London Car Bomb Found Before Detonated

has the white house stepped up to claim respnsibility for the foiling of this act of terrorism and remind the American people it will happen here if we elect a democrat yet?

We already predicted and reported "Fresh teams of suicide bombers being sent to UK" earlier in the month. I guess it got staged to satisfaction.

well there ya go....

Car bomb: Third car searched
Car bomb: Third car searched
By Sally Peck, Natalie Paris, Duncan Hooper and agencies
Last Updated: 5:22pm BST 29/06/2007
Telegraph UK

Police have cordoned off a 400m-stretch of Fleet Street, in the heart of the City, in a second alert hours after defusing a bomb that "could have caused carnage" in London's West End.

Officers cleared Fleet Street between Fetter Lane and Ludgate Circus as they investigated a suspect vehicle in the centre of London's financial district.

Two hours earlier, police investigated a car near Hyde Park amid fears that it could be connected to a bomb defused by authorities hours earlier in London's West End.

The car bomb was parked near Piccadilly Circus

The eastern side of Hyde Park was evacuated after Park Lane, which borders the park, was closed between Marble Arch and Hyde Park Corner at 2.30 this afternoon, while a police robot investigated the car.

A 200m cordon was put in place, cutting off one of London's major transport arteries and causing further traffic chaos, after reports of the suspicious vehicle.

The dramatic new development came after an explosive device, consisting of gas cylinders and nails, was found outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub at 2am in The Haymarket, near Piccadilly Circus, in the heart of London's tourist district.

Jacqui Smith, the new Home Secretary, called an emergency meeting of top officials this morning, calling the attempted attack "international terrorism."

She said: "We are currently facing the most severe and sustained threat to our security from international terrorism.

"This latest incident reinforces the need for the public to remain vigilant and alert to the threat we face at all times.

Similarities between the car bomb and Iraqi bomb plots have been highlighted by a British security official, according to the Associated Press.

Head of Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism command, Peter Clarke, said police were alerted to a silver Mercedes car by an ambulance crew who noticed smoke inside it. The crew had been called to the scene just before 1.30am for an injury at a nearby nightclub.

Officers inspecting the car found 60 litres of petrol on the back seat, gas cylinders and containers holding nails inside, which could have caused "significant injury or loss of life". The bomb was defused.

A witness said the large silver saloon car was being driven "erratically" before crashing into bins and that the driver then ran off.

Mr Clarke said that some aspects of today's bomb attempt "resonated with previous plots" and mentioned nightclubs as a potential target.

But he also said detectives are keeping "an entirely open mind" as to who is responsible and called on the public to remain vigilant.

Police have removed the car from the scene and are studying CCTV footage for clues.

The immediate area has been cordoned off causing huge disruption and police said it will remain closed for some time. Oxford Street and Marble Arch are also closed, according to reports. However, Piccadilly Circus Underground station has reopened.

The Associated Press reported an anonymous official saying MI5 would examine possible connections between the incident and at least two similar foiled plots.

One of these is the thwarted attempt to use limousines packed with gas canisters to attack targets in London and New York.

Dhiren Barot and members of his gang were jailed for a combined total of 136 years for the plot earlier this month.

A Whitehall source reportedly said: "It is entirely possible. There are various things - it is outside a nightclub, it is a vehicle-borne device, it is close to the anniversary of the July 7 attacks."

Britain's security service MI5 currently determines the threat level for terrorism in the UK as severe - the second highest in the scale.

It has been set as such since August 14 last year and means an attack is "highly likely" with "a continuing high level of threat to the UK".

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the incident reminds us that Britain faces "a serious and continuous threat" and the public "need to be alert" at all times.

A police source said: "The indications that we have got so far are that it was certainly a big device."

But a Westminster source said the device was believed to be relatively small and made of some type of home-made explosive.

The source said police carried out a search of other key areas in the capital in the early hours of this morning after the Haymarket incident was discovered.

Re: London Car Bomb Found Before Detonated


Damn! You beat BBB to the punch (post).

Yet another reason for Brits to be concerned about the Islamic Extremists in their midst.

