Brits Hold 4 In Glasgow Attack
The attack on a Glasgow airport apparently resulted from an Islamist conspiracy, as suspected yesterday in its aftermath. British authorities have four people in custody, including two arrested in Chesire:
Early Sunday, after a day of fast-moving developments, the London police announced that two people had been arrested in Cheshire, in northwest England, “in connection with the events in London and Scotland.”The arrests were in addition to those of the two occupants of the blazing car at Glasgow Airport. A witness to the attack said on BBC television that one of the car’s occupants had been ablaze from head to foot, and as he struggled with the police, “was throwing punches and shouting ‘Allah, Allah.’ ”
Britain’s threat level is now at “critical,” meaning another attack is considered imminent. The threat has not been as high since last year, after authorities discovered what they called a plot to attack trans-Atlantic airliners with liquid explosives.
A British security official, who like many other officials who disclosed information insisted on anonymity, said Saturday that the heightened level reflected an assessment that the London and Glasgow cases were “linked in some ways and, therefore, there are clearly individuals who have the capability and intent to carry out further attacks.”
The links relate to the way the London car bombs and Glasgow airport attack were planned, using vehicles and gasoline, the official said.
Clearly, radical Islamists have planned these attacks for quite some time. The attacks took some planning and materiel acquisition, which indicates coordination between the two cells in terms of at least the timing. Since cells typically operate independently, that indicates a higher-level involvement, probably from al-Qaeda, rather than home-grown terrorists working spontaneously.
If so, then AQ has hit some hard times in terms of competence. The two London bombs failed to detonate, perhaps from design flaws, or perhaps from the incompetence of the bombmakers. However, the Glasgow attack seems highly amateurish and very poorly conceived. The terminal at Glasgow has significant barriers to defend against vehicular attacks, which the attackers apparently didn't take into consideration. Instead of blowing up the terminal, all they succeeded in doing was to light themselves on fire -- which no one will consider any great loss.
That doesn't make AQ harmless by any means. It does, however, indicate that our years-long aggressive strategy of attacking AQ as an enemy at war rather than a criminal gang has paid off. They have lost a large number of their leadership, and apparently a great deal of their organizational skills. They used to excel at coordinated bombing attacks, but now their bombs misfire, and they're reduced to banzai attacks on concrete barricades.
As I said yesterday, Jihadi U seems to have suffered from massive grade inflation.
Posted by Ed Morrissey on July 1, 2007 9:29 AM | Comments (16) | TrackBacks (1)
Comments (16)
Posted by John | July 1, 2007 10:03 AM
One of the reasons why America in general and New York in particular were so ill-prepared for Sept. 11 was due to the ineptness of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers, even while killing seven people in their attack.
In the aftermath, most people put aside the deaths and the fact they bomb did significant damage to the Tower 1 supports and focused on the fact that the terrorists were caught in large part because they were stupid enough to go back to the rental agency and demand their deposit money back for the van that they blew up in the parking garage, not realizing the police and FBI had recovered the VIN number off the vehicle.
The thought most everyone took away from this was they were a bunch of inept bumblers who simply got lucky that their attack killed anyone at all. It turned out to be a form of denial, and allowed the U.S. to go another eight years before comprehending the bumblers only have to get it right once to kill thousands and do billions of dollars damage to the American economy. Incompetent actions like Friday and Saturday's failed London bomb attacks pose a similar danager of making everyone think al Qaida is down to their Single A rookie league terrorists and we canall start relaxing again, but to do so invites a repeat of 2001's failure to give the attackers the respect they deserve.
Posted by NahnCee | July 1, 2007 10:24 AM
A rattlesnake can be lethal too, but damned if I'm going to respect it or lay awake at 3:00 in the morning fearing it. I'll just take a certain amount of precaution not to step on one, and be prepared to kill the stupid things whenever possible.
Posted by Bennett | July 1, 2007 10:24 AM
If these attacks had worked, I don't know that anyone would have said that the terrorists were inept. I wonder why it is that when they fail we write them off as bunglers. Maybe it's because that's what we want to believe. That our enemy is just a bunch of dumb, disorganized and deluded dopes.
