Free Republic

Our way of life is tolerant, spirited and full of humour. We should make no apologies for fighting the moral descendants of Stalin and Hitler who would destroy it On a rare dry evening last week I walked to a meeting in London. The streets were full and the pubs overflowing with drinkers, many of whom are on the pavements because of the smoking ban: people having a good time at the end of an average working day, smiling and joshing each other. Too often we forget that we have built a successful and good-natured society over the last 10...

AT least one of the suspects being quizzed over the alleged plot to set off car bombs in Britain was in recent contact with Al-Qaeda in Iraq, senior security officials said yesterday. Scotland Yard’s Counter Terrorism Command SO15 is understood to have uncovered evidence that in the months leading up to the attacks one or more of the suspects communicated by telephone or e-mail with terrorist leaders in Iraq. The development has fuelled a theory that the failed attacks in London and Glasgow were designed as a farewell to Tony Blair to punish him for his role in Iraq. Details...

The fact that the Al Qaeda plot to detonate car bombs in London and Glasgow was carried out by doctors working for the National Health Service has shocked the British public far more than the fact that they were Muslims.

Bombing plots ‘were carried out with bin Laden’s blessing’ The London and Glasgow bomb plots were carried out with the approval of Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader, a top foreign intelligence source said last night. “It was an established fact from Day 1 that al-Qaeda was behind this and it was planned by its followers in Great Britain with bin Laden’s blessing,” the source told The Times. British security officials were more guarded, saying that it was too early to say whether the plot was masterminded by some foreign hand or hatched in Britain. The warning an al-Qaeda leader...

Cleric: 'Al-Qa'eda leader told me of bomb plot' By Nicole Martin and Sophie Borland Last Updated: 2:52am BST 04/07/2007 A British cleric in Baghdad last night claimed that an al-Qa'eda leader warned him that "the people who cure you would kill you" months before the terrorist bomb plots in Glasgow and London. Canon Andrew White, who runs the Iraqi capital's only Anglican parish, claimed that he met an unnamed al-Qa'eda leader on the sidelines of a religious reconciliation meeting in Amman, Jordan. "He told me that the plans were already made and they would soon be destroying the British," Canon...

Only at the tail end of the coverage was it admitted that a car bomb might have been parked outside a club in Piccadilly because it was "ladies night" and that this explosion might have been designed to lure people into to the street, the better to be burned and shredded by the succeeding explosion from the second car-borne cargo of gasoline and nails. Since we have known since 2004 that a near-identical attack on a club called the Ministry of Sound was proposed in just these terms, on the grounds that dead "slags" or "sluts" would be regretted by...

Several doctors arrested over the London and Glasgow car bomb plot were on the files of MI5, it was disclosed last night.At least one was on a Home Office watch list after being identified by security services - meaning their travel in and out of Britain was monitored by immigration officers. advertisement Others were found to be on the MI5 database, which contains an estimated 2,000 suspected jihadists or supporters of terrorism.Whitehall sources said they had not been involved in previous plots, but were "people who knew people'' who were under observation.The fact that they were "on the radar" was...

Why on earth do people keep saying, "There but for the grace of God ?"? If matters had been very slightly different over the past weekend, the streets of London and the airport check-in area in Glasgow, Scotland, would have been strewn with charred body parts. And this would have been, according to the would-be perpetrators, because of the grace of God. Whatever our own private theology or theodicy, we might at least agree to take this vile belief seriously. Instead, almost every other conceivable explanation was canvassed. The June 30 New York Times report managed to quote three people,...

The London bomb plot allegedly planned by a cell of doctors failed early last Friday morning because a medical syringe used as part of the firing mechanism caused a malfunction, ABC News has learned. According to nonclassified documents reviewed by ABC News, and confirmed by multiple sources, both mobile telephones initiated firing mechanisms rigged inside a Mercedes E 300 parked several yards from the front door of Tiger Tiger nightclub failed despite multiple calls to the cell phones designed to remotely trigger the devices.

Britain's terror alert took a fresh twist today as police seized gas canisters and arrested two men in a raid in Lancashire. The development came as the first picture emerged of the doctor arrested in Australia following an intelligence tip-off from Britain. In the raid in Blackburn, two men were arrested at an industrial estate in Blackburn on suspicion of terror offences. Both are being held at a police station in Lancashire on suspicion of offences under the Terrorism Act 2000, but a spokesman said it is too early to confirm whether the arrests are linked to the failed bomb...

