Serious questions about London bombings

Here is what we know today about these bombings.

All four bombers have been identified as muslim teenagers from a middle class neighborhood, they are British citizens.

At this stage, none of the boys were believed to be particularly religous or known for radical behavior.

They were each carrying rucksacks with 5 lbs of military grade plastic explosives with timing devices.

There was a terrorist training exercise underway at the exact same time, scheduled to simulate an attack on the subway and busses at the exact same time as those teenagers boarded and reportedly detonated their bombs.

Britain and Italy had both publicly announced the withdrawal of troops from Iraq with a timetable prior to the bombings.

There is a French report that has been questioned that some of these teens had been previously picked up as terror suspects but released in order to try and flush out terror cells.

Where did the teens get the plastic explosives, let alone a military/commercial grade not seen in prior terrorist attacks?

What are the odds that a simulated terrorist attack training exercise would be taking place at the exact same day, time, and place in the city of London?

Why would these teenagers remain seated on the bus/subway with their explosives if they had timing devices?

Did the 18 year old teens manufacture sophisticated military grade explosives themselves, along with the timing devices used, and hatch this plan all on their own?

Who stood to gain the most from these attacks?

What are the possibile explanations? We know for certain that we are deailing with a conspiracy to commit a terrorist act. The question is, who were the conspirators involved in carrying it out?


Here are a couple possible scenarios:

A) Intelligence operatives of some government

1a. Intelligence operatives recruited the boys.

2a. The boys were recruited to participate in a terrorist training exercise and did not know they had real explosives.

3a. The timers were modified to detonate much sooner than programmed to ensure the bombers died in the blasts.

How did the U.S. and Britain gain, if at all, by these attacks? Will the troop withdrawals be reduced or stopped as a result?


B) A terrorist network is operating in Britain

1b. Terrorists learned of the exercise and took advantage of it to carry out an actual attack.

2b. The boys were willing recruits to a terrorist act.

3b. The teens intended to martyr themselves, and the timers were only to ensure simultaneous detonation. Or the timers were modified to detonate much sooner than programmed to ensure the bombers died in the blasts.


What did the terrorists benefit by launching this attack in this location at this particular time?

You left out one possiblity: 4): *

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-13386860,00.html

One was 30.

If that link is correct, our mastermind came from Pakistan.

Lets run with a theory. A terrorist, trained by the Pakistani INI, the Saudi intelligence, and/or the CIA, goes to Britain. He makes contact with teens, possibly already groomed. He wants them to detonate bombs on a subway, how does he carry it out?

He needs them to be clandestine about it, so there are no loose ends.

Does he hire them to participate in a classified training exercise? One that they are not allowed to tell their friends and family about because it's a matter of national security? One of the bombers was believed to be strongly patriotic. Perhaps he promises them alot of cash for helping with a national security exercise? Provides them with the dummy explosive rucksacks, timers, and directions on where to go and when once they leave their meeting point?

The explosives meanwhile could of been supplied by any of the three aforementioned governments agents. Very few individuals in any of those governments would need to potentially be involved. It's well documented that there are a good number of Pakistani intelligence and military personnel that are sympathetic to the mujahadeen in their country. Reportedly, the Pakistani intelligence work with the terrorists and training camps, terrorists who are waging a seperatist battle in Kashmir. Or this Pakistani could be a rogue agent acting on his own, or just a terrorist with no ties to governments. The Pakistani government does not stand to benefit necessarily, but the Saudi and U.S. governments both have a vested interest in Iraq not falling into the hands of fundamentalists. The British have a long history of dealing with terrorism. This bombing would only seem to enforce the British resolve to keep troops on the ground in Iraq, and not to cave in to terrorism.


In any case, the above scenario is viable.

they were simply batshitcrazy murderers who were recruited into what is, in essence, a cult (not islam, the crazy sects of terrorists) and had their brains poisoned to the point that they were willing to die for the cause.

I gotta tell you, that's a lot more likely than the CIA being involved.

Check out Project Mockingbird, Project Northwoods, hell Bay of Pigs? How about the 5 or 6 countries that we had the CIA overthrow to "fight communism" (but really to protect private economics interests)

I dont know what I think about this bombing but I don't understand where your faith in the CIA comes from.

edited to add, IRAN contra? CIA drug running? The CIA is not accountable to the US Government anymore and we don't know what they are doing in our name....

