The idea of mounting "staggered" attacks on a target is not new at all. The first recorded instance in modern times seems to have occurred at Narrow Water, near Warren Point, Northern Ireland in 1979. The IRA used an IED (700lbs of semtex) to attack a passing convoy of British soldiers. Approximately thirty minutes later, after the troops had set up a command post at a gatehouse across the road from the initial explosion, a second explosion (1000lbs of semtex hidden in a series of milk churns) killed another ten soldiers. It was a matter of sheer luck that casualties from the second blast were not significantly higher; several Wessex helicopters had lifted off from the site minutes earlier carrying injured to a nearby military base. The fact that the second bomb was larger than the first makes this the first time that such a tactic was used.

Since that time the double attack method of bombing has become relatively commonplace, with Palestinians and Chechens using it to great effect.

Re the quote of Patrick Belton in the above paragraph: "I find that such an attack on commuting civilians completely unengaged with the machinery of government, war, or administration is striking me as stomach-turning and revolting in a way I could not have previously imagined."

Bin Ladin's stance was stated in an interview he gave to Pakistan's DAWN newspaper(reporter HM) after Sept 11:
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"HM: In your statement of Oct 7, you expressed satisfaction over the Sept 11 attacks, although a large number of innocent people perished in them, hundreds among them were Muslims. Can you justify the killing of innocent men in the light of Islamic teachings ?

OBL: This is a major point in jurisprudence. In my view, if an enemy occupies a Muslim territory and uses common people as human shield, then it is permitted to attack that enemy. For instance, if bandits barge into a home and hold a child hostage, then the child's father can attack the bandits and in that attack even the child may get hurt.

America and its allies are massacring us in Palestine, Chechenya, Kashmir and Iraq. The Muslims have the right to attack America in reprisal. The Islamic Shariat says Muslims should not live in the land of the infidel for long. The Sept 11 attacks were not targeted at women and children. The real targets were America's icons of military and economic power.

The Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) was against killing women and children. When he saw a dead woman during a war, he asked why was she killed ? If a child is above 13 and wields a weapon against Muslims, then it is permitted to kill him.

The American people should remember that they pay taxes to their government, they elect their president, their government manufactures arms and gives them to Israel and Israel uses them to massacre Palestinians. The American Congress endorses all government measures and this proves that the entire America is responsible for the atrocities perpetrated against Muslims. The entire America, because they elect the Congress.

I ask the American people to force their government to give up anti-Muslim policies. The American people had risen against their government's war in Vietnam. They must do the same today. The American people should stop the massacre of Muslims by their government.

HM: Can it be said that you are against the American government, not the American people ?

OSB: Yes! We are carrying on the mission of our Prophet, Muhammad (peace be upon him). The mission is to spread the word of God, not to indulge massacring people. We ourselves are the target of killings, destruction and atrocities. We are only defending ourselves. This is defensive Jihad. We want to defend our people and our land. That is why I say that if we don't get security, the Americans, too would not get security.

This is a simple formula that even an American child can understand. This is the formula of live and let live. "
Source: http://www.dawn.com/2001/11/10/top1.htm
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Note: The DAWN link no longer seems to work but I cited the above in an earlier post here -- see http://www.danieldrezner.com/archives/001162.html and search for "DAWN"

Your point being, Don? Are you saying they (and we) were asking for it?

Re the fabulous stoicism of the British, I'm an American living in London, and I have to say, I've never felt prouder of any group of people than I do right now. There's been seemingly no panic on the streets, and in the mainstream media, I've not seen even a trace of demonisation of Muslims. (A friend in the US tells me that Fox's coverage is quite raw on this issue.)

And no one's complaining about hardship or inconvenience, even though many people are having to walk 15 miles home from work (and even though under normal circumstances, Brits complain for fun). One woman who had been walking for nearly two hours, interviewed on the radio, had only this to say, in a voice with not a trace of self-pity in it: "Well, you just have to get on with it, don't you? At least it's nice weather."

