|
|
|
Jewish World Review July 25, 2005 / 18 Tammuz, 5765 One small defeat for terrorists, one large potential victory for humankind By Jack Kelly
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
There is good news and bad news in the attacks Thursday in London. The bad
news, of course, is that the attacks took place. The good news is that they
were so clumsily executed.
The attacks mirrored those of July 7th. Now as then, three subway trains
and a bus were targeted. NBC has reported the Brits have told American
authorities that both the backpacks used in Thursday's attacks and the
(homemade) explosives in the backpacks were identical to those of July 7th.
What was different is that this time only the detonators went off. Just one
person — apparently one of the bombers — was injured in Thursday's
attacks.
It is unclear whether the July 7th bombers intended to kill themselves,
since each had bought round-trip train tickets from Leeds, and timers were
found in the remains of their bombs.
Thursday's bombers intended to commit suicide, if eyewitness accounts in the
Sun and Scotsman newspapers can be believed.
James Boampang told the Sun he saw "an olive-skinned man" mumble a prayer
before his backpack exploded. "There was no emotion. He was nodding his
head up and down. He definitely was not speaking in English."
The failure of all the bombs to detonate suggests either that the bombs were
assembled by incompetent amateurs, or that the explosives had been mixed
long before, and had deteriorated over time.
This has prompted two theories to emerge, both of them highly dubious.
The first is that Thursday's bombings were the work not of al Qaida but of a
clumsy copycat group. But though the same technique — attacking three
subways and a bus — could readily be copied, it is doubtful copycats could
have known how to duplicate precisely the homemade mix of the bombs, since
the composition has never publicly been released.
The second is that al Qaida didn't intend for these bombs to explode. They
just wanted to show that the London transportation system is still
vulnerable.
The first difficulty with this preposterous theory is that if the
eyewitnesses are to be believed, the bombers were surprised and disappointed
they were not frolicking with the 72 virgins after the detonators went off.
Not only would it be out of character for al Qaida to pull a punch, the
organizers of this attack would have to be dumber than dirt to have done so
deliberately. The unexploded backpacks are a treasure trove of forensic
leads, and at least two of the would be bombers are in police custody, where
they are subject to interrogation. The failed attacks offer the authorities
a road map for rolling up the al Qaida network in Britain. No way would a
terror network bring that kind of grief on itself deliberately.
The most reasonable explanation is that the explosives expert or experts who
rigged the July 7th bombs wasn't available to rig or check Thursday's bombs.
Probably he or they fled the country shortly before or immediately after the
7/7 attacks.
If so, Londoners can breathe easier. If attack #2 was a complete fizzle,
attack #3, if there is one, isn't likely to be much more effective.
The failure of Thursday's attacks is a double blow to al Qaida.
"The ineffectiveness...is a black eye to al Qaida's image of professionals,"
said web logger Bill Roggio. "This was a poorly planned and poorly executed
attack from an organization that prides itself in skill and effectiveness
when striking. You won't view today's results on any jihadi recruitment
videos."
Since al Qaida has so much to lose from a botched attack, why go forward
with this one if adult supervision was lacking?
Roggio suspects, and I agree, that the jihadis may have been driven by a
"use it or lose it" mentality. The British police are very competent, and
their intelligent relentlessness in the wake of the 7/7 attacks doubtless
was putting pressure on radical Islamists. Dormant cells may have felt they
had to act before they were exposed.
The usual suspects are wringing their hands and counseling pre-emptive
surrender, as they do after every terrorist attack. But al Qaida hasn't
come close to duplicating 9/11 in its attacks since, which have been growing
steadily weaker.
What happened Thursday can't be described as a victory for us, but it was a
defeat for them.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
© 2005, Jack Kelly |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||
>
