WERE KILLED OR INJURED.


Ten years ago today, Tube trains and a bus in London were bombed.



From today's Guardian....



We asked readers to share their memories of how the shocking events of 7 July 2005 in London affected them. Here are some of their powerful stories


I can still hear the sound of the bus expoding
I was working at Great Ormond Street hospital (GOSH) the day the bus blew up. I remember hearing the sound. I queried with colleagues whether it was thunder, but the sky was blue. We found out very quickly what had happened and our hospital’s major incident plan kicked in.

Being non-clinical, we were allocated to “police” the streets surrounding the hospital and look after pedestrians and car drivers, making sure they had an exit route through closed streets. I accompanied a woman to the neurology hospital in Queen Square to visit her son who was in a coma and had to insist very strongly that the staff let her in; she was so upset at being told that no one could enter. We had been given orders not to let any one through, but I talked them round.

We were out on the streets all day and I was worried about my kids at school as I couldn’t get through on the phone because the networks were down. It was a horrific day but all the staff at GOSH pulled together. Our canteen turned into a makeshift A&E in about 30 seconds flat, it was unbelievable how people pulled together that day. We lost colleagues on that dreadful day. I can still hear the sound of the bus exploding. - Helen Pavitt.


‘There was hope and love and compassion and beauty still left in our city’
I can’t remember what we had been doing on the evening of 6 July (though it was not celebrating that day’s announcement that London had been awarded the Olympics), but for some reason the morning of 7 Julywas one of those days that when our alarm clock sounded, we simply turned it off and rolled over back to sleep for another half an hour. That moment of tiredness, or laziness, potentially saved my life.
Back then I was working for a company in Holborn, and normally took the Piccadilly line every day through Russell Square at pretty much the time the bomb went off. But that day, from sleeping in, I did not, and I was spared. Instead, by the time I reached Finsbury Park, the entire tube network had been shut down. There was chaos, hundreds of people locked outside the station, and no explanation or information about what was going on, just vague mutterings about a “power surge” that made me wonder how on earth London thought it was in a fit state to host 2012. So I just walked back to our flat in Crouch End, thinking I would catch a bus in later (a bus that would have gone right through Tavistock Square, incidentally). But once home, I switched on the news. I didn’t leave the sofa for the rest of the day.
It was a strange time for me, as my mother had died of cancer three months previously. I grieved for her once again that day, as I knew she would have been straight on the phone in panic when she heard the news, desperate to check I was OK. And no phone call came.

Friends of mine lost friends that day. I cannot imagine the horrors the people on those packed underground trains and that bus faced. It was the ultimate nightmare. And the bombers came from my mother’s home city, Leeds.

What was genuinely amazing, though, was how London picked itself up and came together after the 7/7 attacks. I had always thought that a terrorist atrocity like that would make me want to leave, but instead it made me love the city more passionately than ever before. The beautiful messages on the bouquets of flowers left in Russell Square from every community in London made me weep. The two minutes silence a week later, on what would have been my mother’s 59th birthday, when the traffic stopped and the whole city fell quiet, was one of the most moving and empowering moments of my life. The terrorists had destroyed too many lives, lives in their prime, but still they had not won. There was hope and love, compassion and beauty still left in our city. - Rebecca Dodgson.



More: -

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jul/07/77-london-july-bombings-memories-10-years-on


Footnote: -
The first seven or so pages of this thread, imo, shows the A2K Community at its finest.

Also from today's Mail.


Londoners walk together.....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3151970/Londoners-walktogether-memory-7-7-victims-Thousands-London-commuters-Tube-early-walk-final-stop-10-years-terror-attacks-killed-52.html

Can't keep Londoners down.

I think there's way too much hand-wringing and commemorations and reminiscences being indulged in in this country. London bombings, Hillsborough, Dunkirk, etc etc etc.

And the media are happy to help us wallow in it.
"What did you think about it, onlooker?" "Ooh, it was terrible."

I'm fed up with it.

A group of us were walking the dogs at about 8.30 this morning, when coming from several directions, we could hear various train horns being sounded. Loads of them. It went on for a good thirty seconds or so, and initially we wondered what the hell was going on.
One of us then said "Seven seven", and I don't know about the others, but I got a major lump in my throat, as I guessed they were marking the time of that first explosion.

Ten years on, already.