Was It Suicide? Reconsidering 7/7 - (were London "suiciders" duped? great point!)

NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE.COM ^ | JULY 18, 2005 | MICHAEL LEDEEN

[CHARLITE]

"So maybe it wasn't a suicide attack after all?"

I had finally gotten a decent connection through the ouija board with the late James Jesus Angleton, once our leading counterspy, and I didn't want to waste time with the usual chitchat about fly fishing-whose fascination, frankly, I have never understood — and Renaissance furniture.

JJA: "Why would anybody think it was a suicide operation?"

ML: "Well, officially they seemed pretty confident. I think the main thing was that the three bombs in the subways went off more or less at the same instant, and that suggested there were timers. And then I think they actually found physical evidence of timers."

JJA: "Really. How brilliant. And since when do suicide terrorists need timers? Isn't part of the cult that you get to push your own button and blast off?"

ML: "Well, I think the simultaneity of the three explosions suggested technological coordination, if you see what I mean..."

JJA: "Couldn't they just coordinate their watches? They all met before they set off to kill, didn't they? And they were all well educated, I don't think any of them had a problem telling time."

ML: "Yes, some of the British papers, and a very smart Italian journalist named Guido Olimpio, have suggested that the terrorists were duped, that they didn't expect to be blown up..."

JJA: "Yes, notice that the London police chief was 'puzzled' to discover that the bombers were carrying around their personal identity documents. That's pretty lousy tradecraft, isn't it? It's what led the police to Leeds, where they found explosives and all kinds of leads."

ML: "And there's the odd story about the pay-and-display ticket for their rental car. If they expected to die, why bother to pay the parking fee?"

JJA: "Well, that one actually supports the suicide theory, because Muslim martyrs are supposed to settle all their earthly affairs before the event, including all legitimate debts. If they cheated on their parking fee, it might count against their immediate entry to Paradise...Although, to tell you the truth, after many years in this place..."

There was a sudden squawk of static before his voice came back, kind of gravelly.

JJA: "Sorry, I'm not supposed to talk about how things are here."

ML: "So you don't think they knew they were going to be martyred?"

JJA: "No I don't. There's an elaborate ritual that surrounds acts of Islamic suicide terrorism, and none of the ritual is present in this case. There's almost always a letter to the family, explaining what an honor it is for them to have an heroic martyr. There's almost always a video that shows them praying, preparing for sacrifice. If not, there's invariably an audio."

ML: "Yes, you're right. These acts are always used for 'propaganda' purposes, aren't they?"

JJA: "Never mind propaganda, they're recruitment devices, just like the films of the ritual beheadings."

ML: "Right. And there aren't any in the London case."

JJA: "There are not. And that, my friend, is a great example of the dog that did not bark. Can you imagine the shock value of a cassette of these proper Brits explaining the righteousness of their case, as they blow up scores of their fellow countrymen?"

ML: "Well, then, what happened?"

JJA: "What happened? What happened was what happens every day in Iraq. You recruit young men and tell them you want them to carry out a terrorist op. Not a suicide mission, but a strike on behalf of jihad. You tell them you want them to carry some bombs into the underground and leave them on the subway train. You tell them not to worry, everything is controlled by a timer, and the timer is set, say, half an hour after they are out of the Tube. So they go. Except then you set the thing off remotely. By cell phone, say."

ML: "But I thought cell phones don't work in the underground."

JJA: "I think you will find that some do. Or maybe there was a different kind of radio signal. But the technology certainly exists, and isn't very expensive. It might be something very simple, like putting a phony clock face on the timer, showing the explosion set for half an hour after the real time."

ML: "Actually, that might help explain the guy on the bus."

JJA: "Good for you, you noticed that?"

ML: "Well, now that you've got me thinking along those lines, it suddenly makes sense."

JJA: "You bet. You remember those passengers who said he was rummaging around, very nervously, in his backpack?"

ML: "Yes. And all the papers said he was probably checking to make sure it would work."

JJA: "Except that we're talking an hour and a half after the bombs went off in the underground, and maybe that surprised him. Maybe theirs wasn't supposed to go off until his did, too. Maybe he suspected what had happened. And maybe he was trying to find a way to shut it off, to get out of what had become a nightmare."

ML: "Why didn't he just run?"

JJA: "Don't ask rational questions about a person seized by panic."