PNAC said we needed a new Pearl Harbor to go into Iraq.

taking place at the time of the 9/11 attacks?

confirmed?

Video on bombing drill:

http://www.terrorize.dk/misc/london/london.terror.games...


Same interview was given on BBC 5 radio. To hear the original BBC 5 radio
piece go here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/programmes/drive.shtml

Then click on Thursday at "Listen again to Drive:"

When the replay starts skip ahead one hour (click the 15 mins jump 4 times).
The interview with Power starts a few minutes after that.

had timers on them. Martyrs usually have no other option than to stap a bomb onto thier bodies. They don't have sophisticated bombs with timers. I guess there is a good possibility that the bombers were deceived by someone.

Madrasas, located in a region where war is all around you....I have a hard time believing you could get 4 young completely Westernized kids to willingly off themselves for some political-terrorist act. 2a. could be closer to the truth.

I'll be interested in the biographical background on these kids....surely there must be a documented history/rap sheet showing a pattern of clear anti-social behaviour by these 4. Not saying it couldn't happen, we know from our recent history (Columbine) that kids are capable of doing this. But those kids had a history that was well documented.

And just where did they get those explosives?

It is certainly not impossible that these people made a choice to do what they did.

But I'm an occam's razor kind of girl. And to say they were tricked in to pulling this off is a lot more complicated than just accepting that you don't have to have been born in the Middle East to identify with their views.

Also, does anyone have a link to this information about a simultaneous terrorist training exercise?

to convince someone to stay in a cult than it would to convince them to become human bombs.

fundy brainwashing could do that

but islamist suicide bombers don't use timers.

The evidence so far doesn't suppor that.

Why brainwash them when you can just win their trust then hire them to participate in a classified government training exercise? Don't tell your friends and family, this is classified! You'll be doing a great service to your nation. Your role is to carry these rucksacks with fake plastic explosives onto a bus/subway and see if our anti-terrorist teams can locate you.

your arguement makes sense.

I'm not of that opinion and don't believe it would be difficult or take long for these people (especially the three younger ones) to embrace an extremist philosophy. Particularly in an area of England where racism is so prominent. How hard is it to turn people against those who ridicule them and hate them? Not hard I expect.

What is preventing a terrorist from doing exactly what I described?

You don't need a government conspiracy for a terrorist to take advantage of a training exercise to convince some kids to carry backpacks into a subway. If they believe the "terrorist" is actually an intelligence agent of some type and they trust him.

No one participating in the exercise need be involved or aware in any plans either.

You're making some bad assumptions about the level of intelligence and capability of organizations that may be behind these bombings. If I could dream up the scenario, so could Osama Bin Ladens half brother Ihkbar.

I doubt it would be that hard to find willing participants, and quite frankly, a dupe would be less realiable than a trained terrorist. Sure he might draw less attention to himself, but he might also tell SOMEONE because he thinks its a training exercise. He MIGHT even contact known authorities to make sure its on the up and up. Seems like a big risk to me. Its not like we don't know that Al Qaeda has sleeper terrorist cells around the world.

And:
1) If they didn't know what they were doing, why was the teen on the bus looking so aggitated and checking his bag repeatedly as witnesses have said he was doing?

2) A successful terrorist would have to seem like a normal person. If they walk around seeming like an extremist they will be noticed, watched and most likely disrupted before carrying out their plan.

3) the teen's brother said he noticed the teen had become involved with a "gang" and started wearing white robes. He didn't question the behavior because he thought his brother had simply found religion, which would be harmless.

Personally, I don't believe they were stools. I just think it makes more sense that they knew exactly what they were doing.

Funny how our language has been warped eh.

From oh i'm so picked on...if i kill myself that's the ultimate revenge. Remember these don't seem to be Wahabists muslims.

Who knows? Maybe they were conditioned over time. Send them on a few "secret missions" to gain their confidence.

Did any leave behind any suicide notes?

It would figure then that the tory party sponsored them.

All of them came from a place where white/asian riots were sparked
a coupla years back... where racism is in the streets, and where there
is/was serious tension.

Pakistan is a terror sponsoring state, and it would only have taken
1 or 2 senior commanders to arm 4 home boy walking bombs.

As many of us know, young adults are often the most zealous religious
devotees, as if by age, we grow more humble and agreeable. So it figures
they were young, adults, choosing to immolate themselves as a selfless
act in their own conscience.

