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There have been several explosions on the London Underground Tube network this morning...

by Open-Publishing - Thursday 7 July 2005
5 comments

Edito Attack-Terrorism UK

Reporters’ Log: London explosions

There have been several explosions on the London Underground Tube network this morning, and on a bus in central London. BBC News correspondents are on the scene with the latest details.

Alison Freeman : Edgware Road Underground Station : 1245 BST

There are hordes of press here but it’s difficult to contact the office because the phone networks are down. The whole area is cordoned off and there are crowds of people at the cordons.

There are several fire engines and ambulances coming in and out all the time, although I haven’t seen any injured people. At St Mary’s Hospital there are staff standing outside waiting for people to come in - there is a constant stream of fire engines, but it is quite calm.

Ben Davies : Tavistock Square : 1241 BST

I have just cycled across central London which has been hit by major road closures with few vehicles about except ambulances and police vans.

Near the scene of the Tavistock Square bus attack Euston Road is shut as is nearby Russell Square.

My route took me from Bloomsbury via Soho and Trafalgar Square to the BBC Westminster offices. The normally bustling West End is eerily quiet apart from people trying to get to work and the odd determined tourist.

In Tavistock Square the wreckage of the roofless red London bus sits outside the offices of the British Medical Association, newspapers blowing in the road. A symbol of an ordinary Thursday morning commute cruelly interrupted.

Andrew Winstanley : Liverpool Street : 1239 BST

The station is still closed and all the shops are being closed with people still inside; there seems to be a general lockdown.

Police are going from door to door searching apartments above shops to check them out. There is concern that there may be more undetected devices.

Jeff Randall : City of London : 1235 BST

There are lots of men in suits coming out of the City of London - clearly they couldn’t leave their offices and get on to the tubes and taxis so they’re simply walking home - it’s an extraordinary sight.

The emergency services are really rallying the troops. As I battled in from Essex ambulances and police cars were pouring in from Essex to try to shore up the job the emergency services are doing here. As for the City itself, trading is remarkably calm. There’s a very low level of trading largely because many of the big banks have evacuated their offices.

Fergal Parkinson : Tavistock Square : 1220 BST

I’m outside the British Medical Association on Tavistock Square where a lot of the injured are still being treated. People are lying on the ground being treated by paramedics and doctors - some of whom obviously work at the BMA.

Five ambulances have arrived and are taking a few more people away as well. There’s also a large ambulance with seats on board and people are starting to walk on to that vehicle. I’ve also seen blood supplies arrive - three vans from the National Blood Service with blue lights flashing.

Guto Hari : BBC Television Centre : 1210 BST

Tony Blair has talked on many occasions about what keeps him awake at night. And it seems that his worst nightmare is now happening. In his statement he was very calm and determined, saying he was going to return to London. He wants to speak to the people who have suffered, and actually try and get to grips with the situation.

There are well established procedures in place. Which is why we’re seeing all these emergency procedures being put in place, such as transport being shut down. They have been preparing for this.

John Pienaar : Gleneagles : 1209 BST

The first confirmation that these are being treated as terrorist attacks and the prime minister is sending two messages - firstly of course of sympathy for the victims, and secondly a message of defiance to the terrorists.

The visible evidence is that he will return to London in a couple of hours to be briefed by senior officers and then return to the G8 summit later to carry on. All leaders seem to have decided not to give the terrorists what they were looking for - the cancellation of the summit.

Peter Hunt : Liverpool Street : 1205 BST

People here really are struggling to resume their working lives and there are lots of people standing around in huddles - there’s little appetite for work. Others are trying to make their way by foot as it is impossible for them to make their way by any other means within the City of London.

Firemen at Aldgate East underground station

Large numbers of streets and roads are closed. I passed 12 London buses who’d been advised not to move. The emergency services are trying constantly to stop people from hanging around near the cordon - quite extensive forensics work is going on on the underground well away from prying eyes.

Dominic Casciani : Aldgate East : 1200 BST

It’s midday in what should be one of the busiest parts of the city, but all the areas surrounding Aldgate East have been cordoned off, leaving city office workers trying to make head or tail of what is going on. At the Minories entrance to the cordon, eight London firefighters have just left the scene, covered in grime and looking pretty exhausted.

But for anyone on the outside of the cordon it is very difficult to know what is really going on as the London security plan swings into action.

Jim Wheble : Aldgate : 1159 BST

There have been a lot of ambulances coming up and down to Aldgate. Looking up from street level, I saw six or seven army officers in fatigues surveying Liverpool Street with binoculars from the rooftops.