ML: "Fair enough. Anyway, there are plenty of precedents for this theory."

JJA: "Yup. Lots and lots of them. Like that poor bastard in Baghdad, the Saudi kid who was trained in Syria and then smuggled into Iraq. They told him that he was just a courier. All he had to do was drive a truck in front of the Jordanian embassy, park it, and walk away. They would do the rest. So he starts driving across town, when BOOM."

ML: "Yes, I remember, and he was blown through the windshield, and miraculously survived, and ended up on Iraqi TV warning the world not to trust the guys who recruited him."

JJA: "And then there are the cases of terrorists who were chained to the steering wheel."

ML: "Right. And of course the suicide terrorists in Israel are accompanied by a handler almost until the moment of truth."

JJA: "Yes. There's not a very high level of trust. Lots of the kids turn themselves in when they get close, even the ones who are drugged..."

ML: "Hey, don't go now! Drugs?"

But it was over.

Michael Ledeen, an NRO contributing editor, is most recently the author of The War Against the Terror Masters. He is resident scholar in the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute.

[Rokurota]

....'puzzled' to discover that the bombers were carrying around their personal identity documents.

Either (A) they wanted to be known after the fact (i.e. be heroes)

or (B) they were hoping to get rid of any trace so no connections to living terrorists would be made.

Both are reasonable explanations.

[konaice]

The three blasts were within 50 seconds of each other, and a fourth explosion that tore through a double-decker bus nearly an hour later.

All are believed to be set off by timers as timer parts were found in all sites.

There is ONE very good reason for one to be an hour later than the others: Its a common practice to have another bomb go off when the first bomb site is full of first respnders. Happens Iraq all the time. But access to the sites was already blocked as the train system was shutdown city wide, something they hadn't planned on.

And there are a couple very good reason to use timers even if you were intent on suicide... Coordination, and also so you would not be obviously grabbing for the switch and attract attention, or constantly looking at your watch.

In the end, it hardly matters whether they were merely intending to deliver and plant the backpacks or they intended to kill themselves. Given the skills of Scotland Yard they were dead meat in either case.

[Who dat?]

I heard they had shaved, which is part of the martyrdom ritual.

I read that too – from one of the Brit papers. They had shaved, washed/bathed and otherwise engaged in different aspects of their (supposed) ritual.

Meanwhile people are spending lots of time discussing the minutiae involved rather than eradicating their presence. Neat how that works… Keep your eye on the cookie, not the ball.

[konaice]

Personally I think the guy in the bus was unaware of his predicament.

Not from first hand accounts. He was constantly digging into the bag, and quite agitated.

[konaice]

I heard they had shaved, which is part of the martyrdom ritual.

You heard wrong:
CCTV images show them still having beards.

[Spirited]

Now the wife can get the insurance.

[Recovering_Democrat]

An interesting theory. Hopefully, if accurate, it will backfire on the perps who put them up to it--friends of friends and other potential recruits may turn them in.

[TheDon]

The 9/11 terrorists were all imports, were they not? The 7/7 terrorists were natives.

AlQ wants to encourage Muslims in the West to become martyrs. What better way than to have some examples? Can't convince anyone to do it the first time? Well then at least make it look like they did it.

It is one thing to murder in the name of your religion, it is another to commit suicide in the process. Self-preservation is a pesky hinderance to such actions.

AlQ also wants to divide Western Muslims from the non-Muslims. What better way than to generate fear in non-Muslims of all Muslims?

I've seen nothing yet to convince me that these fellows knew they were commiting suicide. It's possible they did know, but I'm not convinced yet. Time will probably answer the question.

[montag813]

There's an elaborate ritual that surrounds acts of Islamic suicide terrorism

Which does not include their remains being buried with pig entrails. If we did this with every dead Muslim gunman or bomber, the attackswould very quickly end. But of course our uber-P.C. "leaders" Bush and Blair would never dream of offending our murderers that way.

[CHARLITE]

"Irrelevant."

What is relevant about this is that it should be used in the "psy-ops" part of our war on terror. If we can penetrate the populations from which these gullible, young walking bombs are recruited, and get this very important TRUTH to them, perhaps it will help to cut down on the numbers of volunteers.

If young men realize that their participation isn't just placing packages on trains and buses, but that they themselves will be blown up by remote control switches, wouldn't that be "relevant" to all potential recruits?

