Terror Alerts

[Spookdaddy]

Re: The Boy Who Cried "Wolf!"

Shhhhhhhhhh the last thin we want is them nuking....Wolverhapmton.

are you sure?

What? You mean...? I thought they'd already done that.

 

[austen27]

There are probably a lot of things that we aren't being told; things that would really scare us.

I know, from various sources, that there were a lot of things the IRA did in this country that we never heard about.

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

...

I know, from various sources, that there were a lot of things the IRA did in this country that we never heard about.

Like, what? Where? When?

Apart from making large scale real estate investments and money laundering, of course.

 

[austen27]

...

I know, from various sources, that there were a lot of things the IRA did in this country that we never heard about.

Like, what? Where? When?

Apart from making large scale real estate investments and money laundering, of course.

Well my Dad used to work for the Police...

There was an IRA "firing range" discovered at a farm in the Bolton area around 1980 which went unreported.

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

...

There was an IRA "firing range" discovered at a farm in the Bolton area around 1980 which went unreported.

Thanks, Austen27. The security services may have kept that one under their hats, in case some unwary IRA members had still turned up, expecting a quiet day's shooting practice. 8)

But, is that something "that would really have scared us", if it had been disclosed to the public?

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

Thanks Pietro -- you know, I was aware of that tale before you shared it with us... and of its origins. Just so you know... but thank you so much for explaining that.

And MY point was, as useful as that tale was, and IS, it has limited applicability in the much more complex adult world we are dealing with.

...

Always try to keep things up to speed for our wider readership, ShadowPrime.

It seems I'm not alone on this one. Some, established, albeit left-leaning liberal sources seem to be thinking along similiar lines:

http://progressive.org/mag_rcb101005

False Alarms
By Ruth Conniff
The Progressive: October 10, 2005

I don't know about you but I found news coverage of last week's "attack" on the New York subway annoying. It must be a sign of how jaded we are that the threat of mortal peril provokes irritation.(Apparently, a lot of New Yorkers felt the same way--commuter traffic was reportedly unaffected.) Maybe it's the endless series of red, yellow, and orange alerts that have a numbing effect. Maybe it's the government's inability to deal with real disasters of the natural kind, coupled with these dire warnings: "Be afraid, be very afraid--but don't expect an evacuation plan or anything." Watching CNN coverage of the men in hazmat suits and the "breaking news" bulletins about the foamy green liquid they found in a subway station, and then, more breaking news, it was nothing . . . it all seemed like cynical wag the dogism.

Everyone knows the Bush Administration is in trouble. Bush's first big chance to change the subject from his disastrous response to the disaster on the Gulf Coast--naming a new Supreme Court Justice--ended up making things worse for him. The mild-mannered White House counsel turns out to be more controversial than Robert Bork, not because she's a radical ideologue, but because she's not ideological enough for the Republican base, not experienced enough for people who actually care about putting competent justices on the court, and, worst of all, part of the pattern of crony appointments that got Bush in hot water in New Orleans.

So then the President gave his "major speech" on--what else?-- terrorism. Why not? "You're all going to die" worked well enough in the last election. But maybe not forever. There may be such a thing as terror fatigue. People become resentful when they're repeatedly subjected to scare tactics. Remember the boy who cried wolf? I think his name was George.

Emphasis, mine.

What a naive bunch we all must be, on both sides of the Atlantic.

AM.

 

[austen27]

But, is that something "that would really have scared us", if it had been disclosed to the public?

It would have made the situation look more out of control than it was, and would have potentially increased resentment against Irish people living in the UK.

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

But, is that something "that would really have scared us", if it had been disclosed to the public?

It would have made the situation look more out of control than it was, and would have potentially increased resentment against Irish people living in the UK.

Oh! Aye! That would be the reason, right enough.

 

[austen27]

Oh! Aye! That would be the reason, right enough.

I think it would be a serious enough consideration. At the present time (most) politicians are careful not to whip up anti-Muslim feeling.

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

Oh! Aye! That would be the reason, right enough.

I think it would be a serious enough consideration. At the present time (most) politicians are careful not to whip up anti-Muslim feeling.

I don't think the Government of the day was too worried about stirring up anti-Irish sentiment, as I remember.

And with Thatcher newly in control, the Public had other things on their mind.

