London Bombers Going Down
British authorities have arrested three men in connection to the London subway bombings on July 7, 2005. According to reports, they caught two of them just before the suspects boarded a flight to Pakistan:
Three men have been arrested in connection with the July 7, 2005, bomb attacks on the London transport network, British police said in a statement.Two men, aged 23 and 30, were held at Manchester airport in northern England shortly before 1 p.m. GMT on Thursday as they were due to catch a flight to Pakistan, New Scotland Yard said.
A third man, aged 26, was arrested hours later at a house in the nearby city of Leeds. Police were searching five addresses in the Leeds area as well as a flat and business premises in east London, the statement said.
"The three men were arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation, or instigation of acts of terrorism under the Terrorism Act 2000," it read.
This isn't the first time Leeds has figured in this story. Three of the suicide bombers came from Leeds, while a fourth came from southern England. The potential connection of suspected leadership to Leeds makes sense, considering the concentration of the perpetrators, but it seems a little odd that the others involved would have stayed there for almost two more years after the operation.
Why were the suspects flying back to Pakistan now? Perhaps they were going to initiate another terrorist attack and needed to go back to Pakistan for more resources and fresh orders. If so, British authorities probably have a good handle on it. After all, it's almost certain that they have tracked these suspected terror organizers for quite some time. The arrest at the airport would not have been a last-minute, oh-damn-we-have-to-nail-them operation. The Brits have likely followed these people for a long time, only acting when they were about to slip from their control.
As far as their destination goes, no one should be surprised to find out it was Pakistan. Unfortunately, Pervez Musharraf has allowed Islamist terrorism to metastasize in Waziristan, and the US and UK will have to start making some hard choices regarding Pakistan's sovereignty.
Posted by Ed Morrissey on March 22, 2007 3:39 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (1)
Comments (2)
Posted by Del Dolemonte![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/nav-commenters.gif)
| March 22, 2007 8:24 PM
"it seems a little odd that the others involved would have stayed there for almost two more years after the operation."
Captain Ed, actually that's what the 9/11 "Commission" would call a "failure of imagination". Despite some of the faults of said Commission, namely the Dems putting someone who by all rights should have been a witness rather than a member (can you say "Jaime"?), they were right in concluding that we have to think outside of the traditional framework with these people. A prime example is the incident in Iraq the other day, where we let a vehicle thru a checkpoint solely because there were two young kids in the back. Said young kids soon exploded.
If we are going to make a dent in these plots, we have to try and think and plan the way the bad guys did. We never did so before, and 9/11 was the result.
Staying there for 2 years after the original operation, undetected, would seem to me to be brilliant planning on their part.
Posted by richard mcenroe![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/nav-commenters.gif)
| March 22, 2007 11:36 PM
Those police officers need to be prosecuted with the full weight of the law for infringing on the religious beliefs of those poor muslims. Someone call George Galloway...