So what hatred of your society must you have to believe a retaliatory
strike against a war-sponsoring culture that has killed a hundred
thousand civilians in the tribal areas of your historical family.

Blair should wage his war against himself... the zealot extremist
par excellence, who has killed more than any of these 4 dead men.

Ten Step Method To Staging a Terrorist Attack

1) Hire a Crisis Management firm to set up an exercise that parallels the terrorist attack you are going to carry out. Have them run the exercise at the precise locations and at the very same time as the attack. If at any stage of the attack your Arabs get caught, tell the police it was part of an exercise.

2) Hire four Arabs and tell them they're taking part in an important exercise to help defend London from terrorist attacks. Strap them with rucksacks filled with deadly explosives. Tell the Arabs the rucksacks are dummy explosives and wouldn't harm a fly.

3) Tell four Arabs to meet up at London Underground and disperse, each getting on a different train. Make sure Arabs meet in a location where you can get a good mug shot of them all on CCTV which you can later endlessly repeat to drooling masses on television.


the rest of the story here....

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2005/130705teneasysteps.htm

I came to the same paranoid conclusion myself. It's a possibility that should not be dismissed outright.

We don't know who pulled the strings or who supplied the explosives or what the boys were told to get them to participate.

This is a likely story. It's the one I constructed working through the facts. It's plausable. More plausable at this stage than teenage extremists who wanted to martyr themselves.

Hopefully we can get some more independent reporting on the bombers, their backgrounds, who they had contact with, if they were promised any lucrative work coming up that they couldn't discuss, etc.

where a handful of executives discussed how their company would respond to a terrorist attack. The focus of the exercise was business continuity. I would guess that in a large city like London it happens a couple a times a week. Two private companies doing business out of the public eye while sitting in a conference room - I fail to see how this can be spun into cover for a terrorist attack. I am certain that the police and the British government knew nothing about it - why would they?

The latest given identities of the bombers are:


So they're not all teenagers, and all have at least a moderate interest in Islam.

The story on timing devices keeps changing - first they said they'd found some; then they said they hadn't; and now the BBC story that said that has changed again, to leave out the sentence "Police sources told the BBC they had not recovered any timing devices from the bomb scenes, possibly indicating that detonation was by hand." (see Google News: http://news.google.co.uk/news?hl=en&ned=&ie=UTF-8&scoring=d&q=%22timing+devices%22+bbc&btnG=Search+News and look at the BBC stories that come up). So that does seem strange.

The exercise was being run in a room by a private company; many companies do run these regularly, and I do think it's just a coincidence. It had no effect on what happened outside the room it was run in.

Britain has not publicly announced a withdrawal timetable; there has been a leak of a possible timetable, which cuts the British troops to about a third of what they are now (and moves them to Afghanistan).

Yes Britain did make the announcement public. I read it in more than one source.

I believe the initial police reports that stated timing devices were found.

I am not quite stupid enough to believe that the teens were able to simultaneously, yet manually, detonate their rucksacks together. I'll believe the timers were used to achieve a simultaneous blast AND that they wanted to martyr themselves before I'll believe the timers now mysterously vanished.

Here you go, from July 4th. Maybe someone can go around scrubbing these leaked stories, but there are enough of them archived that it's not gonna work. You can bet our governments were aware of the British position prior to this reporter.


MoD plans Iraq troop withdrawal
By Jimmy Burns and Peter Spiegel
Published: July 4 2005 22:02 | Last updated: July 4 2005 22:02

The Ministry of Defence has drafted plans for a significant withdrawal of British troops from Iraq over the next 18 months and a big deployment to Afghanistan, the Financial Times has learnt.


In what would represent the biggest operational shake-up involving the armed forces since the Iraq war, the first stage of a run-down in military operations is likely to take place this autumn with a handover of security to Iraqis in at least two southern provinces.

Defence officials emphasised that all plans for Iraqi deployments were contingent on the ability of domestic security forces to assume peacekeeping duties from UK troops. Iraqi forces have so far proven unable to take over such roles in areas where the insurgency is most intense, and progress has disappointed coalition officials.

But senior UK officers believe the four south-east provinces under UK command, which are largely Shia and have not seen the same violence as more Sunni-dominated areas north of Baghdad, may be ready for a handover earlier than those under US command.