 

[wembley8]

"There was an IRA "firing range" discovered at a farm in the Bolton area around 1980 which went unreported."

That's not especially scary, given that we know the IRA had guns and were as capable as anyone else of finding a quiet spot to practice.
Bomb factories and large amounts of explosive might have been more worrying...was there anything else you can share?

 

[Quake42]

I seem to recall an IRA cell arrested on the mainland in the early 90s and jailed for an extended period of time for plotting attacks on power plants and water supplies in the South East of England. From memory it was alleged that, had they succeeded, the whole of the London area would have been blacked out for weeks and clean water supplies seriously disrupted.

 

[ramonmercado]

I seem to recall an IRA cell arrested on the mainland in the early 90s and jailed for an extended period of time

But they all got out early under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.

 

[ramonmercado]

Trained wasps may be used to detect bombs, bugs, bodies

Trained wasps may be used to detect bombs, bugs, bodies and more

An unusual device that uses trained wasps, rather than trained dogs, to detect specific chemical odors could one day be used to find hidden explosives, plant diseases, illegal drugs, cancer and even buried bodies, according to a joint study by researchers at the University of Georgia and U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The trained wasps are contained in a cup-sized device, called a "Wasp Hound," that is capable of sounding an alarm or triggering a visual signal, such as a flashing light, when the insects encounter a target odor. The sensor is cheaper to use than trained dogs and more sensitive than some sophisticated chemical detection methods, including electronic noses, the researchers say. Their experimental device is described in a study slated to be published in the Jan.-Feb. issue of Biotechnology Progress, a joint publication of the American Chemical Society and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.

The idea of using unconventional biological sensors to detect target odors is not new, according to study leaders Glen C. Rains, Ph.D., a biological engineer with the University of Georgia in Tifton, Ga., and W. Joe Lewis, Ph.D., a research entomologist with the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service, also in Tifton. Rats, honeybees, fish and even yeasts have all been used experimentally to detect various explosives or toxins, they say.

"We’ve now developed a prototype device that puts the idea of using chemical-sensing wasps into a practical framework and its possibilities are astounding," says Rains, who believes that the device could be ready for commercialization in five to ten years. Like batteries in a smoke detector, the trained wasps won’t live forever and will eventually have to be replaced, he says.

In the current study, the researchers used Microplitis croceipes, a species of tiny parasitic wasps that can be trained to detect certain odors by associating the odors with a food reward. The wasps are not capable of stinging humans, the scientists say. Training a single wasp to detect a target odor can take as little as five minutes and the insects can be easily bred by the thousands, they say.

The research team developed a special ventilated device, composed of PVC pipe, which holds a small cartridge containing five trained wasps. The wasps were trained to detect 3-octanone, a chemical produced by certain toxic fungi that infect corn and peanut crops. The presence of the fungi can result in costly crop losses.

The Wasp Hound contains a tiny camera that is linked to a computer to record the movement of the wasps. In a controlled test, the device was exposed to batches of dried feed corn containing either the target chemical, myrcene (a compound of neutral interest to the wasps) or corn alone. In comparison to a group of untrained wasps, the trained wasps showed significantly stronger behavioral responses to the target odor than to the myrcene and control treatments. Responses include moving toward the target odor source and congregating around the device’s odor inlet. This movement can be translated into an alarm signal to indicate the presence of a toxic plant fungus, the scientists say.

Besides detecting plant diseases, the device has a wide variety of other potential applications. In previous studies, the researchers demonstrated that they also could train the wasps to detect 2,4-dinitrotoluene (2,4-DNT), a chemical used in certain explosives. The wasps can also be used to detect chemical odors that are associated with certain human diseases, including lung cancer, skin cancer and stomach ulcers, they say. More recently, their group has been looking into the possibility of using the wasps to detect odors associated with hidden bodies, from murder victims to victims of disasters.

The other collaborator in this study was student Samuel L. Utley, M.S., currently a research engineer with the University of Georgia. The study was funded by the university and by the USDA. The researchers have filed a patent application for the Wasp Hound.

Source: American Chemical Society

http://www.physorg.com/news7422.html

 

[ramonmercado]

UK case for holding terror suspects 'misleading'
10:45 04 December 2005
From New Scientist Print Edition

The UK government's stated case for holding terror suspects longer than 14 days without charge is misleading, according to a top computer security specialist.