Thank God they lucked out and these two car bombs didn't go off, but one has to wonder what impact failed attempts have. Bloody bodies laying in the streets of London tend to fire the blood up more than a simple news report that a car bomb was found and disarmed.

This morning, Steve Innskeep on NPR asked a Brit reporter if there was any proof that this vehicle (at the time we knew only of the one) was actually a bomb.

Let's see, it was a Mercedes filled with containers of gasoline, two canisters of propane gas and a mass quantity of nails. How do we know it wasn't just some guy who planned on using his Mercedes to make his daily deliveries of petrol, propane, and nails in the morning?

A post or so before this one we have someone attempting to parley this story into a reason to attack the Bush Administration.

Of course, based on what we know, it may not have been the work of Islamists, but anyone want to bet?

The dynamics are already in play in Europe as demonstrated by the Sarkozy victory in France.

This isn't a clash of civilizations because it is impossible to grant the Jihadists the mantle of civilization, but it is a war against our civilization - Western Civilization.

Europeans may wish at this time and place to distance themselves from America, but they are inextricably linked with us on a cultural level. Our differences are mere cracks compared to the gaping chasms that lie between Western Civilization and the would-be restorers of The Caliphate.

Europe's future now depends upon two forces - demographics and human nature.

If the anti-American, multi-culturalist leftists have their way Europe will inexorably become Eurabia.

I don't see this happening though. Average Europeans, irrespective of their opinion of America, are not about to give up their freedom, their liberalism, their indulgences because of a domineering and fecund group of unassimilated immigrants. When the fit hits the shan in this conflict, we can bet that the Europeans will find us to be good and desired friends.

However this sea-change will not occur until the Islamists are seen to push it just too far.

I truly would be happy to be wrong and to find that ten years from now there has been a peaceful accommodation between Europeans and muslim immigrants (that does not require a massive conversion to Islam), but I simply don't believe that will or can be the case.

Time will tell and hopefully we will all be here on A2K when time tells its tale. My ego will be pinched if you are all able to tell me I was an irrational alarmist, but I will be fundamentally content. I'm afraid, though, that it will be me telling you "I told you so." A bitter triumph indeed.

Just to be clear on you alarmist stance, are the Islamist "would-be restorers of The Caliphate" the "domineering and fecund group of unassimilated immigrants" to whom you refer?

If so, are these one and the same as the general population of muslim immigrants to Europe to whom you refer later in your post when you talk about your fear of accommodation requiring a massive conversion to Islam?

Because if you are confusing the fanatical Islamists with the general population of Muslims in the entirety of Europe, then you are condemning millions upon millions of innocent Muslim immigrants for the actions of a few radicals among them, and your stance is not only alarmist but xenophobic and bigoted as well.

Something is very odd about this story...

The driver of the car was driving erratically.

The plot involved gasoline, propane and nails (these are not the ingredients of choice by any competent terrorist).

The car was spewing smoke to alert people to the impending "disaster".

... and they can't even agree the size of the explosives used (read the last paragraph).

I understand that there is a real threat. The ridiculous attempts to hype up these incidents with ridiculously extravagent hyperbole doesn't help. These proported "terrorists" seemed to be pretty incompetent tp be that dangerous.

But this line from this article says it all...

"The immediate area has been cordoned off causing huge disruption"

"Huge disruption..." from cordoning off an "immediate area". I guess when it comes to alleged terrorist explosions that don't take place (even when the "terrorists" are clearly incompetant)-- I guess everything has to be huge.

Won't it be funny if these "terrorists" aren't Muslims. (I have never known a conservative to reserve judgement until the facts are known).

Possible connection to London's would be bombers who's cars were stolen from Scotland, now this. Plus Gordon Brown is Scottish....terrorists throwing out the welcome matt?

Flaming SUV rams Glasgow airport terminal
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Driver wrestled with police as vehicle burned, witnesses said
Jun 30, 2007 11:39 AM
Reuters

A four-wheel-drive vehicle rammed into the main terminal at Glasgow airport today and exploded in flames, Glasgow police and witnesses said.

There were no immediate reports of injuries.

A Glasgow police spokeswoman said the vehicle had not penetrated the building and the blaze was under control.