Char

[talmand]

I would think the possibility of these guys being tricked into being suicide bombers shows that it might be getting much harder to recruit people to do such things. So the ones in charge just tell them that they are taking the bomb to the target or maybe not even telling them there's a bomb in the first place. "You're just doing a test run to see if anybody would stop you," kind of thing. And when they are dead the handlers announce another maryr has sacrificed himself for the cause. Who's going to dispute it? The only people who know the truth are either dead or currently seeking a new recruit to replace the dead one.

I now have to wonder how many people that are driving the car bombs in Iraq knew they were actually driving car bombs to begin with.

[Cboldt]

Interesting but really irrelevant since these guys had murder on their mind anyway. The fact they got blown up too is just a footnote.

Agreed that the difference is irrelevant in meting out justice for these bozos.

But the difference is profound for the business of recruiting bomb-setters.

[Arkie2]

The numerous published incidents in Iraq of bombers being coerced and set up without their knowledge hasn't hurt recruitment there. I don't sreiously think there will be a problem finding more couriers for bombs.

[Cboldt]

The numerous published incidents in Iraq of bombers being coerced and set up without their knowledge hasn't hurt recruitment there. I don't sreiously think there will be a problem finding more couriers for bombs.

At some point recruiting changes. I agree that there will always be conformable subjects.

But "coerced" and "set up without knowledge" are mutually exclusive populations. Plus, neither of those populations represents the population of "think they are setting a bomb and getting away."

[USF]

The Islamic ritual for purification concerns "unwanted body hair," not neccessarily shaving off the whole beard.

Shehzad Tanweer:

SHAVING off his beard just two days before last week's atrocities part of a Muslim fighter's preparation for "active service".

But when he boarded the Metropolitan Line Tube carriage last week he was clean-shaven except for a trimmed-down goatee.

"Two days before he vanished Shehzad shaved," said his cousin, 23. "Nobody questioned it because his mum hated the beard. But I've since found that when Muslims are about to do ‘active service'—fighting for what they believe—they shave their beards so they won't stand out.

Hasib Hussain

Police sources said last night that the attackers had shaved off their body hair on the morning of the attacks in a ceremony of religious purification.

Ritual hair removal (purification)

Preparations for Ihram. Comb your hair, shape the beard, trim your mustache, cut your nails, and remove unwanted body hair.

Purification. Take a bath with the intention of Ihram otherwise do wudu. Here it is noted that there are two ways of purification: Purification of the body, shower or wudu.

What bodyhair to shave

The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) also set a time limit of forty days, and the hair should not be left any longer than that because of the hadith of Anas ibn Malik (may Allah be pleased with him), who said, “He set us a time limit of no more than forty days for trimming the mustache, clipping the nails, plucking the armpit hairs, and shaving the pubic hair” (Al-Bukhari and Muslim).

The jurists discussed the proper etiquette of removing the pubic hair and said that it is recommended to start shaving the pubic hair from beneath the navel, and to start on the right hand side, and one should also be concealed from the sight of others when doing this.

[houeto]

Which does not include their remains being buried with pig entrails. If we did this with every dead Muslim gunman or bomber, the attackswould very quickly end.

We need a General Pershing as CIC for a few months.

[houeto]

If young men realize that their participation isn't just placing packages on trains and buses, but that they themselves will be blown up by remote control switches, wouldn't that be "relevant" to all potential recruits?

I like montag's idea better. Post #29. Yea, that's the ticket.

[Be Free]

Thrashed this about last Thursday: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1442501/posts?page=31#31

Think this guy lurks at FR?

[konaice]

Police sources said last night that the attackers had shaved off their body hair on the morning of the attacks in a ceremony of religious purification.

Congratulations on a very well researched post.

Unfortunatly, it is mostly wrong.

Police reported no such thing. The image below, direct from the London Met Police shows otherwise.

[USF]

The image below, direct from the London Met Police shows otherwise.

Sorry, I cant quite make out their pubic and armpit hair in that shot.. do you have a clearer one?

Ok, seriously, all kidding aside, I'm not here to argue with you... I have work I need to finish. I'm simply suggesting that the ritual purification does not always mean that they have to completely shave off their beards. When they refer to "purification."Islamic men and women on the Islamic forums usually obsess about the kind of hair that you dont normally see them expose to us filthy kuffar.