Breaking News part II: For God's sake, this is getting ridiculous.

[MadelynIris]

Al Qaeda being who exactly? An elaborate and well funded international terrorist organisation or a bunch of wannabes with petrol, nails and the anarchists cookbook?

So many of these plots just seem like open source terrorism without an outside connection

They may not share the same resources/connections, but they share the same ideaology. I think that's al queda's number one goal. The resources will come later.

[bonoishot]

Security measures include:

Extra police patrols are in place at Manchester Airport and Blackpool Airports where cars are not being allowed to drive to the front of the terminals

I live near Blackpool and me and my friend drove past the airport this afternoon. I noticed them stopping cars, i think they were searching them aswell.

I'm just glad no one was hurt in these attacks on London and Glasgow. :Pray:

[Teta040]

Sorry Sally. Here in the U.S, our own media barely tell us what is happening in our OWN country. It's all Ann Coulter and Paris Hilton. It was pathetic before but now it's starting to border on the lunatic. (But our hurricane season is here and God forbid if we have a major one we'll expect the PLANET to be obsessed with it....the way things are going, we could have another one and our own media will not warn us of it. No more Katrinas!) The final collapse of the immigration bill on Thursday dominated headlines for about 24 hrs, along with another story that really wasn't that important and didn't deserve all the attention it got, namely, the new ultra-right wing Supreme Court of Roberts and Alito voting to overturn the most important Court decision of the 20th century, Brown vs Board of Education...that's right, our schools are going to be segregated again; the Civil Rights Era is over. (If U2 even TRY to play "Pride"on the next tour, even in an ironic way....) These two things lasted maybe 24 hrs and were gone by Friday night. After that, it was nothing but your news OVER and OVER. Not that I resent that, but there is no excuse for that being the ONLY news story, and the burning car being drummed into our heads OVER and OVER. You'd think it happened in Manhattan!

I am glad no one was hurt. I am going to say something blasphemous though...in light of this being a relatively minor icident in the light of terrorist attacks (no one hurt, a total of two vehicles involved) isn't it kind of playing into the terrorists' hands by obsessing with the footage? This is what they do it for, to get all this attention and spread fear. That's why they're called terrorists. If God forbid the Piccadilly bomb had gone off and we had had Baghdad-like casualties, then I can see the coverage; we'd have no choice. But with something like this I could limit the coverage, and publicly blow it off. Bin Laden and his ilk must be rubbling their hands together with glee at our stupidly falling for it again. They GLORY in this. The day we cease to allow them to hold us captive and allow ourselves to glorify their cause by showing them we are afraid, is the day we disarm them of their most potent weapon. I can't see the old Empire allowing this. The Brits used to be very good at news blackouts or scaledowns if they so desired. The media never gave the IRA the least bit of "message" that they were afraid or paralyzed, I imagine....

As I tell my friends now, "We are living in a 'Children of Men' world...."

[dazzlingamy]

Well really is it that scary? 2 attempts to do some shit and they've all been foiled and stopped. What training camps are these guys going to? How shite can someone be? OBviously they don't have the skills or cunningness to get something done, how dumb to drive a truck into an airport, i mean really what damage would get done there? Who is thinking of these stupid ideas?

I'm more impressed that nothing happened. Lets focus on the fact that they can't fight their way out of a paper bag, and the police are actually doing their job. But then that would be good for the sensationlist media would it?

[A_Wanderer]

Originally posted by Teta040

As I tell my friends now, "We are living in a 'Children of Men' world...."

No, but if you really want to make one then having the state enforce media black outs is a good place to start.

Now a moment for those poor disenfranchised doctors who couldn't even kill people right.

[MrsSpringsteen]

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=3336148

Secret Document: U.S. Fears Terror 'Spectacular' Planned
Official Cites Resemblance to Warnings and Intelligence Before 9/11
By BRIAN ROSS, RHONDA SCHWARTZ and RICHARD ESPOSITO

July 1, 2007 —

A secret U.S. law enforcement report, prepared for the Department of Homeland Security, warns that al Qaeda is planning a terror "spectacular" this summer, according to a senior official with access to the document.