Britain has been on alert after two cars packed with petrol, gas and nails were found in London's teeming theatre district on Friday. Anti-terror police said the car bombs could have killed or maimed scores of people.

A witness in Glasgow told Sky News that an Asian man who had been inside the vehicle scuffled with police immediately after the incident, was wrestled to the ground and detained.

Another witness said a second man, also Asian, was on fire following the blaze and badly burnt. The flames were extinguished and he was also detained by police, the witness said.

Another witness told the BBC that the vehicle was a Land Rover and that there was a heavy stench of petrol after the car crashed. He said he did not believe the vehicle was a car bomb, saying that the explosion was relatively small.

"There was chaos at the airport," James Edgar, another witness, told Sky News. "I was in the airport building trying to book a holiday. Suddenly people were running past us. Suddenly everyone said to get out of the airport."

BAA, which manages the airport, was not immediately available to comment.

Glasgow airport handles around 8.5 million passengers a year, according to its website, and would have been packed with holidaymakers at the time of the incident, which took place at around 1520 (1420 GMT), according to Glasgow police.

Source

3 people arrested after raming flaming cars into Glasgow air
Three people arrested after ramming flaming cars into Glasgow airport.

Sky News video of airport attack
Sky News video of airport attack

http://news.sky.com/skynews/livenewsevents

U.K. Police Make Fifth Terror Arrest
U.K. Police Make Fifth Terror Arrest
IAN STEWART
July 1, 2007

GLASGOW, Scotland ?- Police searched several houses near Glasgow's airport and made a fifth arrest Sunday in connection with a fiery attack on its main terminal and foiled car bombings in London, which the prime minister suggested were carried out by terrorists linked to al-Qaida.

The terrorist threat that Britain faces is "long-term and sustained," Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in a nationally televised interview. It is clear, he said, "that we are dealing, in general terms, with people who are associated with al-Qaida."

After meeting with the country's top intelligence officers, police and senior officials, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said Britain would not be cowed.

"We won't, as the British people, be intimidated or let anyone stop us getting on with our lives," Smith said.

On Friday, police thwarted an apparent plot to set off a coordinated bomb attack in central London when an ambulance crew outside a nightclub spotted smoke coming from a Mercedes found rigged with explosives. They found a second Mercedes filled with explosives hours later.

And on Saturday, two men rammed a flaming Jeep into the main entrance of Glasgow airport, shattering the glass doors and igniting a fire just yards from people lined up at check-in counters.

"Al-Qaida has imported the tactics of Baghdad and Bali to the streets of the UK," said Lord Stevens, Brown's terrorism adviser.

The two men from the Glasgow attack were in police custody Sunday, one of them under guard in the hospital after being engulfed in flames when the Jeep crashed into the airport.

Early Sunday, police arrested two people _ a 26-year-old man and a 27-year-old woman _ on a major highway in Cheshire, northern England, in a joint swoop by officers from London and Birmingham, Scotland Yard said in London. A fifth suspect was arrested in Liverpool, police there said.

Police said officers were searching a residential area about a mile from the airport. In Houston, a small town just outside Glasgow, police cordoned off the area around a two-story house to search it.

The two attacks clearly are linked, police and security officials said, noting that all three vehicles contained flammable materials _ including gasoline and gas cylinders.

Britain on Saturday raised its terror alert to "critical" _ the highest possible level _ and the Bush administration announced plans to increase security at airports and on mass transit.

The new terror threat presents Brown with an enormous challenge early in his premiership _ and comes at a time of already heightened vigilance one week before the anniversary of the July 7, 2005, London transit attacks. Those were largely carried out by local Muslims, exacerbating ethnic tensions in Britain.

Kenny MacAskill, Scotland's justice secretary, said the two Glasgow attackers were not "born and bred here."

"Any suggestion to be made that they are homegrown terrorists is not true," he said.

Brown, a Scot who replaced Tony Blair as prime minister just days earlier, urged Britons to remain "constantly vigilant" about security. He said "Everything is being done in our power ... to protect people's lives."

"We will not yield, we will not be intimidated, and we will not allow anyone to undermine our British way of life," he told the British Broadcasting Corp. in a TV interview.

Lord Stevens, London's former police chief, called it a major escalation in the campaign waged by Islamic militants.