When home secretary Charles Clarke was trying to persuade the House of Commons to extend the detention period to 90 days, he argued that this was needed to break into encrypted files on suspects' computers. MPs voted against the government's planned increase, but backed a compromise 28-day limit.

But Ross Anderson, professor of security engineering at the University of Cambridge, says that breaking into highly encrypted material is no longer possible. "You find the key lying around, or you give up."

Police investigators might usefully "spend a couple of days tossing a dictionary at the encryption software", he says. This could provide access to a file containing the encryption key itself, but only if the suspect had been careless enough to choose an easily guessed password to protect it.

Investigators might then spend a few more days trawling through the hard disc for passwords and clues, he adds. They would hunt, for example, for copies of the key left behind in the "swap file" that many computers use when they run out of memory. But all this could be done within the existing 14-day limit.

Liberal Democrat peer Lord Thomas of Gresford has told New Scientist that he will raise the issue when the bill is discussed in parliamentary committee next week.

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8410

Related Articles
Attempted cyber-heist raises keylogging fears
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7168
18 March 2005
Indelible evidence
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns? ... 822622.400
28 October 2000
Are your secrets safe?
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns? ... 121770.800
13 March 1999
Weblinks
Ross Anderson, University of Cambridge
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/rja14/
Lord Thomas of Gresford
http://www.libdems.org.uk/party/people/ ... rd-qc.html
Charles Clarke, Home Office
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/about-us/o ... es-clarke/

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

This is outrageous - they appear not to have any evidence they are just going on the fact that it could happen:

8 January 2006

HIV BOMBERS

EXCLUSIVE Al-Qaeda's plot to infect troops with AIDS virus
By Rupert Hamer Defence Correspondent

AL-QAEDA is recruiting suicide bombers who are infected with the AIDS virus, according to documents revealed to the Sunday Mirror.

Terror chiefs are also targeting fanatics who suffer other lethal blood diseases such as hepatitis and dengue fever in order to increase their "kill rate" from an explosion. The chilling new threat is revealed in papers distributed to British military camps in Iraq and across Europe.

Under the heading "HIV/Hepatitis" the document states: "There is evidence that terrorists might be deliberately recruiting volunteers with diseases that are spread by blood transference."

Experts have found that bones and other blood-spattered fragments from a suicide bomber could penetrate the skin of a victim 50 metres away and infect them.

In the papers (part of which is summarised above) soldiers are warned to wear special protective clothing when on guard duty or if they have to deal with casualties in the event of an attack.

All bases must also have snipers hidden behind blast-proof defences ready to take out would-be suicide bombers. The guidelines were issued following the 7/7 London bombings which left 52 dead and injured hundreds more.

Spy chiefs have also examined other attacks, including a car-bombing on the Black Watch in central Iraq which killed three soldiers a year ago.

Last night an MoD spokesman confirmed that bases had been made aware of the new threat.

He added: "The Army go to great lengths to prepare our soldiers for every eventuality."

Source

 

[techybloke666]

Damn fear mongery again.

keep the populace afraid so draconian laws can be placed to protect us from the boogieman.

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

If they keep saying it........

U.S.: 'Very high' chance of WMD terror strike

Tuesday, January 17, 2006; Posted: 3:43 a.m. EST (08:43 GMT)

LONDON, England (AP) -- There is a "very high" probability that a terrorist group will strike using nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, a senior U.S. counterterrorism official said in comments published Tuesday.

"I rate the probability of terror groups using (weapons of mass destruction) as very high," U.S. State Department counterterrorism coordinator Henry Crumpton was quoted as saying by the Daily Telegraph newspaper. "It is simply a question of time."

Crumpton said a biological attack was potentially the most troubling scenario. He said evidence from Afghanistan suggested al-Qaeda had been seeking to develop anthrax before the overthrow of the Taliban regime in 2001.

"It is not just the nuclear threat that bothers me," he was quoted as saying. "I think, if anything, the biological threat is going to grow."

"As catastrophic as a nuclear attack would be, it would be self-contained. But if you look at a worst-case scenario for a biological attack, it would be difficult to determine whether or not it was a terrorist attack, and it would be far more difficult to contain."