Offices have been evacuated around Aldgate, with people coming out of their offices and not knowing what is going on. The situation here is a lot more controlled now.

Mark Easton : Kings Cross : 1155 BST

The situation has been developing over the last couple of hours. When I arrived just after 9am I saw some people, walking with now familiar black faces and arms. Since then the situation has developed rather dramatically.

There are 4 double decker buses being used as treatment centres for the less seriously injured. I must have seen 60 or 70 people brought up, many in tears, some with lacerations to their faces. One man was hobbling, another woman in a wheelchair with a very badly injured leg.

Richard Foster: Liverpool Street: 1135 BST

Hounsditch is sealed off and there are police on horseback there. Liverpool Street station is sealed off. The number of people there was in its thousands when I first arrived, but now it has thinned out. The pubs are full round here; people are gathering for news updates and sending texts to let people now they are alright.

Nick Thatcher : Royal London Hospital : 1130 BST

The Royal London Hospital have been receiving casualties all morning. This is a major hospital in East London. There’s an air ambulance landing on the roof behind me. There are buses behind me which have come from the Kings Cross area in central London. On board are walking wounded who have been ferried here.

Jon Brain : Edgware Road : 1115 BST

There’s been a scene of chaos and confusion all morning here but it’s beginning to settle down. The entire area around the tube station has been sealed off and there are dozens of emergency vehicles here.

We’ve seen a number of walking wounded emerge from the station, many of them covered with blood and obviously quite distraught. They are being treated at a hotel opposite the tube station.

The concern now is whether there are still people trapped inside the tube station underground. I’ve seen a team of paramedics go into the station in the last half hour.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4659511.stm

Forum posts

  • These attacks are comming handy for further political instrumentalization, thanks to the usual helping hand of the corporate media.
    Some (planned) "needed" military interventions to be announced soon ???

    Keep your eyes opened, citizens, keep your eyes opened !

    Feel sorry and sad about the deaths and injured victims of terrorism, *ALL* of them.
    Killing innocents - ANY innocent - is not an act of bravery, but of cowardice.
    Don’t let your anger drive your wisdom. Don’t become the terrorist you used to fight.

    Terrorism - *ALL* kind of terrorism - is a treason to ANY (noble) cause defended !

    Switch off TV for a moment, and think, search, ask questions...

    • "The bombings in London on Thursday underlined what absolute hell Iraqis are living through, who suffer the equivalent every two days" Juan Cole -Informed Comment blog. Yes it is important to keep all senses on alert especially those neurons between the ears. jt

    • "These attacks are comming handy for further political instrumentalization, thanks to the usual helping hand of the corporate media.
      Some (planned) "needed" military interventions to be announced soon ???"

      Pop quiz: if you were plopped down in downtown Kandahar, when the jihadists started to slowly cut your head off with a series of rough, sawing strokes, would your last thought be to wonder how Tony Blair convinced them to do that?

    • > "if you were plopped down in downtown Kandahar, when the jihadists started to slowly cut your head off with a series of rough, sawing strokes, would your last thought be to wonder how Tony Blair convinced them to do that?"

      I think that someone who knows he is going to die in a moment only have "hope to survive" and "love for his dears" thoughts, maybe some other thoughts like "Why me ?", "What have I done to merit that ?", "How have I come here ?", ... Not other distant political considerations like "What make them to do that ?" or "I hope someone will kill my murderers too".

      Now, someone whose life is not exposed to an immediate end has more time for less "urgent" condiderations and can elaborate some more wise thoughts like: "I hope that if I’m going to be killed, my death will not be used as a pretext to kill tens of thousands more innocents.". I’m sure that most people, from London, Kandahar or elsewhere, can have this respect for life.
      Yes, there are some jihadists and some crusaders who seems to be blind to that. It’s then OUR duty to try to prevent the killing of innocents, *ANY* innocent.

    • In Tavistock Square the wreckage of the roofless red London bus sits outside the offices of the British Medical Association, newspapers blowing in the road. A symbol of an ordinary Thursday morning commute cruelly interrupted.

      Tavistock PsyOps! More False Flag Ops!

      http://www.team8plus.org/forum_viewtopic.php?6.517

      7-21- NEW LONDON BOMBINGS! MORE ’TERROR’

      Moderators: frankl, Brad, John Doe II, ewing2001

      ’OVAL STATION ATTACKED’
      http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=news_news&Number=293805278#Post293805278

      Category: News & Opinion (General) Topic: News & Current Events
      Synopsis: the guy that passengers chased wasn’t an attacker?
      Source: Sky News
      Published: July 21, 2005 Author:
      For Education and Discussion Only. Not for Commercial Use.