In a column in Sunday's News of the World newspaper, he wrote that the terrorists are using "the same technology, the same bomb-making techniques, the same operating methods as their brothers-in-arms in both Baghdad and Bali," referring to the 2002 and 2005 attacks on the Indonesian resort island that killed more than 200 people.

Glasgow police chief Willie Rae said a suspicious device was found on a man wrestled to the ground by officers at Glasgow airport and hospitalized in critical condition with severe burns.

John Smeaton, who saw the attack, said the man shouted "Allah, Allah" as he was detained.

Glasgow airport began reopening Sunday, although the airport operator warned many flights would be canceled. The crashed Jeep remained out front, covered in a blue tarpaulin, and cars were not allowed to drive up to the terminal.

Officers also were reviewing closed-circuit television footage in the search for clues into the foiled London bombings.

The incident hinted of a foiled December 1999 plot to attack Los Angeles International Airport. Customs agents stopped a man in a car packed with 124 pounds of explosives. He is serving a 22-year prison sentence for the plot.

And last year, a 35-year-old British convert to Islam was convicted of plotting to bomb several U.S. financial targets and luxury London hotels with a plot that called for using limousines packed with gas tanks, napalm and nails.

In April, accused members of an al-Qaida-linked terror cell were convicted of conspiring to blow up the Ministry of Sound nightclub, one of London's biggest music venues.

World British police seize five suspects in terror plot
How ironic that doctors, who take an oath to "do no harm" are involved in the terror attacks in Britain and Scotland.---BBB

World British police seize five suspects in terror plot
By Matthew Schofield | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Sun, July 1, 2007

LONDON ?- Three days after British police stumbled upon the first of what would be three attempted car bombs around the United Kingdom, the investigation Sunday was moving swiftly but growing more complicated.

By early Sunday, police had arrested five people, none of whom, police said privately, was British-born.

Two were reported by local media to be doctors employed at British hospitals.

If that turns out to be true, it will be a sharp departure from the past two summers in which home-grown terrorists were held responsible --first for the deadly mass transit attacks of July 7, 2005, the unsuccessful attacks two weeks later, and finally the plot to blow up trans-Atlantic commercial jets that was broken up at this time last summer.

Magnus Ranstorp, chief scientist at the Swedish Defense College, said that the weekend attacks had the markings of being a highly organized effort, carried out by people who were not particularly well-trained. But he said there appeared to be elements of panic in the events.

Police found the first car bomb early Friday morning, after emergency medical personnel were called to a London night club where a young man had fallen and hurt himself. While there, they noticed smoke coming from a car parked nearby. A police bomb squad disarmed the car bomb, which had been packed with gas and gasoline canisters, and nails to cause maximum injury.

That set off a search for other cars, and one was found in a police towing lot, where officers had noticed a strong smell of gasoline coming from a car that had been illegally parked.

"They made a mistake in where they parked the cars in London," Ranstorp said. "At that point, the attack on the Glasgow airport appears to be the desperate act of people who believe time is running out before they're caught."

He added, however, that the men who rammed their flaming vehicle through the glass of the airport terminal, poured gasoline on themselves, and shouted "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great) as they burned and resisted arrest, showed intense commitment.

British police moved quickly. Two men were arrested from a burning Jeep Cherokee ?- one with burns over 90 percent of his body. Another two ?- reported to be a 26-year-old doctor and a 27-year-old woman_were arrested early Sunday after a high-speed chase on the M-6 highway near Liverpool. And the fifth was arrested early Sunday in central Liverpool.

Police said privately they were searching for as many as three other prime suspects.

British media reports said police this time believed that most, if not all, of the five terror suspects arrested in connection with three cars bombs in Britain this weekend were not British. A spokesman for New Scotland Yard said only: "unfortunately, we're not discussing nationalities."

As for the investigation, Deputy Assistant Police Commissioner Peter Clarke said he was "absolutely confident" of uncovering detail of the attackers' methods and network.

Gordon Brown, Britain's new Labor Prime Minister, blamed the incidents on al Qaida.