"This is reminiscent of the warnings and intelligence we were getting in the summer of 2001," the official told ABCNews.com.

U.S. officials have kept the information secret, and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said today on ABC News' "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" that the United States did not have "have any specific credible evidence that there's an attack focused on the United States at this point."

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."

Unlike the United States, officials in Germany have publicly warned that the country could face a major attack this summer, also comparing the situation to the pre-9/11 summer of 2001.

[BoMac]

Controlled blasts at Glasgow hospital




GLASGOW, Scotland (CNN) -- A bomb disposal unit has performed at least two controlled explosions on a suspicious device at a hospital where one of the suspects in Saturday's Glasgow airport attack is being treated.

A CNN crew stationed at the the Royal Alexandra Hospital in the Paisley area of the Scottish city heard two blasts, which occurred about an hour after a bomb disposal truck was spotted outside the medical facility.

It is not clear what prompted the alert. A road around the hospital has been blocked and some staff members have been evacuated.

The hospital is treating one of the bomb suspects. He is in critical condition with severe burns.

Sources say one of the two suspects behind the Glasgow attack works as a doctor at Royal Alexandra, although it is not clear which one.

On Sunday -- for reasons that remain unclear -- police conducted a controlled explosion of a vehicle in the hospital's parking lot. Police said there was no indication the vehicle contained any explosives.

Shortly after the suspect was admitted following Saturday's attack, police confiscated a suspicious item from his body and called for a partial evacuation of the hospital. Police later said the device was not believed to be an explosive. See photos of the investigation in action »

Authorities suspect the two men who rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the airport on Saturday are the same people who parked two car bombs in central London a day earlier, security sources said.

The government said on Monday that police had searched at least 19 locations for evidence. The searches were part of "a fast-moving investigation" in which seven suspects had been detained, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith told the House of Commons.

Those arrested include the two men suspected of carrying out the terror plot, who were being tracked by police even before the attack on Glasgow's airport, sources said.

It is believed that the two suspects shared a rental house on Neuk Crescent Street in the small Scottish village of Houston -- about two miles from Glasgow's airport.

Police searching the house would not provide any details about who lived there or why it is part of the investigation.

No one else was seriously hurt in Saturday's incident at Glasgow. Police said the car bombs in London -- which were packed with fuel and nails -- could have killed hundreds if they had been set off.

Police have declined to identify any of the suspects, but British television and newspapers identified one who was arrested on the M6 motorway as Mohammed Asha.

The doctor is believed to work at the North Staffordshire Hospital, near the Midlands town of Newcastle-under-Lyme, where police searched a house on Sunday. The hospital refused to comment.

Asha is a Jordanian-educated physician who moved to England with his family two years ago, according to a source in Jordan.

In Jordan, Asha's brother Ahmed told The Associated Press he had heard the media reports and said his 26-year-old sibling "is not a Muslim extremist, and he's not a fanatic."

The other suspect has been identified as Iraqi doctor Bilal Abdulla, a source with knowledge of the investigation said Monday.

The attack at Scotland's busiest airport came 36 hours after two car bombs loaded with fuel, gas canisters and nails were found in central London primed to detonate.

Investigators continue to sift through thousands of hours of closed-circuit television footage taken outside Glasgow's airport and near the locations where the car bombs were found in London.

In London, police were examining two cars filled with fuel, gas canisters and nails and studying CCTV footage for clues about the identities of those behind a suspected terrorist plot that could have killed hundreds.

Those who witnessed the flaming Jeep Cherokee smash into the airport Saturday said one of the passengers was shouting "Allah" as he fought with police and a second man set himself on fire.