Crumpton told the newspaper that U.S. and international efforts had severely disrupted the al-Qaeda network since the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, but that "in all probability" Osama bin Laden was still alive.

---------
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press.

www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/01/17/wmd ... index.html

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Bush details Qaeda plot to hit LA

By Tabassum Zakaria Thu Feb 9, 3:52 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush disclosed new details on Thursday of a thwarted al Qaeda plot to use shoe bombs to hijack a plane and fly it into a Los Angeles building, as he sought to justify his tactics in fighting terrorism.


With critics questioning the legality of his authorization of a domestic spying program, Bush used newly declassified details of a previously revealed plot to show that the threat of terrorism has not abated.

"America remains at risk, so we must remain vigilant," Bush said.

He said that in early 2002 the United States and its allies disrupted a plot to use bombs hidden in shoes to breach the cockpit door of an airplane and fly it into the tallest building in Los Angeles.

But he got the name of the building wrong, saying the "intended target was Liberty Tower." He meant Library Tower, now the US Bank Tower, that at 1,017 feet high is the tallest building in the United States west of the Mississippi River.

The Bush administration last October had cited the plan to attack West Coast targets using hijacked planes as among 10 disrupted al Qaeda plots.

Bush gave a more detailed account on Thursday, saying that in October 2001, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the operational mastermind of the September 11 attacks that year, set in motion a plot for another attack inside the United States.

"Rather than use Arab hijackers as he had on September 11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed sought out young men from Southeast Asia whom he believed would not arouse as much suspicion," he said.

Mohammed worked with a man known as Hambali, the leader of an al Qaeda-affiliated group in Southeast Asia, who recruited a cell of four operatives, the White House said. Mohammed trained the cell leader in the shoe bomb technique and they met al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in
Afghanistan in October 2001, said Frances Townsend, homeland security and counterterrorism adviser to Bush.

The West Coast plot initially was to have been part of the September 11 attack, but bin Laden decided to focus on the East Coast because it was too difficult to get operatives for both, she said.

She said authorities did not know specific details of the planned attack such as its timing or the flight.

"We knew they were going to fly a commercial airliner into the tallest building in California," Townsend said. "And it was an analytic judgment by the intelligence community that that meant the Library Tower."

The plot was disrupted with help from two countries in Southeast Asia and two countries in South Asia, Townsend said.

Bush has been fighting criticism from Democrats and some Republicans over his decision to authorize the National Security Agency to eavesdrop without court warrants inside the United States on international e-mails and phone calls of people with suspected ties to terrorism.

He has called it a necessary tool for fighting terrorism and preventing another attack on the United States.

Townsend would not comment on whether the eavesdropping program helped in foiling the West Coast plot or capturing the plotters.

The cell leader was arrested in February 2002 and the other three operatives were also caught, but Townsend declined to identify the three or the countries where they were captured.

Mohammed was captured in Pakistan in March 2003, and Hambali was caught in Thailand in August 2003.

Bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri, believed by U.S. officials to be hiding in the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan, have so far eluded the U.S. manhunt.

Townsend said it was unclear whether the West Coast plot had any connection to "shoebomber" Richard Reid.

Reid failed in an attempt to blow up an American Airlines plane from Paris to Miami in December 2001 after passengers and crew tackled him as he tried to ignite explosives in his shoe. Reid was sentenced to life imprisonment by a U.S. court in January 2003.

"I've never seen anything that indicated whether the second wave was bonafide or not. There's been rumors bandied about that it was, but I don't know," Sen. Dianne Feinstein (news, bio, voting record), a California Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, said of the hijacked plane plot.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060209/ts_nm/bush_plot_dc

but:

Scope of Los Angeles Terror Plot Remains Murky

By Gary Thomas
Washington
10 February 2006


On Thursday, President Bush revealed some new details of what he described as a terrorist plot against a target in California. But, it is still not clear how far the plotters got, and how serious the plot was.

As outlined by President Bush, al-Qaida hatched a plan to follow up the attacks of September 11th, 2001 with a similar attack on Los Angeles. He said that in 2002 officials foiled a plan by terrorists to fly a hijacked plane into what was then called the Library Tower, now known as the U.S. Bank Tower.