Any reduction of UK troops could be timed to coincide with plans being developed to deploy a total of up to 3,000 troops to Afghanistan before the end of next year. This deployment would take the lead in a Nato force to take over from US troops in the south of Afghanistan.

In that role, the UK forces would help fight insurgents and provide support for the war on narcotics in the region.

While the MoD insisted that no decision had been made on Afghan or Iraqi deployments, John Reid, defence secretary, said yesterday that Iraqi forces could begin to take charge of security in their country within a year.

In an interview with the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Mr Reid suggested that plans were consistent with the recent prediction of Donald Rumsfeld, US defence secretary, that it could take take up to 12 years to defeat the Iraqi insurgency.

He told the BBC that while the insurgency in Iraq may go on for “some considerable time”, there remained a second question.

“Who will lead the security efforts against the insurgency? And I think in a relatively short period of time we can start the process of that being led by the Iraqi security forces themselves,” he said.

Mr Reid went on: “So although Donald Rumsfeld may have said, correctly, that this may take years before it is finally completed, that did not imply that all that period will have to be led by the multi-national forces or the British forces.

“I personally think that within a year we could begin that transition to the Iraqi forces leading the effort themselves.”

It is a view echoed by military commanders. Air Chief Marshall Jock Stirrup, the current Royal Air Force commander who will become chief of the general staff next year, said more stable Iraqi provinces – including those under UK command – were likely to be handed over to local security forces more quickly than first thought.

By next April, a best case scenario would see current troops levels of 8,500 reduced to about 4,000-5,000, with a further cut in the period leading to the first quarter of 2007, when the British military presence is expected to fall to about 1,000 advisers and training personnel.

and it's one possible plan ("While the MoD insisted that no decision had been made on Afghan or Iraqi deployments, John Reid, defence secretary, said yesterday that Iraqi forces could begin to take charge of security in their country within a year", and it's not a complete withdrawal. Which was what I said.

As others have pointed out too, you are wrong in calling them "teens" - only one was a teenager.

Near simultaneous blasts can be acheived by the suicide bombers looking at their watches too.

Scrubed stories? What are you talking about?

What if they were being used?

What if this is all a manufactured story made up by corporate interests and there are no four boys?

After all the lies, I honestly wonder how we can trust anything that the media says at this juncture.

In fact, I think thats part of our problem.

We've become complacent and spoon fed.

We expect them to tell us the truth, even when they have lied many times before.

After a while, Americans and all citizens, need to become more accountable in making sure the media is being honest, and accountable for what they promote and deliver as being accurate.

I still don't get why four Brits would do this without some severe brainwashing going on...

There are lots of reports about the fourth bomber on the bus being very fidgety and going into the backpack numerous times....was he trying to turn the timer off because he couldn't get on the right train (the Northern line was shut) and knew that he was supposed to leave it on the train at a certain time?

I'll go you one better, these four guys were supposed to leave their bags on the train and bugger off, but the "mastermind" set them to go off earlier than he had told his couriers so that way when all four go BOOM!! all that will be left is a bunch of CCTV coverage, and no links to the "mastermind"...It could be that all four of these buggers got played....

Either way, fuck 'em.....

Some regard any religious fundamentalist teaching as 'brainwashing'. Remember, 2 British Muslims went to be suicide bombers in Israel (and their accents are British, so I expect they grew up here). It has happened before.

Hussain also spent time in Pakistan, where his father sent him in an attempt at discipline. Hussain left school two years ago with mediocre results and for a time "went a bit wild", drinking and swearing, neighbours told The Guardian.

He returned from Pakistan a devout Muslim, said a cousin. "I thought he had been brainwashed, I do not know who by," the cousin said.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2005/07/14/1120934365618.html?from=top5&oneclick=true

When Hussain (18) left school two years ago it appeared Holbeck and the wider world held few opportunities. Mahmood Hussain apparently decided that his son needed a little more discipline in his life. The family decided that Pakistan was where he would find it. Hussain is known to have spent time in Pakistan during the last two years.

