http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6255960.stm

- Typical, if this would have been in Washington DC there'd be ten threads about it now. But seen as it's little old London..

Miraculous escape, anyway. Clearly connected bombings.

Now, now, Halo. It is always slow here on Fridays.

I am glad to hear that they were unsuccessful, and hope the people involved are apprehended in short order.

It may be relatively ignored on these boards, but rest assured it's been the only story on our news channels all day.

Usual nag -- and which multibillion dollar mass surveillance system got it? Oh yeah, none of them.

It may turn out to have been a larger plot than first assumed. They are saying on the news that the Glasgow attack has definite connections to the foiled car bombs in London.

Does anyone else think it's not Al Qada related? Or if it is them then it's a good thing that they appear to not be able to follow through and have been foiled. I'm wondering though if this has more to do with the Prime Minister change in some way.

I think there is an automatic assumption that our authorities are incompetant. I'd bet a large sum of money that the seemingly random nature of the tip offs for the London attacks were probably just what they told the press and really there were people who we will never know that foiled it before it happened. There is no need to seem competant if you're doing your job regardless.

The thing in Scotland could have been far worse than it was and kudos to the passers by for taking those guys down so they can be questioned.

A convenient Q&A (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6253802.stm) on where things stand at present.

Either way, sends a chill up the spine.

My best mates were at Tiger Tiger on Monday night for Comedy Club.

A convenient Q&A (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6253802.stm) on where things stand at present.

It is always refreshing reading a news report like this one where you are not hit every other paragraph with "unnamed source cites lack of <insert politician's name> dilgence as being to blame for this latest attack."

Just the facts, ma'am.

Sad that this stuff is going on, but good news in not having any casualties from this latest effort at terror.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6258062.stm

- Seems that they are treating the Glasgow Airport incident as related to the London Car Bombs.

It contained, again, a lot of has canisters. Just hope this isn't bigger than what we've found.

I'm still not 100% convinced that these are related to Al Qaeda planned attacks. I give more credence to the two London bombings since it sounds like they used fairly sophisticated detonation mechanisms, but the one in Glasgow just strikes me as amazingly...sloppy.

Probably someone who just HATES tennis ..... could have been anyone :)

I'm glad nothing happened but it makes you wonder what is next. I keep hearing that they've made arrests but not really any details but I haven't had time to dig too deep to see if they've released any details either.

I don't think it's Al Qaeda, it might be a wannabe or maybe it's IRA?

What kind of terrorist can't ignite cars full of gasoline? And is gasoline and nails really the best way to make a big boom? Not to diminish the potential destruction in the scenario (however much it could have been), but whoever set this up doesn't appear particularly competent (yet they are geniuses compared to the 'terrorists' caught in the US over the past few years).

This (http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=3336148) is interesting, especially:As ABCNews.com reported, U.S. law enforcement officials received intelligence reports two weeks ago warning of terror attacks in Glasgow and Prague, the Czech Republic, against "airport infrastructure and aircraft."

The warnings apparently never reached officials in Scotland, who said this weekend they had received "no advance intelligence" that Glasgow might be a target.

Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff declined to comment specifically on on the report today, but said "everything that we get is shared virtually instantaneously with our counterparts in Britain and vice versa."

What kind of terrorist can't ignite cars full of gasoline? And is gasoline and nails really the best way to make a big boom? Not to diminish the potential destruction in the scenario (however much it could have been), but whoever set this up doesn't appear particularly competent (yet they are geniuses compared to the 'terrorists' caught in the US over the past few years).

9/11 happened with box cutter weilding terrorists.

I'm not sure how much destruction could happen with gas and nails but loss of life and casulties are not always what terrorists are trying to cause....they also want to invoke terror and disrupt our lives.

Regardless, it looks like the UK authorities are hot on the trail and these criminals will be brought to justice. May it be swift and painful but not public so they aren't given over to matrydom.

Well they've arrested seven now, but they believe a few more are on the run. One was a doctor :rolleyes:

They certainly are treating them as Al-Qaeda terrorist attacks, as, unfortunately, all suspects are Asian, which while seemingly a discriminatory lead, certainly rules out domestic and Irish terrorist organisations.

Well, the first two Car bombs I thought seemed like Al-Qaeda, the first being outside the Tiger Tiger London club at 1am - remarkably like the Bali bombing. The other outside the busiest Liverpool train station. It's not just bombs, it's bombs with nails.. I dunno, packed areas, could have been quite a lot of carnage.

That said, I agree about the Glasgow one.. very ominous. Aparently when the suspects emerged they started crying "allah" and actually had to be fought to the ground (one bloke rugby tackled the driver).

Oh ok, well that's scary - three are doctors, and at least 4 are connected with the medical profession. This is different.. this is highly trained professionals, middle class, respectable men who have coordinated this.


Doctors!? /chill

Send them to Guantanmo bay and torture those fools!

Take away their tee times !!!!! That will get them to talk.

Their what?

Doctors play golf, don't they? :)

Compressed gasoline and nails works as a poor man's shrapnel bomb, but it's not going to be as effective as an actual high explosive -- I can put together better from the lawn and garden section. Gasoline is most commonly used in napalm or you could try to make a FAE with it if you had a workable saturation mechanism. From the sounds of it this has been a not-so-well orchestrated plot from a far less well trained organization, but we'll see how it develops.

Of course, gasoline and nail sales aren't tracked as closely as large fertilizer purchases. Maybe they aren't as disorganized as people think. Maybe they just chose materials that couldn't as easily be traced back to them?

If you are a terrorist, and you want to try to get away with more than one terrorist attack, you need to make sure the materials used in the first attack aren't going to lead the authorities right to your door.

Given the results of their activities and the reasons for failure, I'm still going with the idiot wannabe explanation. Bin Laden should sue them for malpractice.

Oh I'm not saying they aren't idiot wannabes. I was just throwing another idea on the fire.

With the quantities of petrol they already had, the quantities of ammonium nitrate they'd need would never flag anyone's suspicion.

Since you obviously know how much ammonium nitrate would trigger a response in England. Especially ammonium nitrate purchased by Muslims.

Since obviously a couple 10kg bags of it, like people actually doing fertilizer work use up every day, is cause for immediate police investigation. And of course this stuff has a shelf life of microseconds so you have to buy it on the way ...

Yes, they keep tabs on who buys large quantities of the stuff, along with numerous other common oxidizers, but any competent organization with enough lead time will have minimal problem avoiding notice.

Oh ok, well that's scary - three are doctors, and at least 4 are connected with the medical profession. This is different.. this is highly trained professionals, middle class, respectable men who have coordinated this.

Doctors!? /chill Obviously they are the poor and disinfected.

Oh ok, well that's scary - three are doctors, and at least 4 are connected with the medical profession. This is different.. this is highly trained professionals, middle class, respectable men who have coordinated this.


Doctors!? /chill

Goes to show you...you can be well educated but still dumb. They were missing common sense marbles in the brain department.