"We now know that in October 2001, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the September 11th attacks, had already set in motion a plan to have terrorist operatives hijack an airplane using shoe bombs to breach the cockpit door and fly the plane into the tallest building on the West Coast," he said.

President Bush said cooperation between the United States and several Southeast Asian nations, which he did not name, broke up the plot.

The independent commission that investigated the 9/11 attacks said Khalid Sheik Mohammed had originally planned for simultaneous attacks on both the East and West coasts. Vincent Cannistraro, who was head of the CIA's counter-terrorism operations from 1988 until 1991, says al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden wanted the plans scaled down.

"Bin Laden thought the plans were too complicated," he said. "They might be too difficult to carry out, and he wanted to simplify it. So he cut off the West Coast option. And what happened was, after the events of 9/11, Khalid Sheik Mohammed began serious planning for the West Coast option, which included a hijacked plane flying into the Library Tower building, the tallest one in Los Angeles."

But how serious was the threat? Cannistraro says it was quite serious and the plot was far along until it was compromised.

"One might say whether or not it was a viable plot," he said. "But it certainly was the intention of Khalid Sheik Mohammed to carry it out. And we know that since he's been arrested, we know that this was a serious plot. We know that they had gotten to the point of recruiting volunteers to commit suicide in carrying out the plot. So whether it would have been successful or not, we'll never know. But we do know that it was pre-empted."

But Micheal Scheuer, who was the leading al-Qaida expert in the CIA's counter-terrorism center in 2002, says he is not aware of any such serious threat against the West Coast in 2002. As the man in the CIA who knew more about Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida than perhaps any other agency officer, he says it is unlikely that he would not have been kept informed on such a plot.

"It could be that it was very closely held, but I think that's unlikely," he said. "It could be just a function of my failing memory. But this doesn't sound like anything that I would recall as a major threat, or as a major success in stopping it."

Scheuer, who has periodically attacked government anti-terrorist efforts as ineffective, says the plot was in all likelihood never considered serious enough to pay any real attention to it.

"My impression of what the president said is that they - the National Security Council - have culled through information to look for something that resembled a serious threat in 2002," he said. "It doesn't strike me, either as someone who was there or as someone who has followed al-Qaida pretty closely, that this was really a serious sort of effort. Just on the face of this, it sounds to me like it might well have been a threat that was reported, but not one that at the time was taken all that seriously."

The 9/11 commission says Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who was captured in Pakistan in 2003, told interrogators that he was too busy with the September 11th planning to plan the second wave of attacks.

However serious the plan really was, security sources say it was completely compromised in 2002 with the arrest of Zaini Zakaria, a Malaysian who had been recruited to be one of the suicide pilots. Zakaria backed out of the plan after the 9/11 attacks and, sources say, remains in custody in Malaysia for his links to Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian group in sympathy with al-Qaida.

www.voanews.com/english/2006-02-10-voa53.cfm

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

An army???

MI5 fears silent army of 1,200 biding its time in the suburbs

By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent
(Filed: 04/06/2006)

The terrorist threat facing Britain has developed into a "covert conspiracy" involving hundreds of men and women living ordinary lives in the nation's suburbs, security sources have revealed.

Unbeknown to their families and friends, they form a silent 1,200-strong "army" of terrorists. They are believed to be involved in at least 20 major plots that they hope will bring death and destruction to Britain.

The scale of the problem facing the security services is underlined by the fact that MI5, which planned Friday's raid in Forest Gate, east London, has only 2,600 staff - and yet is faced with an increasing workload, including organised crime, in addition to the growing threat from international terrorism.

Mohammed Abdul Kahar, 23, and Abul Koyair, 20, the two brothers arrested after the dawn raid may, according to MI5, be typical of other young Asian men who have become disaffected with the Western way of life and have been radicalised by militant Islamists who support a global Jihad.

According to neighbours, the brothers underwent a transformation after the September 11 attacks on America in 2001, adopting beards and more traditional Muslim dress. "Lots of young Muslims these days are getting more religious, especially after 9/11," said one neighbour. "It's nothing to be suspicious about."

Schoolfriends of Abdul Kahar last night recalled him as a typical teenager. "Everyone changes," said one friend, who asked not to be named. "He's now deeply religious and prays five times a day."