One man in Holbeck, who said he was a cousin of Hasib, said Hussain returned from Pakistan a devout Muslim. “I thought he had been brainwashed,’’ he said.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=245410&area=/insight/insight__international/

"having breakfast".

to the Local Government Association.

http://www.lgib.gov.uk/news/2005/07-Jul-2005-2.html

Did you expect him not to leave the US?

mentioned that day was a major medical conference of a wide range specialists from around the UK. I wish I could reference it, but I heard it on either ITV or BBC 1 on the evening of July 7th. At the time I was sitting in my room in a b and b on Argyle Street ( if you know London, you know where we were) with my son. The presenter even mentioned how that was one of the reasons they were able to deal with some many casualties at once. Possibly one of the British DU'ers heard it and can confirm. I remember thinking at the time how unbelievably lucky that was. I don't even like going here.

to make an accurate assessment. This bothers me because that is the typical kind of dissemination of disinformation that characterizes a psyops operation. The alternative explanation is that we have a lot of high ranking officials willing to go off "half-cock". Neither scenario is very comforting. For instance why the dupe about "unexploded bombs and conflicting stories about the timing and devices?"
From the Guardian 7/8/05:
snip< >

"Vincent Cannistraro, the former head of the CIA's counter-terrorism centre, told The Guardian that "two unexploded bombs" were recovered as well as "mechanical timing devices".

Emergency services rushed to east, west and central London as the bombs went off in sequence and without warning over a 50-minute period.

The first device exploded at 8.51am on a Circle line train between Aldgate East and Liverpool Street stations. Seven people were killed.

At 8.56am a second device exploded on a train between King's Cross and Russell Square, killing 21 people.

At 9.17am there was another blast on a train at Edgware Road station which blew a hole through a wall into another train on an adjoining platform. Two other trains were affected and seven people were killed.

At 9.47am a fourth blast blew the top off a doubledecker bus in Tavistock Square, central London, possibly killing more than a dozen people.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,12780,1523867,00.html

Even if it is a plot by radical muslims inspired by the global jihad, it still doesnt help Bush and Blaire, because Iraq is the obvious instigator.

The only way they are helped is if people are simply scared and confused, thus confusing information should be expected no matter what.

Not ours, not Britain's. They LIED to us to get us to go to war. Why should we believe what they say about this event?

These are extremely interesting theories and raise good questions.

I'm not wearing a tin-foil on this one, but only because I still have no freaking idea what happened. And I despair of ever knowing, just like on 9-11, because the people I must trust to tell me the truth are liars.

And what we do know about the CIA is disturbing as all hell.

If we were living in sane times we'd repeal the National Security Act.

about the bombers so quickly and easily - like the bombers left them to make it easier for the cops to know who did it. I did find an article from a couple days after the bombing that questioned this ...

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-13385127,00.html

One of the four men had been reported missing by his family on the day of the attacks and his property was found at the bus blast scene.

"The second man's property was found at the scene of the Aldgate blast and the third man's property at both the Aldgate and Edgware Road blasts.

A relative of the one of the men has been arrested in West Yorkshire in connection with the attacks and will be questioned in London.

One of the bombers was named by locals as a 22-year-old, who neighbours said was a "very nice lad".

Two of the other bombers were reported to be aged 30 and 19.

Sky News terror expert Steve Park said the documents may have been deliberately planted to "send police the wrong way".
"

it would be suspicious. But, if they were suicide bombers, then they'd know they'd be reported missing by their families, and it would just take a few days more to identify them. At least one would have carried his driving licence for the rental car; unless they were trying to appear anonymous, they'd leave the normal contents of their pockets (bank cards, driving licences) in them.

Not specifically answering your topic but a few comments on the London attacks:

1) The police were very careful about the initial information they were giving out because they obviously wanted time to catch other people in the network and not let them know what leads they had.

2) The police also had to be very careful about race relations as this could cause a backlash, that's why they would have been very careful not to release information without evidence.

3) There are repeated warnings on the underground not to leave baggage unattended, it's the the kind of thing people already keep a look out for (from experience with the IRA etc).

That's my take on the police investigation side of things but there are obviously still a lot of unanswered questions on this and on the motivation.

Which is it? Does anyone know?

It has since emerged that the school in Pakistan attended by Tanweer was run by Lashkar-e-Toiba.
http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/jul152005/index2131182005714.asp

Any questions...?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lashkar-e-Toiba

The bomb inquiry took a further twist when security sources identified the fourth suicide terrorist as Lindsey Germaine, a black Jamaican-born Muslim convert. A house in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, where Germaine lived with his wife and child is being searched.

He is understood to have met one or more of his accomplices at an Islamic religious school in Pakistan. Intelligence leads suggest that the men were approached by the mastermind of the attacks, a British Pakistani Muslim, while they were abroad.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22989-1694952,00.html