No wonder Hitler couldn't break 'em.

It will probably turn out that these attacks were at least assisted by asylum seekers or other immigrants and the terrorist infrastructure that the UK has allowed them to create. My link collection on this is here.

Expect this side of the story to receive little or no attention from mainstream bloggers and the MSM.

Hey Don you think the Indonesian victims of the Bali bombing believe that load of crap? What did that Muslim nation do to incur the wrath of Bin Laden? Leave us alone and you wont get hurt? Unless you get in the way.

Re Mark Buehner's comment : "Hey Don you think the Indonesian victims of the Bali bombing believe that load of crap? What did that Muslim nation do to incur the wrath of Bin Laden?"
============
My understanding is that the Bali bombing was aimed at a)Australians -- the ally of the US government. Plus at (b) a revenue source of the Indonesian government. Plus anyone associated with a or b.

Al Qaeda's disregard for civilian lives in Indonesia may have been based on the example provided by CIA's support of Suharto's coup in 1965-67, in which roughly 500,000 people were massacred.
See,e.g, http://www.namebase.org/scott.html
and http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB52/

You may recall that the US government then stood by for 30 years and did nothing while the tyrant Suharto's family stole everything not nailed down --and plunged millions into hopeless poverty.

Of course, the right wing propaganda machine and the liars at Fox have no interest in those facts.
The right wing propaganda machine goes to great lengths to conceal how the actions of whores in the US government --in the service of political and business interests -- have created the hatred that is driving the Al Qaeda movement and providing it with cover and support among 1 billion Muslims.

Unlike buttkissing sycophants , my loyalty is to the American people --not to business interests who hide their hypocrisy, deceit, and foreign aggression behind the American flag. I despise those selfish interests who are bringing unnecessary disaster down upon America -- 4500+ lives lost, $2 Trillion in lost tax revenues, lost civil liberties, and the ongoing creation of a facist government based on lies and a false history.

Something FOX News seems to overlooking in its coverage of the London bombing:

a)Global Warming is being caused by greenhouse emissions -- and the USA generates those emissions far out of proportion to it's share of the global population.

b) The people of the Islamic world live in the desert wastes of north Africa, Middle East, and Central Asia. They suffer --especially in summer -- from appalling daytime temperatures and lack of water.

c) People on the margin of survival might not appreciate Bush's comments --on arrival at the G8 Summit -- that he really doesn't given a shit about the effects of global warming on the rest of the planet.

Don the Greater:

Why don't you establish your own blog, where you can spew your endless garbage without distracting other commenters on this blog.

Seriously: Anyone who has a need to post excessively long comments like yours, with references to various other sources, needs his own blog.

"And no one's complaining about hardship or inconvenience, even though many people are having to walk 15 miles home from work (and even though under normal circumstances, Brits complain for fun). One woman who had been walking for nearly two hours, interviewed on the radio, had only this to say, in a voice with not a trace of self-pity in it: "Well, you just have to get on with it, don't you? At least it's nice weather."

Yes, we should take great pride in the Brits' reaction to this-- calm, constructive, rational, decent, not the scapegoating that you'd hear from both sides on talk radio in the US.

To be fair, the Brits do (unfortunately) have lots of experience with this sort of thing considering their awful history with the IRA terror campaigns. The IRA was far and away the most brutal terrorist organization in Europe, much worse (and more brutal to civilians) than any of the small-timers like the Baader-Meinhofs and even the ETA. And, to give due to other bombing victims, I'm generally amazed at the stoicism in general of Europeans around WWII-- Spaniards at Guernica, Poles in Warsaw, Dutch at Rotterdam, Germans at Dresden, Russians at Leningrad, all acquitted themselves with poise and, even after the devastation of the war, got on with rebuilding their societies. (The Spaniards, after the Madrid bombings, also pleasantly surprised me-- little scapegoating of Muslims or immigrants, lots of solidarity and efforts to help neighbors.)

