Bomb plot was bred in the UK
Mary Madigan
Dean's World blog
From the Globe and Mail
LEEDS, LONDON - Thursday's terrorist attacks in London were carried out by four young suicide bombers, likely all British citizens, who had worked out of a hidden bomb factory in a Pakistani neighbourhood in northern England, police discovered yesterday.
The revelations, made after a stunning series of raids, have alarmed North American and European security officials. This marks the first time that a Middle East-style suicide bombing has been carried out in the West in history, and the realization that the bombers may have been born and raised in Britain raises the possibility of a new sort of terrorism.
The fact that suicide bombers might be homegrown is particularly frightening and shocking," said defence analyst Peter Caddick-Adams. "It's easier to think of terrorists as people who come from another country, perpetrate their acts and then disappear."
Another security analyst said the co-ordination and complexity of the attacks suggest the men were acting with outside help, and not "operating from their bedrooms." The mechanics of suicide bombing are "much more complex" than an attack where the bomb is detonated from a distance, said analyst Christopher Ruane. The prospective suicide bomber needs to be recruited, trained and supported by a community of like-minded people.
They had no known ties to extremist groups, but they most likely had ties that escaped the notice of British "intelligence" agencies.
In contrast, some members of the Muslim community must have known about these ties.
From the Globe and Mail's Working-class neighbourhood obscured terrorist laboratory
It is the kind of neighbourhood where the Mahmood Halal Butcher sits next door to Luciano's Pizza, Donairs, Burgers and Southern Fried Chicken, whose sign unfortunately reads "Fastest Gun in the West - Leaves the Rest for Dead."
Unfortunately, because right across the road is the ugly council-owned townhouse that appears to have been the laboratory that produced the bombs that killed more than 50 people in a terrifying series of explosions on the London transit system last Thursday…
…But the four now suspected of being the bombers did not hail from these rough-and-tumble quarters.
In at least two cases, they seem to have come from comfortable middle-class backgrounds, where there was little to suggest that they would become major terrorists. Shahzad Tanweer lived in the relatively prosperous Beeston neighbourhood of Leeds, home to many merchants from the Indian subcontinent. He was known to his friends as a fanatical cricket player, and for driving his father's Mercedes around the local streets...
Since most terrorists come from middle or upper class background, it's not clear why we're supposed to be surprised by this.
Also unsurprising - Muslim groups are shocked, shocked, by the resulting anti-Muslim violence.
..Massoud Shadjareh of the Islamic Human Rights Commission said there had been 50 reports of assaults against British Muslims or mosques. There was an arson attack on a mosque in Birkenhead, Merseyside, over the weekend, as well as two separate attacks in Bristol and one in east London. There were no injuries reported.
"No Muslim should feel guilty about what these monsters did," said Sadiq Khan, an MP from South London.
No Muslim? Did he really say that? Sorry, Mr. Khan, but under Western laws, being Muslim is not a get-out-of-jail free-card. Britain isn't a Shariah state.
Every Muslim shouldn't feel guilty about what those monsters did, but the Muslim "community of like-minded people," their Muslim supporters, and the Muslims who knew about this group and said nothing certainly should.
The supporters of these monsters shouldn't just feel guilty about this, they should, and must, be punished.
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