      The Oval station is also believed to have been attacked.

      There were reports of a man dumping a rucksack in a carriage and then fleeing as the doors closed.

      A witness told Sky News he heard a sound "like Champagne popping" then passengers erupting in panic.

      "As far as I know from what a lady at the top of the escalator was saying, someone came into the carriage, dumped the bag and ran out.

      "Some people tried to stop him but he ran out."

      He said: "I was in the carriage next to the one where the bag was.

      "All of a sudden there was a popping, it sounded like Champagne popping. I didn’t think anything of it at the time.

      "But then I heard a lot of shouting from the next door carriage.

      "People started saying ’smoke, smoke’. One of the train guys came through and said ’Get off the train, we’re evacuating, everyone out’.

      "As we were walking past the carriage we could see the bag sitting on the chair.

      "It was a big, black rucksack, like the backpack-type ones that you get.

      "When they got upstairs, people were really distressed, one lady was crying."

      Another man told Sky he saw a man being chased out of Oval station.

      The witness said: "I was going into the station and it was 11.35am.

      "Then suddenly I saw a guy coming from the stairs. He was running and some people were running after him.

      "I wanted to catch him but I was carrying two heavy bags.

      "He said, ’What’s wrong with these people?’

      "He was a skinny Asian and young, about 19. I did not see him carrying anything."

      Quote:When your first false flag op won’t succeed, then try again.
      [www.libertyforum.org]

      They Couldn’t WAIT for the AUGUST FEMA PSYOP
      "NUCLEAR TERROR DRILL" TO PULL MORE FALSE FLAGS?
      http://www.team8plus.org/forum_viewtopic.php?9.473

      Author Post
      Trinity Thu Jul 21 2005, 07:07PM

      Registered Member #113
      Joined Sun Jul 17 2005, 03:47AM
      posts 27
      http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?disc=149495;article=87501;title=APFN

      Trinity

      LONDON FALSE FLAGS AGAIN!!!
      Thu Jul 21, 2005 15:24

      In Haunting Reprise, London Hit With More Explosions

      A British police officer gives instructions outside a subway station after the blasts. (Getty Images)

      ’People Were Panicking’
      Londoners flee subway stations and buses after multiple blasts rock the city’s transit system, two weeks after suicide bombings killed 56 people. This time, no one was killed and not all of the bombs detonated.
      Details | Post
      · Live Video: ABC News

      http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20050721082409990003

      Updated: 01:39 PM EDT
      Blasts Rock London Subway Stations, Bus
      Explosions Come Two Weeks After Suicide Bombings
      By ROBERT BARR, AP

      LONDON (July 21) - Explosions struck the London Underground and a bus at midday Thursday in a chilling but far less bloody replay of the suicide bombings that killed 56 people two weeks ago.

      Only one person was reported injured in the nearly simultaneous lunch-hour blasts, police said, but they shocked and disrupted the capital and were hauntingly similar to the July 7 bombings by four attackers.

      Police Commissioner Ian Blair said forensic evidence from Thursday’s bombings could provide a ’’significant break’’ in the latest attacks.

      ’’Clearly the intention must have been to kill,’’ Ian Blair told a news conference. ’’You don’t do this with any other intention.’’

      He also said it was not clear if the two sets of attacks were connected.

      Panicked and screaming commuters fled the three affected Underground stations, sometimes leaving behind their shoes. Firefighters and police with bomb-sniffing dogs sealed off nearby city blocks and evacuated rows of restaurants, pubs and offices.

      Prime Minister Tony Blair appealed for calm.

      ’’We can’t minimize incidents such as this,’’ he said at a joint news conference with the Australian prime minister at No. 10 Downing St. ’’They’re done to scare people, to frighten them and make them worried.’’

      He held an emergency Cabinet meeting afterward but said no decisions ’’of a policy nature’’ were made.

      Ian Blair called the blasts ’’a very serious incident.’’

      ’’We know that we have four explosions or attempts of explosions, and it is still pretty unclear as to what has happened,’’ he said outside Scotland Yard.

      ’’At the moment the casualty numbers appear to be very low ... the bombs appear to be smaller’’ than those detonated July 7, he said. He added later that not all the bombs went off.