My hearts and admiration both go out to the British today-- we're with you across the pond, and we'll do our best to help you catch the evil cowards who attacked you like this.

To be fair, the Brits do (unfortunately) have lots of experience with this sort of thing considering their awful history with the IRA terror campaigns. The IRA was far and away the most brutal terrorist organization in Europe, much worse (and more brutal to civilians) than any of the small-timers like the Baader-Meinhofs and even the ETA.

Oh for God's sake. Don't discuss things which you evidently have no knowledge of. A statement such as "the IRA was far and away the most brutal terror organisation in Europe" is woefully off the mark since it overlooks the far more violent Loyalist terror groups in the North of Ireland, groups that carried out atrocities with a missionary zeal untouched by anything the IRA ever did.

The fact is that Irish Republican attacks against the British mainland in the period 1980-1994 have very little in common with what happened in London this morning. Republican groups were always extraordinarily professional in their attacks and never explicitly set out to kill civilians during this period, evidenced by their willingness to issue timely warnings before *every* bombing. What's more, the motives of Irish republicans were at least understandable in that it was a definite strategy to force the British government to disengage militarily from Northern Ireland. These Islamist nuts, on the other hand, are apparantly slapdash in their methods, lacking of a clear goal, and have little desire other than to cause civilian deaths.

The fact is that Irish Republican attacks against the British mainland in the period 1980-1994 have very little in common with what happened in London this morning. Republican groups were always extraordinarily professional in their attacks and never explicitly set out to kill civilians during this period, evidenced by their willingness to issue timely warnings before *every* bombing.

Why that particular period (1980-1994) and why that particular geographical restriction (mainland Britain) ? There have definitely been many, many attacks carried out by the IRA which just attacked civilians. Consider the Omagh bomb for instance. Or consider the IRA groups that assasinated one of the founder/publishers of the Guiness book of world records.

The IRA has plenty of blood on its hands, even if its less than Al Qaeda.

I'd have to agree with the advice that you get your own blog, Don. Most of us who write in to these things probably have too great a fondness for hearing ourselves talk, and we all have our personal axes to grind. But if you are going to do multiple posts to a thread with links to other sites, all on the isolationism cum creeping domestic facism theme, you need to find your own platform instead of hijacking those of other people. And I, for my part, will stop taking your bait from here on out.

Why that particular period (1980-1994) and why that particular geographical restriction (mainland Britain) ? There have definitely been many, many attacks carried out by the IRA which just attacked civilians. Consider the Omagh bomb for instance. Or consider the IRA groups that assasinated one of the founder/publishers of the Guiness book of world records.

I refer specifically to 1980-1994 because this is the period in which the (Provisional) IRA campaign against mainland Britain was most active, beginning with the hunger strikes in the Maze prison in 1980 through to the IRA ceasefire in 1994. Furthermore, my reference to bombings in mainland Britain is justified since I'm comparing them to Islamist attacks in Britain as opposed to, say, the 2003 attacks on British interests in Istanbul.

Your reference to the Omagh bombing as being the work of the "IRA" is laughable; that particular attack was a botched operation carried out by a group of agricultural workers styling themselves the "Real IRA," an entirely separate organization, both in philosophy and practise, from the Provisional IRA.

I'm not denying for a moment that *IRA has blood on its hands. I would, however, appreciate you looking at the context of my post and sticking to the facts.

All we know for sure:

Someone said ephu to the G-8 on 7.7.05. Loud and clear. Just like someone said ephu to the US on 9.11.01.

For four years, we've tried the move:

OH YEAH?!?!?! EPHU!!!

Will today wake up the morons who still think it makes sense to fight a war on terrorism? Probably not.

I, sadly, can never stop taking the bait.

"My understanding is that the Bali bombing was aimed at a)Australians -- the ally of the US government. Plus at (b) a revenue source of the Indonesian government. Plus anyone associated with a or b."