Airport worker John Smitten, who ran to help police in the aftermath of the crash, said the second man who was "covered head-to-toe in flames" also tried to fight policemen after a taxi driver used a water hose to put out the fire.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Sunday said Britons needed to realize the terrorism threat their country faced was "long-term and sustained" and they must remain "constantly vigilant" about security.

Britain raised its terror alert status to the highest level of "critical," indicating an attack was imminent and the country's prime minister warned of dangers to come.

But Brown, in office less than a week, said in a TV interview Britons stood "united, resolute and strong."

President Bush was briefed on the situation, but officials said there was no information on an increased threat to the United States and no plan to raise threat levels, although security was tightened at major airports.

In Washington, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told CNN's "Late Edition" that it was too early to tell who is behind the attack, but it is "a reasonable possibility" that it may be an al Qaeda-linked group.

The weekend's incidents come days before the second anniversary of July 7, 2005, when four Islamic extremist suicide bombers killed 52 people on London's transport system in the deadliest strike on the city since World War II.

[Teta040]

Wanderer, I wasn't advocating total news blackouts...you're right, that's going too far the other way, THAT is the slippery slope that leads to facism. And having one story dominate to the detriment of others on a "busy" news day is censorhip pure and simple.

But we have lost the art of simply reporting news. This isn't about left wing or right wing, it's about presenting regurgitated snippets, sound bites, and spin..as opposed to reportage on air. There is something about the calm reportage of facts, no matter how textually hideous, that in itself lends to moderation or more moderate stances, of whatever political stripe. It's called reason...

I find it ironic that our governments are so eager to tell us now of "Super-Caliber" terrorist plots in the making that they have foiled. You'd think that they'd want to spare their publics the resulting anxiety and fear, especially with a major holiday coming up. Contrast this with 9/11 where Bush did not respond even in private to the infamous August Presidential Brief. But no, fear is precisely the point. They want to keep us under control by making us afraid all the time. If they've foiled a plot, great. Thanks. But let us sleep in our beds, life is hard enough. And this story coming on the heels of the Scotter Libby pardon is great timing too.

[Pearl]

My parents just got back from London after a vacation in Europe. They said there was not two, but three car bomb attacks that were foiled, and for some reason the media is not reporting on the third one. Is this true? That there was a third car in London?

[Zoots]

Doctors. Just heard on the news that the suspects are muslim doctors from different countries who seem to have been brainwashed into carrying this out. Unfuckingbelievable! Now we're gonna see doctors and engineers involved in plots??? I'm an engineer. Am I gonna face a backlash? Fucking bastards die!!!

[deep]

They all worked for the National Health Service.

Perhaps England should consider privatization?

[A_Wanderer]

Not all doctors are terrorists but most terrorists are doctors, no wait, that one doesn't quite fit.

[BonosSaint]

Originally posted by A_Wanderer
Not all doctors are terrorists but most terrorists are doctors, no wait, that one doesn't quite fit.

[LJT]

Originally posted by Pearl
My parents just got back from London after a vacation in Europe. They said there was not two, but three car bomb attacks that were foiled, and for some reason the media is not reporting on the third one. Is this true? That there was a third car in London?

There was a suspicion of a third I think in London, but I think it ended up as nothing, just an unattended vehicle. So just the two in London.

All 8 suspects worked in the health service.....they could have really did a lot worse in a hospital rather than their frankly amateurish attacks in London and Glasgow....with the equipment they had access to, they really could have done a lot more damage than they did.

I'm not sure how disenfranchised a doctor can be, you would think a person intelligent enough to be a doctor would be a bit more able to fend off such indoctrination rather than some poor kid living in the Gaza strip....There was a former Jihadist on Newsnight the other day and he believes Muslim scholars are not addressing the parts of the Qur'an that allow people to do these things...they aren't teaching them the context and history of them to show they can't be applied to the modern world. Islamic fascism has to be tackled at the core by it's own scholars and theologians.

Of course the Wests own inept efforts just serve to drag more islamic moderates to the extremes.