The brothers regularly attend two local mosques, al Karam Trust on Katherine Road and another in Plashet Grove.

"They have become active in the area in trying to get people to go to the mosques," said Mohammed Akram, the vice-chairman of the Muslim Alliance of Newham. Abdul Kahar has recently been on a pilgrimage to Mecca.

Such was the disbelief that these men could be anything but law-abiding citizens, that friends of Abdul Kahar, who was shot in the shoulder when armed police stormed his house early on Friday, turned up at the Royal London Hospital, where he was being treated, to protest their innocence.

It was an MI5 officer working within the organisation's highly-secretive G6 section - which runs agents for the branch that deals with international terrorism - who revealed that one of his sources had claimed to him that two brothers living at 46, Lansdown Road, Forest Gate, were attempting to build a chemical bomb.

The anonymity of the suspects fitted the profile of a new breed of urban terrorists waging war from Britain's drab suburbs. The brothers, who were born in London, come from a family of Bangladeshi origin. Their father, Abul Kalam, 51, is a former chef and builder who is understood to have retired due to a heart problem and their mother, Alif Jan, is a housewife. Abdul Kahar took an IT course but worked at a local Tesco store before starting with the Royal Mail.

The intelligence obtained by MI5 suggested that there might be an attempt to acquire material via the internet which could be used to develop a nerve gas, capable of killing and injuring thousands of people.

The intelligence, which is believed to have come from an agent close to members of a small, radicalised Muslim community in east London, was of such quality that MI5's assistant director for the G-Branch, which deals with the international terrorist threat to Britain, ordered a full-scale surveillance operation.

MI5 agents began monitoring the brothers 24 hours a day, seven days a week, while members of the organisation's technical A-Branch obtained the appropriate Home Office approval to arrange telephone taps, monitor emails and plant a range of bugging devices that would allow agents to monitor the suspects' every move.

G6-section is MI5's most secret and sensitive department and is solely responsible for agent-running for G-Branch. Its officers are responsible for recruiting agents from a wide variety of backgrounds, including the Muslim community.

Ever since the September 11 attacks, the Security Service has been desperate to recruit Muslims, not just as members but, more importantly, as agents who would be prepared to covertly report on the activities of "radicalised Muslims".

In the days before Friday's raid, MI5 agents working alongside officers from Special Branch, began monitoring the activities of the two men. The intelligence they obtained, however, did not result in the national "threat level" being increased from "severe (general)", the third highest level, which suggests that neither the police nor MI5 had any knowledge of the intended target.

But by Thursday police had decided to launch an operation to arrest the two brothers to try - as Peter Clarke, the head of Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist branch, said - to "prove or disprove the intelligence we have received".

A senior Whitehall source said that the absence of a chemical weapon inside the house would not mean that the intelligence was wrong.

"It may well be that nothing is found at the house, it may be that any chemical device has been moved to somewhere else, we will just have to wait and see," he said. "Our action may prove fruitful, and may have prevented an attack against the UK or there may be nothing there."

Additional reporting by Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Sean Kenny and Roya Nikkhah.

Source

Of course they are struggling to find any actual evidence for those two borthers - luckily I heard a spoksman say that even if they didn't find any evidence it didn't mean they weren't up to something.

I'm not sure why they felt they had to beat the crap out fo their next door neightbours (other than they also appear to be foreign too).

 

[Quake42]

Of course they are struggling to find any actual evidence for those two borthers - luckily I heard a spoksman say that even if they didn't find any evidence it didn't mean they weren't up to something.

It is all starting to look like a MI5 cock up, but let's wait and see if anything more develops.

As the events of last July proved, there are in fact small numbers of British Muslims who do indeed wish to bring "death and destruction" to innocent people. I have no doubt that the terrorist threat is sensationalised, partially to sell newspapers and partially to help the government's agenda, but that doesn't mean that the threat is non-existent.

 

[ted_bloody_maul]

i'd be interested to know more about the source. this could be someone who is working on behalf of an actual terror group to diminsh public confidence in our security and hinder police efforts to take care of these sorts of situation in future. the events of the last few days will probably strengthen the appeal of extremist groups at the same as it stifles confidence in, and the operations of, our intelligence.