It's "clear that we are dealing, in general terms, with people who are associated with al Qaida," he said. "It's obvious that we have a group of people - not just in this country, but round the world - who're prepared at any time to inflict what they want to be maximum damage on civilians, irrespective of the religion of these people who are killed or maimed are to be."

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who just stepped down from the post last week, said in a documentary aired Sunday that the foundation of the argument radical Muslims are using ?- that they are oppressed in the West ?- is absurd.

"We're not actually standing up to these people and saying," he said, adding, "'It's not just your methods that are wrong, your ideas are absurd. Nobody is oppressing you. Your sense of grievance isn't justified.'"

Blair went on to say that criticism of anti-terror law as curbing civil liberties was "loopy-loo."

45 Muslim doctors planned US terror raids
45 Muslim doctors planned US terror raids
By John Steele, Crime Correspondent
05/07/2007
Telegraph UK

A group of 45 Muslim doctors threatened to use car bombs and rocket grenades in terrorist attacks in the United States during discussions on an extremist internet chat site.

Police found details of the discussions on a site run by one of a three-strong "cyber-terrorist" gang.

They were discovered at the home of Younis Tsouli, 23, Woolwich Crown Court in south-east London heard.

One message read: "We are 45 doctors and we are determined to undertake jihad and take the battle inside America.

"The first target which will be penetrated by nine brothers is the naval base which gives shelter to the ship Kennedy." This is thought to have been a reference to the USS John F Kennedy, which is often at Mayport Naval Base in Jacksonville, Florida.

The message discussed targets at the base, adding: "These are clubs for naked women which are opposite the First and Third units."

It also referred to using six Chevrolet GT vehicles and three fishing boats and blowing up petrol tanks with rocket propelled grenades.

Investigators have found no link between the Tsouli chat room and the group of doctors and medics currently in custody over attempted car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow.

However, sources said it was "definitely spooky" that the use of doctors for terrorist purposes was being discussed in jihadi terrorist circles up to three years ago.

Part of the inquiry into the London and Glasgow incidents will focus on whether al-Qa'eda has recruited doctors or other medical professionals because they are less likely to attract suspicion and can move easily around the western world.

The three "cyber terrorists" - a British national and two who had been given the right to live in Britain - are facing lengthy jail sentences after admitting using the internet to spread al-Qa'eda propaganda inciting Muslims to a violent holy war and to murder non-believers.

They had close links with al-Qa'eda in Iraq and believed they had to fight jihad against a global conspiracy by kuffars, or non-believers, to wipe out Islam.

The three are the first defendants in Britain to be convicted of inciting terrorist murder on the internet. They waged cyber-jihad on websites run from their bedrooms.

Tsouli promoted the ideology of Osama bin Laden via email and radical websites. He said in one message he was "very happy" about the July 7 bombings in London in 2005.

Tsouli, along with Tariq Daour, a biochemistry student, and Waseem Mughal, a law student, were intelligent, computer-literate men who promoted violent propaganda.

They created chat forums to direct willing fighters to Iraq and discuss murderous bomb attacks around the world. Films of hostages and beheadings were found by police.

Daour, 21, of Bayswater, west London, who was born in the United Arab Emirates, yesterday admitted inciting another person to commit an act of terrorism wholly or partly outside Britain. Moroccan-born Tsouli, 23, of Shepherd's Bush, west London, and British-born Mughal, 24, of Chatham, Kent, admitted the same charge on Monday.

They are due to be sentenced today. They also admitted conspiring together and with others to defraud banks, credit card companies and charge card companies. Daour had instructions for making explosives and poisons, the court was told. Police found instructions on causing an explosion with "rocket propellant'' and constructing a car bomb.

In one on-line conversation, Daour, asked what he would do with £1 million, replied: "Sponsor terrorist attacks, become the new Osama."

The three men outwardly appeared to be leading normal lives, studying and living with their parents. Tsouli had come to the UK with his family from Morocco in 2001.

Mughal had a degree in biochemistry from Leicester University and was studying for his masters.

Daour, who was granted British citizenship in May 2005, had applied to start a law degree.

I don't know if it would have been funny, but it sure would have been amazing.

Guess what? Your situational skepticism was baseless as expected - they are muslims.

Memo to Steven Insskeep on PBS - Yes, they were car bombs.