Oh, in that case I suppose its ok. As long as you can find some idiotic tangiantial reason to justify BLOWING UP INNOCENT CIVILIANS, MOST NOT EVEN YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE, then everything is peachy. Ok, yeh, so Al Qaeda is willing to blow up as many completely innocent fellow Muslims as is necessary in Iraq and Indonesia and elsewhere, just because they happen to be in the way, but we should also believe that they have legitimate and respectable greviences. No. You know people by their acts, not their words (especially when they radically conflict with their acts). AQ is not out for any justice or freedom. They are ultimately fascists out to beat, bully, scare, and bomb any and everyone into, not just to Islam, but to the Taliban style Islam they favor. They target the US and UK, Australia, Spain and Indonesia only coincidentally. If the West didnt exist they would have to be invented, because the fascist bombing and shooting would continue until every living sould was under Bin Ladens thumb. That is the simply truth you and your retched ilk fail to understand. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Just crescents instead of crooked crosses. Invent, justify, and rationalize all you want.

"Will today wake up the morons who still think it makes sense to fight a war on terrorism? Probably not. "

Nobody is stopping you from surrender. Move to Pakistan, adopt Islam, throw on the robes, shut your mouth, and enjoy your new life. That is all they demand of you.

"Republican [IRA] groups were always extraordinarily professional in their attacks and never explicitly set out to kill civilians during this period, evidenced by their willingness to issue timely warnings before *every* bombing."

Neowin-- the Birmingham Pub Bombings in November of 1974 that killed a score or so people in England, did the IRA phone ahead of time to warn about those? I'm not trying to imply anything here because I don't know the answer, and I was also aware of what you pointed out, i.e. that the IRA did make a strenuous effort to call ahead of time so as to warn authorities to clear civilians out of a bombing target. This IMHO is one of the reasons why the IRA, despite being quite technically proficient at its bombmaking, killed far fewer civilians than al-Qaeda does in a single attack (in which mass murder seems to be one of the main objectives).

This e.g. is why the Canary Wharf bombing killed only two people (?) despite the catastrophic scale of its property damage, a similar pattern for most other IRA attacks in Britain. Only the Birmingham Pub bombings and maybe Harrod's AFAIK deviate from this pattern. (I'm not counting the deadly IRA attacks against British soldiers here-- e.g. the assaults on the same day as the assassination of Mountbatten-- just the ones that hit civilian regions.) Al-Qaeda by comparison just seems to want to kill as many people as possible. In fact, AFAIK the 9/11 attacks had killed more Britons (over 60?) in the Twin Towers-- apparently there some Anglo-American conference-- than any single one of the IRA bombings, or even yesterday's attack for that matter.

I refer specifically to 1980-1994 because this is the period in which the (Provisional) IRA campaign against mainland Britain was most active

And by picking your time period carefully, you ignored actions such as the IRA group that carried out targetted assasinations and murders in London in the 1970s. And what about the assasination of poor, harmless, dotty Mountbatten ? Doubtless he's not considered a civilian because he's related to the Crown.

Your reference to the Omagh bombing as being the work of the "IRA" is laughable; that particular attack was a botched operation carried out by a group of agricultural workers styling themselves the "Real IRA," an entirely separate organization, both in philosophy and practise, from the Provisional IRA.

The original post which you objected to said "IRA". YOu responded to it promptly referring to the Provisional IRA. I don't care which IRA group or offshoot it was (do we care if its Al Qaeada proper or one of its offshoots that perpetuated the butchery in London), it is definitely true that an IRA splinter group carried out a murderous bombing.

I would, however, appreciate you looking at the context of my post and sticking to the facts.

The context is that you responded to criticism of the IRA by bringing in comments like 'Well, the main IRA group carried out no terror activities in this time period in England'. That is a false response.

Re Mark Buehner's comment "I, sadly, can never stop taking the bait"
---------
Unfortunately, Mr Buehner never does take the "bait". The "bait" is my request that my fellow US citizens use their critical facilities and answer a few questions (as opposed to having false beliefs inserted by the right wing propaganda machine of Fox, Rush Limbaugh, O'Reilly,National Review, The New Republic, etc.)