I orginally wrote this as Friday's radio spot script, but I personally like it as a read, so here's both. Last year, I got in trouble with YouTube for trying to air one of my television show segments that included the videotaped beheading of an American captured by Iraqi insurgents. That video was aired all around the Islamic world, yet was kept off our televisions because that was considered “inappropriate content”. They figured we just couldn’t handle the truth. Earlier this week, I read a story in the UK Sun; a story that we have yet to hear in America....

The attempted London car bombings were meant to be detonated by calls to mobile phones in the two vehicles, but failed for technical reasons, the Evening Standard reported Monday. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070702151035.1owv4xdu&show_article=1

British terrorists conspired in bombs plot - security officials · Six suspects are doctors · Controlled explosions at hospital · London car came from Scotland Vikram Dodd and Richard Norton-Taylor Tuesday July 3, 2007 The Guardian(UK) Counter-terrorism officials said last night they believe British terrorists who are still at large were involved in the conspiracy to launch car bomb attacks on London and Glasgow. Details emerged as it became clear that five of the suspects under arrest are doctors working and training in the NHS, and one is a doctor working in Australia where he was arrested last night. Seven...

No sooner was the London car-bomb disaster averted, seemingly by poor tradecraft on the part of the bombers, than the spinning began. The New York Times, ever vigilant to explain the news in ways that comport with its editorial line, takes the lead. “The idea of a multiple attack using car bombs,” reports Alan Cowell on the paper’s front page, has “raised concerns among security experts that jihadist groups linked to al Qaeda may have imported tactics more familiar in Iraq.” “Imported tactics more familiar in Iraq”? In other words, what the Times is telling us, citing experts it declines...

LONDON – Prayers were lifted up from churches and Christian leaders across the United Kingdom following the foiled car bomb attacks in London on Friday and the attack on Glasgow Airport on Saturday. Bishop Philip Tartaglia, the Roman Catholic bishop of Paisley, Scotland, in whose diocese Glasgow Airport is situated, issued a statement yesterday from Lourdes in France where he is on a Diocesan pilgrimage. "I am deeply saddened at the news of the attack on Glasgow Airport," Tartaglia stated. “I commend the swift action of the police and security staff on the scene and welcome the fact that injury...

THE attempted London car bombings were meant to be detonated by calls to mobile phones in the two vehicles, but failed for technical reasons, the Evening Standard reported today. The calls made on the phones allowed police to trace those behind the failed attacks last Friday, the London daily evening newspaper said, without giving sources. The phones were meant to set off blasts when they were called, but the devices failed to detonate the mixture of gas canisters and nails in the two Mercedes cars parked in London's entertainment district. The bombers called the car outside the "Tiger Tiger" nightclub...

The suspected ringleader of the failed bomb plot has been named as 'brilliant neurologist' Mohammed Asha, 26. Saudi-born Asha, 26, was arrested with his 27-year-old wife, who was in traditional Muslim dress, on the M6 in Cheshire on Saturday night. They were in a car with their two-year-old son when police were believed to have been alerted to Dr Asha's car after his number plate flashed up on an automatic recognition camera. He is believed to being questioned over possible links to the two Mercedes packed with gas canisters, petrol and nails found in the West End on Friday. The...

Three terrorist attacks have been launched in the UK, two in central London and another at Glasgow Airport. What is the significance of a British terror target outside London? It is interesting and it is also worrying that this attack has taken place in Glasgow because up until yesterday (Saturday) all the successful attacks were only in London. Now suddenly we have Glasgow. It seems clear that in these particular attacks, both in London and the one in Glasgow, there is a Scottish connection. Of course, Gordon Brown, the new prime minister is also of Scottish origin. There was intelligence...

Why on earth do people keep saying, "There but for the grace of God …"? If matters had been very slightly different over the past weekend, the streets of London and the airport check-in area in Glasgow, Scotland, would have been strewn with charred body parts. And this would have been, according to the would-be perpetrators, because of the grace of God. Whatever our own private theology or theodicy, we might at least agree to take this vile belief seriously. Instead, almost every other conceivable explanation was canvassed. The June 30 New York Times report managed to quote three people,...

The wicket has gotten sticky for those who, in the wake of terror attacks, seek to blame the West for the disaffection of a few Islamist youths gone wrong. The profile of those involved in the latest rash of terror incidents in the U.K. has stood that theory on its head.Consider the dialogue on this morning's "Today" at 7:06 a.m. EDT between NBC's Lester Holt and Lisa Myers, both reporting from London. NBC'S LESTER HOLT: Lisa, we always hear when these sort of things happen in the U.K. about disaffected young Muslim men, sort of home-grown terrorists. When you talk...