      An armed police unit entered University College hospital shortly after an injured person was carried in, Britain’s Press Association reported.

      Sky News TV reported that police were searching for a man with a blue shirt with wires protruding. Officers asked employees to look for a black or Asian male about 6-foot-2.

      The attacks, which targeted trains near the Warren Street, Oval and Shepherd’s Bush stations, did not shut down the subway system, only three of its lines. The double-decker bus had its windows blown out on Hackney Road in east London.

      Witnesses told The Associated Press they did not hear a bang but smelled something similar to an electrical fire at the Warren Street station.

      Police in chemical protection suits were at the Warren Street station, but no chemical agents were found.

      Stagecoach, the company which operates the stricken bus, said the driver heard a bang and went upstairs, where he found the windows blown out. The company said the bus was structurally intact and there were no injuries.

      The incidents paralleled the July 7 blasts, which involved explosions at three Underground stations simultaneously starting at 8:51 a.m., followed quickly by a bomb going off on a bus. Those bombings, during the morning rush hour, also occurred in the center of London, hitting the Underground from various directions.

      Thursday’s incidents, however, were more spread out.

      Emergency teams were sent to all three stations after the incidents, which began at 12:38 p.m.

      ’’People were panicking. But very fortunately the train was only 15 seconds from the station,’’ witness Ivan McCracken told Sky news.

      McCracken said another passenger at Warren Street told him he saw a backpack explode. The July 7 bombs were carried in backpacks, police said.

      McCracken said he smelled smoke, and people were panicking and coming into his carriage. He said he spoke to an Italian man who was comforting a woman after the evacuation.

      ’’He said that a man was carrying a rucksack and the rucksack suddenly exploded. It was a minor explosion but enough to blow open the rucksack,’’ McCracken said. ’’The man then made an exclamation as if something had gone wrong. At that point everyone rushed from the carriage.’’

      Losiane Mohellavi, 35, who was evacuated at Warren Street, said, ’’I was in the carriage and we smelled smoke - it was like something was burning. Everyone was panicked and people were screaming. We had to pull the alarm. I am still shaking.’’

      The U.S. Embassy was closed to visitors about two hours after the blasts as a precaution, but embassy staff continued working, said spokeswoman Susan Domowitz.

      The explosions came as Pakistani intelligence officials said authorities are seeking the former aide of a radical cleric in Britain in connection with the July 7 bombings.

      The officials said British investigators asked Pakistani authorities to search for Haroon Rashid Aswat, who reportedly had been in close contact with the suicide bombers just before the July 7 attacks.

      Aswat, 31, was of Indian origin and may not be in Pakistan, according to two intelligence officials in Islamabad and one in Lahore, all speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to the media and because of the sensitivity of the investigation.

      Aswat reportedly was once an associate of Abu Hamza al-Masri, the radical imam who is awaiting trial in Britain on charges of incitement to murder. Al-Masri also is wanted in the United States on charges of trying to establish a terrorist training camp in Bly, Ore.; involvement in hostage-taking in Yemen; and funding terror training in Afghanistan.

      Quoting unidentified intelligence sources, The Times of London said Aswat visited the hometowns of all four London bombers and selected their targets. It also reported there had been up to 20 phone calls between Aswat and two of the bombers in the days before the attacks.

      Aswat’s relatives in Batley, near the northern English town of Leeds, which was home to two of the July 7 suicide bombers, said they had not heard from him for many years.

      ’’He has not lived at this house and we have not had contact with him for many years,’’ said his father, Rashid, who asked for his family to be left in peace. ’’There is no story that we can provide.’’

      Authorities are investigating whether the London bombing suspects, three of whom were of Pakistani origin and traveled to Pakistan last year, received training or other assistance from militants in that country.

      One of the July 7 bombers, Shahzad Tanweer, 22, is suspected of visiting a madrassa linked with militants in Lahore which has become a focus of the inquiry.

      According to a report in a Pakistani newspaper, Tanweer revered Osama bin Laden. The English-language Dawn newspaper said Tanweer visited relatives in November in a farming village near Faisalabad in eastern Pakistan. During his stay, he was visited by another bombing suspect, Mohammed Sidique Khan, 30, Tanweer’s uncle told the newspaper.

      Pakistan has pledged to curb religious extremism amid international concerns that Islamic schools, or madrassas, are promoting extremism. Associated Press reporters Thin Lei Win and Kate Bouey in London and Christopher Torchia in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

      07-21-05 13:22EDT

      Talk about brazen, unmitigated GAUL & AUDACITY

      They Expect us all to buy into this
      Tavistock CIA PSYOPS AGAIN???!!!

