What is the significance of the latest bombings?

First London, now Egypt, (supposedly) Al-Qaeda terror seems to be everywhere, escalating from virtually nothing to throughly planned and executed attacks, causing shock all around the world and lots of deaths in the countries in question.

I somehow got the impression that Al Qaeda's methods usually tended towards a big attack followed by a long silent period, in which the civilian population is left in fear and paranoia, as intended.

What I'm wondering is, why now? Did something significant happen in the last months that I missed? Any ideas or guesses?

they can tell us to buy ducttape and save ourselves!!!

John Bolton?? Karl Rove?? Bush?

if it isn't our policies and those of our allies regarding predominately Muslim countries? Super powers throw their weights around and others get fed up with it and they retaliate with their bombings. Do I approve? Hell no, but it certainly appears that way to me.

When do we as humans learn to resolve differences peacefully? Or must we forever fight?

as far as I know.

Is there?

more and more right-wing enthusiasts are calling for killing radical Muslims and blowing up their holy sites. Whether one believes in radical views of the Koran or not, one starts believing that there are those in power who want to eliminate a significant portion of people on this earth simply because of their beliefs.

I keep thinking about the Christian crusades and how people were murdered for not "believing" as the crusaders. Is it time for payback? I don't know.

I do believe that the super powers want what is in the middle east...oil. Many middle easterners want them out of their lands and there are extremists throughout the world who sympathize with them, who carry out terrorist activities. Poverty and hunger and oppression lead people to take extreme measures to be noticed and heard.

I'm hearing from more and more people supportive comments around here these days. It's shocking how many people I consider rational, peaceful, even progressive are harboring positive feelings about acts of terror. It's getting scary.

countries. The demographics of their support could spawn some quite bizarre bedfellows

that came after the ones before and before the ones that will come later. I refuse to believe that there is some master plan with dates set for when things are to happen, these are lots of independent actors with a generalized plan. There are not "sleeper cells" sitting around with bombs in their hall closets waiting for word from Osama to spring into action and taking the chance of being caught in the interim. They attack when they have a plan and the means to carry it out, not when Al Qaida Central Command unleashes Plan 9 from Outer Afghanistan.

Too much coincidence, years of nothing, then two high scale attacks that had to be planned well in advance a week or a day within each other, having no connection whatsoever?

I'm not saying that Bin Laden is pushing the Islamic green button somewhere in a cage in Afghanistan, and all hell breaks lose, but I think the different sub organizations around the world are connected. Why not, they have money, they have people willing to cooperate and travel, hell, they have internet and cell phones. Don't make them into mystical creatures, they are activists like us in their own reality.

that "Al-Qaida" has become a cover-all organisation that ANY fundamentalist terror group will claim to be associated with; there needn't necessarily be a connection, but use of the name makes it seem there's a much larger and more formidable network than there actually is...not only that, since the terrorist cells are independent and not in contact with one another, it's quite believable that they'd carry out attacks under their own initiative that might coincide...summer is a logical time, also, given increased travel and tourism; the chances are that any attack is going to affect more people, who are not necessarily all going to be citizens of the target nation.

But I think there are connections. It's not that hard to establish, and it would be a waste of resources not to cooperate when they have the common goal.

Anybody have any pointers to information regarding this?

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/front/etc/today.html

Includes conversation with an ex-CIA analyst who says "there is no Al-Qaida anymore" and that recent attacks are by unconnected groups...

Al Qaeda is nevertheless the name we all use when talking about fundamentalist Islamist terrorism in general. The name suits the purpose as well, as long as you're not getting the image of one Bin Laden running everything like the evil anti-hero of superhero movies.

Even if conceding my point these terrorist groups are connected, I believe there is some dynamic pushing them all to carry out their plans around the same time. I have a feeling we might be hearing about that in the next days.

I haven't heard. But I will say that the London bombings provide a good excuse for non-Muslim groups to do this sort of thing, hoping to pin the blame on al Qaeda or its ilk. Let's remember where the bombings took place, and recognize that Gaza isn't that far away-has the possibility this was done by Israeli settlers mad about leaving been considered?

Several hours after the attacks, a group citing ties to al-Qaida claimed responsibility for the explosion on an Islamic web site. The group, the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, al-Qaida, in Syria and Egypt, was one of two extremist groups that also claimed responsibility for October bombings at the Egyptian resorts of Taba and Ras Shitan that killed 34. The group also claimed responsibility for a Cairo bombing in late April.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050723/ap_on_re_mi_ea/egypt_explosions

There may indeed be some significance to the timing; but there seem to be different aims involved.

Mubarak's support of the "war on terror" may be a motivating factor, but internal Egyptian politics and extremist resentment of the relatively moderate nature of the Egyptian government probably have at least as much to do with the Egyptian attack.

I found these paragraphs of interest:

"But according to Sageman, despite their intellectual acuity, his subjects were ultimately ill-prepared for life in the West. He traced their transition to radicalism back to a universal human motivation -- loneliness. "When they became homesick, they did what anyone would and tried to congregate with people like themselves, whom they would find at mosques," he explains. "They drifted towards the mosque, not because they were religious, but because they were seeking friends."

These cliques often formed in the vicinity of mosques that had a militant script advocating violence to overthrow the corrupt regimes, thereby transforming these alienated young Muslims into terrorists."


Loneliness...leads to violence in these instances.

If the bombings had taken place in an European country, we would probably have had 10 threads by now.

For your question, it seems probable that what was previously very coordinated actions from a central location is now a very loose organization where a team may decide to attack simply by copycat effect, and do not need anymore an authorization from a central place.

I think that B*sh has told his associates that they need their own Pearl Harbor or else. What has happened in London and Egypt can only help bolster gee dubyas war on terror which had kind of lost it's punch.

On the other hand, the offended parties could just be coming after the US and it's allies for the rotten illegal war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In either case, the world in much more violent and dangerous since knuck, knuck stole the office of president.

That's all!
:nuke: