London Underground under attack? [merged thread]

murphaph

The TV news are reporting smoke seen at 3 stations across London and a nail bomb blast on a train. Details are very sketchy.

murphaph

Seems like a bus has been cordoned off. Driver heard a louad bang and the windows of the upper saloon have been blown out. They suspect it might be a detonator that's gone off with the main charge failing to explode.

Some poor fecker will have to do the long walk to check that bus out....

Villain

Eyewitness reports a rugsack exploding on someones back in the Underground, but only a very minor explosive, i.e. only the detonator went off.

Police have said this is NOT a mjor incident.

Hobbes

seeing as all so far were detonators, it looks a lot like its a warning or a prank. The rucksack owner looked "dismayed".

murphaph

Prank or no-it's shut down much of the LUL again and if they can do this every few weeks it'll fcuk London up rightly.

pork99

Looks like they were identical devices to the ones two weeks ago.

Also they all failed to detonate properly whch means that the police have 4 almost intact devices which is a big fat Christmas present for the lads in forensics (as far as I remember that's how the sons of bitches who attacked Madrid were caught)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4705419.stm

whiskeyman

yup - lucks like a very lucky escape.
I wonder what the passengers on the bus and tubes who were standing close to the potential suicide bombers are feeling tonight....
Hopefully this amazing blunder will lead the police to track down this group - and then the big question is to find out if it is a cell part of a large group.
I'd say whatever happens, its going to happen within days rather than weeks.

pork99

whiskeyman wrote:

I'd say whatever happens, its going to happen within days rather than weeks.

Given what happened in Spain I wouldn't like to be living next door to any of them

murphaph

pork99 wrote:

Given what happened in Spain I wouldn't like to be living next door to any of them

Jesus yeah, was anybody in the neighbouring apartments killed in that explosion?

Hobbes

Bush just got his PATRIOT act signed into law yesterday with a 10 year extension and all the extra provisions tacked on.

Villain

The Americans are starting to randomly search people on the Underground from today!

bonkey

What? In London?

Villain

no no in New York

growler

bonkey wrote:

What? In London?

:-)


interesting to see that Bloomberg ( mayor) was stressing that the searches would be completely random and not target any ethnic group! What's the point in that ffs, not much point searching 80 year old white grannies, or any ethnic group that isn't middle eastern arabic looking as part of a counter terrorism ploy is there!

oscarBravo

Absolutely. I mean, this is all about preventing atrocities like Oklahoma City, right?

ionapaul

There was a great cover of Time a few years ago in the aftermath of September 11th, a little white boy (he might have been 7 or 8) being randoming patted down in an airport before getting on a plane. I was patted down several times myself while living in the States 99-03, as I bought several one way tickets with a (company) credit card, which raises a red flag. I had no problem with it, I thought it was absolutely ludicrous seeing little old ladies and children randomly selected, while others such as myself who better fit the terrorist profile (male, single, foreign born) were often ignored. That said, I remember a particularly intelligent friend of mine once explain to me a logical statistical reason why profiling doesn't work, seemed very counter-intuitive but what do I know?

bonkey

growler wrote:

interesting to see that Bloomberg ( mayor) was stressing that the searches would be completely random and not target any ethnic group! What's the point in that ffs, not much point searching 80 year old white grannies, or any ethnic group that isn't middle eastern arabic looking as part of a counter terrorism ploy is there!

Such targetting presupposes that the only real threat comes not just from Islamic fundamentalists, but from Islamic Fundamentalists of Middle-Eastern origin, which is then generalised in to "anyone with the 'wrong' coloured skin".

Such a targetting would not only open the door to simplifying avoidance, but would cause a completely innocent subsection of the population to be targetted because they bear a racial similarity to people who have recently comitted such acts.

Indeed, I would go further, and argue that the entire concept of "they've just attacked this type of target, so that type of target is what we need to protect now" is utterly doomed to failure. Its a point that Bruce Schneier made just after the first attacks on London two weeks ago, and one I find hard to fault.

In the September 11th attacks on the US, it was planes. In a foiled attack on teh US embassy in Italy (if memory serves) it was the water supply. In Spain it was the train system. In London, the bus and underground. In Baghdad, its predominantly cars.

Focus on one area, and all you do is weaken another, or force the terrorists to pick another target and/or another avenue of attack.

Focus on ethnic groups, and all you do is increase the alienation of such groups, which in turn will only help spur on unrest and mistrust - two of the major factors which serve to increase terrorism, not combat it.

Random, untargetted searches are the best available approach to increasing the feeling of security, as well as actual security if they're done right, without giving any group the justifiable argument that they are being targetted (and thus effectively considered suspect/guilty by association) above others.