      7-7 FALSE FLAGS, NOW 7-21 PSYOPS —Trinity, Thu Jul 21 15:30

      THE CELEBRATED MR B
      Performs his Feat on Thursday at Oval Station

      Mr’s B &B Assure The Public Their Production Will Be
      Second To None
      And tonight Mr B is Topping The Bill!!!

      PSYOP IN PROGRESS!

      Armed police enter London hospital

      http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=news_news&Number=293805142#Post293805142

      Category: News & Opinion (General) Topic: News & Current Events
      Synopsis:
      Source: Daily Star
      Published: July 21, 2005 Author:
      For Education and Discussion Only. Not for Commercial Use.

      Police are believed to have cordoned off University College Hospital in London and armed police have entered the building.

      It followed reports that someone had been seen "running away" from Warren Street station in the wake of the incident there.

      Three armed police officers were seen going into the major incident unit at University College Hospital, just minutes before someone was carried from an ambulance into the unit on a stretcher.

      The hospital is so near Warren Street tube it has been included in the area cordoned off following the incident.

      A spokesman for UCH said they had "no information" to confirm the reports.

      The hospital treated many of the victims of the July 7 attacks.

      ‘Screaming for someone to stop him’ wires seen protruding from suspect

      Possible bomber on the loose in London, wires seen protruding from suspect

      [www.libertyforum.org]

      [www.libertyforum.org]
      July 21, 2005
      Suspect Has "Asian Appearance"
      Again, Michelle:

      Sky News earlier reported that a memo had been sent to hospital staff, at the request of the Metropolitan police, asking them to be on the lookout for a black or possibly Asian man, 6ft 2in tall, wearing a blue top with wires protruding from a hole in the rear.

      Weirder and Weirder
      see the url:

      [www.libertyforum.org]
      3 incidents in London involving a nail bomb, and gun shots ?

      http://www.terrorismunveiled.com/athena/2005/07/breaking_more_l.html

      http://instapundit.com/archives/024383.php

      Quote:

      It is now becoming clear that there were three attempted bombings today - at Oval station, at Warren Street station, and on a 26 bus in Hackney. Speculation suggests the detonators on these devices went off, but the bombs themselves did not.

      Quote:

      It’s not up yet online, but there are reports of 3 incidents in London involving a nail bomb, and gun shots (which police dispute were detonators going off). There is also a fourth incident at Hackeney of an explosion on a bus.

      http://www.terrorismunveiled.com/athena/2005/07/breaking_more_l.html

      Spook86’s Comment:

      Don’t give Al-Qaida too much credit for these latest attacks. First of all, today’s blasts appear to be significantly smaller than those of two weeks ago, resulting in minor casualties. That tells me the bombers have less explosive to work with. Ditto for the nail bomb—potentially effective in a crowded bus or subway, but a very crude weapon. Again, I’m guessing they used the nail bomb because they didn’t have enough C-4 to go around.

      Additionally, timing and target selection appears to have been less-than-optimum—also reflected by the low casualties. At this point it’s just a guess, but I’d say today’s bombers are either part of the original cell, or a "secondary" team which may have served as a back-up for the original attack. After the 7/7 attacks (and the departure of the senior planner for Pakistan), this group was left to its own devices, and they attacked, with bombs and a strategy that was far less effective than we saw two weeks ago.

      However, the attacks did satisfy a primary objective: they put terrorism back on the front page of the world’s newspapers, and generated 24/7 coverage from the cable news nets.

      Publicity aside, this was NOT a successful Al-Qaida attack.

      http://instapundit.com/archives/024383.php

      One reason that the bombs may have "failed" in London this morning, provided they actually did fail, may be that these were timed explosives rather than suicide bombs.

      There has been much speculation that the four bombers of 7/7 were unaware of their own impending doom, having been told that the bombs they were going to explode were actually on timers when, in fact, they were not. Presumably, this is the type of deception that works only once.

      It may be that today’s wave of attackers actually did use (and insisted on checking) timers, and that these timers simply failed to work. In which case, the attacks were no less "sophisticated" than 7/7 - to the contrary, they were MORE sophisticated (to let the bomber live to bomb another day), but failed as a result of bad implementation of that plan.

      Interesting point. We’ll see.

      posted at 10:27 AM by Glen

      [ 113_london_july_21_tube_smoke.gif ]

      Artificial Synchronicity.NO COINCIDENCES!