 

[austen27]

As the events of last July proved, there are in fact small numbers of British Muslims who do indeed wish to bring "death and destruction" to innocent people. I have no doubt that the terrorist threat is sensationalised, partially to sell newspapers and partially to help the government's agenda, but that doesn't mean that the threat is non-existent.

Yes there is a very real threat, but I worry where talk of wide spread conspiracy could take us. As others have said, replace the word "Muslim" in some reports with "Jew" and you could be in Germany in the 1930s. There is a risk of fascism from ALL sides at the moment.

 

[wembley8]

"Two men arrested after a raid on a house in east London have been released without charge, Scotland Yard said. "

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5066166.stm

So it was all a complete cock-up - again.

It will be interesting to see if we get any mud-slinging against the brothers in the aftermath as they seek compensation, or whether the Met decides to go for smiles and apologies.

 

[Moooksta]

"Protest organisers claimed the raid was symptomatic of oppression of the Islamic community"

The protest at Forest Gate police station. Is the Islamic community being oppressed? Who is oppressing them given that they can speak out so loudly and strongly against the events in Forest Gate.

As others have said, replace the word "Muslim" in some reports with "Jew" and you could be in Germany in the 1930s.

Did the Jews in Germany gather outside the SS headquarters and wave placards against the round up of their families? I don't think they had that option did they? (Genuine question!)

I think it's interesting that it's already being referred to as "cock up" by the same media that's printing "Come on England!". Who's undermining public trust and intelligence in our government ? And their target audience is not a nudge to the right of those that enforced the Furher's wishes in the 1930s...IMHO.

mooks out

 

[Jerry_B]

Who's undermining public trust and intelligence in our government ?

The government and other services/figureheads that are making the mistakes? Media outlook is short-term and leans towards sensationalising things. The same can be said pretty much for the protesters today. Exaggerations are rife in various quarters. That's far removed from the government, police, etc. making mistakes and handling various situations inappropriately.

 

[Quake42]

Did the Jews in Germany gather outside the SS headquarters and wave placards against the round up of their families? I don't think they had that option did they? (Genuine question!)

Well, I don't think anyone outside of the far fringes of the loony left would compare the treatment of Muslims in Western Europe today to the treatment of Jews in 1930s and 40s Germany.

However:

It will be interesting to see if we get any mud-slinging against the brothers in the aftermath as they seek compensation, or whether the Met decides to go for smiles and apologies.

There doesn't seem much doubt that the brothers were involved in extremist Islamist politics - one of them was photographed next to the "suicide bomber" who caused such a furore in the anti-cartoon protests earlier this year.

Granted, unsavoury political views should not result in armed police kicking in the door at 5 in the morning. But I think it is unlikely that the brothers were innocent wee things who were targeted entirely randomly.

 

[Jerry_B]

Ah, guilty by association...

 

[Quake42]

Ah, guilty by association...

I didn't say that they were guilty of terrorist offences. I said that I think casting them as total innocents inexplicably caught up in a mindless Islamophobic police action is probably also fairly wide of the mark.

I will reiterate what I have said on other threads, which is that to my mind it is inconsistent in the same week to bash the police/intelligence services for failing to act against Mohammad Siddique Khan (despite having him under observation) yet also criticise them for acting in this case, which has apparently turned out to be based on dodgy information.

I am certainly not defending the shooting of one of the brothers, especially if it turns out that he was not threatening the police/refusing to stop etc. However, as I have said before, I do tire of armchair critics who appear to have very little that is constructive or positive to say.

My view is that, if the police/spooks genuinely believed there was a chemical weapon, or parts thereof, in the house, then they were duty bound to do something. You can criticise the means of them doing it, but I think it is hard to argue that they should simply have left well alone.

 

[Seventh_Pilot]

Hardly a cock up. I’m not sure if your aware of the standards for entry into the intelligence services but they are not called "intelligence" for propaganda purposes. If they were sloppy in their interpretation of their information you can count on it being deliberate. To what end I could not tell you as the whole thing feels a little strange but I find so much of what’s happening in the world at present a little bizarre. Then again these occurrences, and I’m broadly speaking, can make sense if we stop accepting what the mainstream media and authorities tell us they mean and try to think for ourselves. If that means we delve into conspiracy theories then so be it.