Police work works

Actually I wouldn't strictly call the latest incident a case of the authorities 'foiling' an attack. It looks like a similar situation to the failed suicide bombings of a couple of years ago where it wasn't the police saving the day, it was the terrorists failing to know enough basic chemistry to construct a working bomb. It seems as if the police had no idea about this one until after the failed attempt at mass murder.

Although in the previous one they did manage to sniff them out a little sooner.

I'm mostly just terrified that in addition to using explosives with nails attached, they had a package of bic pens or something that will mean I can't bring a writing implement on a plane anymore.

Or what if part of the bomb consisted of a shampoo bottle of less than 3.5 ounces. Because then, to protect us from the terrah we'll lose our ziploc baggy of tiny fluid containers.

cmon, read the story. litres of petrol and gas canisters, not the sort of thing you can carry in a handbag

Absolutely nothing to do with police work and everything to do with blind chance (and the difficulty of actually constructing working bombs, I imagine). The driver of the car threw a wobbly and crashed into some bins on one of the busiest streets in central London, then legged it, leaving the car to be noticed later by an ambulance crew attending a nearby nightclub. Police have been fairly clear that it came straight out of the blue.

Ive already caught one right-wing blog greatly exagerating the extent of the potential damage. As well as jumping to conclusions regarding who is responsible ('Its the islamofacists of course!') and claiming that soon liberals are going to start making up conspiricy theories about how the government staged this attack just like 9/11.

I troll the sites of some really stupid people.

The various account together have the bomb as consisting of a fuse, a detonator, gas cannisters, gasoline, and nails -- but no high explosives. The detonator might break open a gas cannister, causing a fire, and the remaining fuels would give plenty of fuel for the fire, but the only explosions would be bursting cannisters.

This was not 'car bomb', this was a portable car fire.

The people responsible were wannabees, not real terrorists.

Actual terrorists use reliable bombmaking, not amateurish wishful thinking.

Why do you speak of going through airport security naked as a bad thing?

Maybe it depends on who you're behind or who's in front of you....

Without an explosive, gas canisters won't explode. As pressure from the heat of fire builds past a set point, a valve breaks releasing the gas in a 'safe' 20ft jet of flame. They are designed not to go pop! Without explosives it'd just be a large fire, and the nails wouldn't be going anywhere except possibly a puddle.

claiming that soon liberals are going to start making up conspiricy theories about how the government staged this attack just like 9/11.

Let's see, from DU we get:

My immediate reaction was, George Brown gets to show what he can do when some terra-ist attack happens. Special Branch dirty-tricks dept?

and

I figured it was Shrubs welcome to 10 Downing St. gift . . . a reason to align with the King in the war against the brown people.

Of course, I'm sure that odds are it was Beserker Baptists or Pissed-Off Presbyterians behind this (and the Hyde Park "car of interest" currently ongoing) because they have so much recent history of carbombs, suicide bombs, etc.

I've seen stories even suggesting they're considering the Irish which is of course stupid. The IRA knows how to make bombs.

As more details have come out this sounds like it was done by idiot teenagers.

Makes you wonder who financed the 'terror cell', doesn't it. This may the the work of an agent provocateur, meaning that it would the British government is creating, recruiting for, planning for, and running the cell.

Oh, and for anyone not keeping up ... London police have now tied the carbomb in Hyde Park to The Haymarket one

both cars being Mercedes and stocked similarly with gas, propane and nails.

Still sound like teenagers on a lark, like TPing the neighbors house?

Suricou Raven,

Ive already caught one right-wing blog greatly exagerating the extent of the potential damage.

Really? Do you think she just made that shit up? That was what the London police said--1700 potential victims. It was all over the news today. It was the headline in a UK newspaper. 1700, because there were that many people in the Tiger Tiger nightclub (it was Ladies Night, and Thursday night is supposedly a big night there).

I troll the sites of some really stupid people.

Hmmm. Maybe they're not as stupid as you think they are, which says more about you. Or maybe you just think everyone who says something that doesn't fit into your closed-minded world view is "stupid." LOL.

(And by the way, only the pathologically stupid "troll." You should also check your ghastly spelling before you call anyone stupid, as well. I'll leave it to you to do a spell-check on your own comment.)

There is a big difference between 'this many people were in the adjacent building' and 'this many would have been killed.' As bombs go, I get the impression this is more fireball than blast.

Also, Beth, please lay off the ad hom attacks. My spelling is pathetic, I know. But this has no bearing on the validity of my arguments.

Speaking as a resident of the UK (though not London), most of the conversations about it I've heard have consisted of comments like "pretty pathetic, really" and speculation that it was indeed a small group of not-very-bright wanna-be f***-the-establishment types with no connection to any real group. Because, yeah, it's clear they haven't got a clue.

It's not that long ago since the IRA and assorted similar groups were setting off real nail bombs in London, and it's not exactly far from memory. What's funny is the attitude that comes from this -- on the one hand, there's an underlying creeping horror of the kind of carnage a big nail bomb can create; but overlaying that is the amused contempt for schmucks who can't even make that kind of simple device right. Of course everyone is grateful for that, but still....wot schmucks.

Ive been getting much the same impression from my locals too. Over heard conversations around the workplace and such. People just arn't impressed with these bombs.

That said, the blog thread I linked to is really hotting up now - lots of arguing. Not a lot of good arguments. A lot of us-vs-them politics: Lefties accusing righties of spreading exagerations and panic to score votes, and righties accusing lefties of refusing to recognise the danger of terrorism and take action to stop it.

Luna, not schmucks, that's something they have in America. These people were carrying on the uniquely British tradition of amateur incompetence.

We've already had fluids banned despite the physical implausibility of using a liquid explosive to bring down a plane. If these scumbags were planning on making a pen-bomb or a bra-bomb we're going to end up going naked through security for no damn good reason.

Shortly after the "shoe bomber" incident, I figured that if al-Qaeda had any brains and/or sense of humor, they'd send a "suppository bomber" through INTENDING him to be captured with a stick of Semtex up his ass.

Could you imagine the screaming from all the Kyle's Moms and the New TSA Security Procedures (TM) that would follow?