Let's hope that's true. It must be difficult to find competent individuals willing to die in the attack. So maybe the Jihadi leadership is finding that their smart people enjoy life as much as the rest of us do. Yeah, yeah Jihad, kill the infidels, die in glory...you go first Abdul.
Posted by eaglewings | July 1, 2007 10:44 AM
Why do we have to believe car bombs are always AQ, I seem to remember that Hizbollah, Hamass and other other pali groups are no strangers to this barbarity, and no strangers to Great Britain either.
Posted by Rick | July 1, 2007 11:01 AM
A whole new meaning for the term "flaming a**hole.
Posted by Philip | July 1, 2007 11:34 AM
"which no one will consider any great loss"
Au contraire mon capitain! Just take a gander over to Kos or Du. They worship innocent terrorists over there. Didn't you know that these poor, misunderstood fellow travelers have BushCo to blame for their painful burns and hurt feelings?
Posted by Okonkolo | July 1, 2007 1:10 PM
I agree, Nahn. vigilance, but no paranoia.
Posted by Mwalimu Daudi | July 1, 2007 1:53 PM
I think that it was Mark Steyn who said that all terrorists look like idiots - until the bombs start going off.
Posted by Bill Faith | July 1, 2007 2:20 PM
Guess they just don't make jihadis like they used to. Or maybe they sent the B team to the UK and the A team to the US by way of Mexico. I linked.
Posted by exDemo | July 1, 2007 3:34 PM
al Queda is not a nation state. It resources are limited; even less than an economic basket case nation that has the power to tax and tax, and borrow munificent sum s from World Bank/IMF type dreamers .
Al Queda has been attacked physically, and economically. Its financial pipelines have been corrupted and shut down or at least impaired, It's trained military, never large t o begin with, has been decimated, decimated again and re decimated several times over.
These trained and committed cadres are hard to replace . Unlike say the Communist Vietnamese who never lost a single member of the Politburo or Giap's High Command, Al Queda loses its senior leaders on seemingly a weekly to monthly schedule.
No organizations can long survive such high attrition,especially of its senior ranks.
The results are inevitably beginning to show. When was the last competent Al Queda operation? Not in a long time...
Posted by NoDonkey | July 1, 2007 3:39 PM
Should be easy to "care" for a muslim insect who just had half of his skin burned off - a fan, a salt shaker and a bottle of tabasco should do the trick.
And pain medication? Not necessary. Give him a koran.
I want to see this muslim cockroach screaming, crying and pleading for death - keep him alive just so he can feel excruciating pain for as long as possible. And put him on TV, for all the other wannabees.
Posted by paul a'barge | July 1, 2007 3:56 PM
Holding 4 ...
This is Britain.
Want to take bets on how long it will be before they let the buggers go free.
Like the last time, only to grab pictures of the mutts leaving bombs for the innocent.
Posted by patrick neid | July 1, 2007 4:01 PM
iraq continues to be what it has always been--a killing field set up in the middle of radical islam's hoped for fiefdom. while our efforts at nation building are a work in progress our success at killing 1000's of terrorists goes on 24/7......
our soldiers are very good at it.
Posted by Neo | July 1, 2007 8:48 PM
Apparently, two of the suspects in the bombings are doctors in the British health system.
Somebody tell me that this is all a sick joke timed to the release of Michael Moore's latest drivel.
Posted by Lew | July 1, 2007 9:42 PM
John's very first entry in this thread says it all!
Step back and look at the pattern - bumble - bumble - bumble - bumble - bumble - - - Oops!
Somewhere in the shadows offstage, someone watches with lifeless unblinking merciless eyes, and as we become more and more comfortable in the safety of our stereotypes, his golden opportunity approaches. Death will come quickly, while we are busy doing something ordinary and commonplace, and everyone will wonder how we couldn't see its coming!
Posted by NahnCee | July 2, 2007 1:24 AM
someone watches with lifeless unblinking merciless eyes ...
This describes a lifeless inhuman robot.
Thankfully, the mujahadeen are all too human, with sex obsessions, serial murder psychoses, issues with their mothers, and a tendency to hook the red wire up to the yellow one when it should have gone with the blue one.
But hey, if *you* were an illiterate coward acting out your rage, you would probably have a tendency towards fumbling too. Especially if you're on the run, going sleepless, and paranoid about having time to take a safe bathroom break.