The questions are:
a)WHY did Sept 11 occur?
b) Does the Islamic world --from which AL Qaeda arose -- have any valid complaints against the US Government? Is it worthwhile to isolate Al Qaeda from 1 billion Muslims by addressing valid complaints?
c) To what extent has aggression by the US Government in the Middle East/Cental Asia been driven by business/political special interests acting contrary to the national interest?
d) Given the enormous costs we've suffered , shouldn't some of our hatred and anger be directed at those selfish actors who provoked Sept 11 -- as well as at Al Qaeda?
e) Why should we allow selfish interests to manipulate us into a long UNNECESSARY war with 1 billion Muslims -- a war costly in blood as well as tax revenues -- when that war serves NO useful purpose and is driven by people with no loyalty to US citizens?

The difference between the UK and the USA is over a millenia of history. It has happened before and it will happen again. Two hundred years plus of history and since 1813 no invaders on mainland soil is nothing to build character on.

Bit late in the stream.... but off the top of my head I think ETA was the bloodiest campaign. Didn't check the figures but much be readily avaialble.

As a Brit. thinking about the tube bombings in relation to what I have already written about Islamist terrorists and the Middle East, it is obvious the arguments will for ever go round and round on both sides. Everyone's right and everyone is wrong depending on your frame of reference. if you are Bush or Bair you shut your eyes and ears to the colonial hurts. If you are an islamistic fundimentalist you refuse to recognise the west has contrubuted anything to Progress.

Root causes are frequently discussed - Al Qaeda is both serious and trivial. Bin Laden has obviously tipped over the edge in to madness and a deep nihilsm from which there is no return: he is in a sense Conrad's Kirk, inverted, back to front. He is the oppressed, well he was never oppressed but claims to represent them, going crazy with the thoughts of the injstices done by the powerful to the weak.

But there is a serious discussion to be had here which I allude to in my recent post in www.molesky.blogspot.com
and in many pieces in both Baghdadskies and baghdadskies2: the failure of Arab nationalism.

The 1967 Israeli- Arab war was the tipping point if you will, when they realised theiy could neither defeat the Israelis or organise politically (all the attempts to forge links e.g. between Syria and Egypt) all foundered in factionalism and the usual Byzantine intrigues which are commonplace in the Middle East.

The Palestinians were on their own and resorted to quite effective terrorism. Though it did not ge them hat they wanted politically.

Then things moved on with the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and the unscrupulous and underhand way the U.S. and other countries defeated the USSR by proxy. Not forgetting the Lebanese proxy was which resulted in Hezbollah.

As is well know Osma and the U.S. were friends at this stage. So the trivial bit comes in when we see it is all about wounded pride as much about Muslim honour. Indeed, thtose who have read all about the hitory of this know he has made up his campaign agaisnt the infidel as he has gone along through a serious of personal set-backs including the Saudi rejection of his help.

It is fundamentally a personal project in that he is projecting his anger through a terror war on western coutires.

He has brains and he has been able to mobilise disaffected muslim youth as have many other terrorist/guerrilla type organisations right back to the days the PLO.

But to understand the roots of the philosophy behind the al Qaeda campaign (the serious bit) we must turn to the likes a Sayeed Qtub (reference : New Yorker article from way back easily Googled). Wikipedia gives a reasonable profile of the man and his belief and writings, too.

for fundimentalist' read 'fundamentalist'

AND

The general principle that fundamentalists though going back to what they think are the principles of whatever it is they are concerned with are really new kids on the block. In Islam, Wahabbiisim is a mere few hundred years old. In Protestanism, born-again Christianity is even newer, though the Jehovah's Witnesses, with their stoical adherence to every word in the Bible being straight out of God's mouth - who are considered to be heretical by the mainstream - were born again a century before George Bush!