In the long term (really long), inclusion is what is needed. Ethnic profiling of any sort is the exact opposite.

In short, while I have my doubts about the reality of what will eb done, I agree entirely with the sentiment that Bloomberg announced. If you're going to carry out searches, you don't use ethnic profiling as a baseline.

jc

growler

bonkey wrote:

Such targetting presupposes that the only real threat comes not just from Islamic fundamentalists, but from Islamic Fundamentalists of Middle-Eastern origin,

jc

an entirely reasonable assumption at this point in time, given the history of attacks in the US and Europe, the threat from Middle East based organisations, the profile of the known terrorist attackers in Europe and the US to date.


Given no history of a significant deviance from a profile of recent terrorist attacks being carried out by Muslims of Middle Eastern (and now Pakistani) origin I think it is entirely reasonable to focus on that group and subject them to more rigorous attentions by the security forces, i think it is entirely pointless for the security forces to search those who do not fit the terrorist profile in an effort to improve security. Admittedly that will have the side effect of alienating a sub-set of society, but the fact remains that the sub set has more in common with the terrorist profile than the general population.
You say that random searches are the best for the "feeling" of security, like many others pulled out for searches in the US in recent times i find it somewhat comical that they want to search me / grannies / kids when it seems bloody obvious to me that we do not fit the profile. What it does do is convince me that the people in charge of ground level security are often morons and incapable of making an informed judgement of where a real threat may lie.

However I do entirely agree with you Bonkey that such searches or focus on certain targets is ultimately pointless as a terrorist can simply change their mind and blow up something else.

Apparently the police have shot a suspected terrorist in Stockwell underground station just now, bet he fits the profile.

pork99

Passenger Mark Whitby told BBC News he had seen a man of Asian appearance shot five times by "plain-clothes police officers" with a handgun.

"I saw the gun being fired five times into the guy - he is dead," he said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4706787.stm

Good - they got one of the b^stards - result!!!!

oscarBravo

growler wrote:

an entirely reasonable assumption at this point in time, given the history of attacks in the US and Europe...

...like Oklahoma City?

growler wrote:

...the profile of the known terrorist attackers in Europe and the US to date.

Like Tim McVeigh?

seamus

ionapaul wrote:

I had no problem with it, I thought it was absolutely ludicrous seeing little old ladies and children randomly selected, while others such as myself who better fit the terrorist profile (male, single, foreign born) were often ignored.

It would seem to me (and I think this is kind of what bonkey alludes to) that if you stopped checking, for example, little children, or stopped giving them as much attention, then terrorists could turn to children to use as their weapons. Kidnap a child, pack him with explosives, tell him to get on this tube and his Mommy will be waiting for him at the other side, then blow him up.

growler

oscarBravo wrote:

...like Oklahoma City? Like Tim McVeigh?

the most current threat ( I'm not privy to whether there is an elevated risk of domestic terrorism in the US) would seem to me to be from Middle Eastern islamic groups, therefore it would seem to me that these are the most obvious targets for additional security precautions

growler

seamus wrote:

It would seem to me (and I think this is kind of what bonkey alludes to) that if you stopped checking, for example, little children, or stopped giving them as much attention, then terrorists could turn to children to use as their weapons. Kidnap a child, pack him with explosives, tell him to get on this tube and his Mommy will be waiting for him at the other side, then blow him up.

true, but that doesn't fit with what is known of their modus operandi. Until such time as it does the time spent searching kids is time not spent searching those more likely to be up to no good.

Iirc a 12 yr old was used in Israel recently

Hobbes

Earthman wrote:

Iirc a 12 yr old was used in Israel recently

Smugglers often use children to smuggle stuff.

ionapaul

Does El-Al use some form of profiling when interviewing passengers?

tomMK1

someone has been shot today in stockwell tube station?

Fence

growler wrote:

true, but that doesn't fit with what is known of their modus operandi. Until such time as it does the time spent searching kids is time not spent searching those more likely to be up to no good.

But then you would be open to the fact that by not searching children you left that door open.

Plus they could always take a leaf out of the IRA's book and use involuntary suicide bombers. So in reality racial profiling won't work long-term.

Not to make anyone paranoid or anything

Sparks

tomMK1 wrote:

someone has been shot today in stockwell tube station?

Yes, held down and shot five times by police.

Villain

I just hope the guy that was shot was a suicide bomber not an innocent civilian, that would be a disaster.

simu

Sparks wrote:

Yes, held down and shot five times by police.

That sounds pretty dodgy although afaik it hasn't been confirmed officially yet. I mean, you'd think they'd want to keep him alive if at all possible for further questioning.