Posted on 07/21/2005 7:13:42 AM PDT by Srirangan
A number of Tube stations have been evacuated and lines closed after three blasts in what Met Police chief Sir Ian Blair says is a "serious incident".
Sir Ian appealed to Londoners to stay where they were and said the transport system was effectively being shut down.
The minor explosions used detonators only, a BBC reporter said.
In addition, a Number 26 bus in Hackney Road in Bethnal Green had its windows blown out by a blast. There were no injuries.
Large areas around Warren Street, Oval and the Shepherd's Bush Hammersmith and City line Tube stations have been cordoned off.
One person was injured at Warren Street. There were reports the injured person may have been holding a rucksack containing the detonator.
Lines suspended
Police said armed officers had been deployed to University College Hospital after an incident.
The whole of the Northern Line has been suspended, along with the Victoria Line and the Hammersmith and City line.
A number of other stations were closed including Westminster tube station, Waterloo tube station and King's Cross Thameslink. There were also reports that St Paul's tube and Oxford Circus tube station were closed.
Tony Blair cancelled events in the afternoon and will be attending a meeting of the Cobra committee along with Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.
The BBC's Andrew Winstanley said devices had been found but appeared to have been dummies, containing no explosives.
London Underground went to an amber alert with trains taken to the next station and evacuated.
An eyewitness at Oval station said there had been a small bang, and a man had then run off when the Tube reached the station.
A spokesman for Stagecoach said the driver of the number 26 bus travelling through Shoreditch had heard a bang on upper deck, gone upstairs and seen the windows were blown out.
The bus driver was very shaken but said to be fine.
At Shepherd's Bush Hammersmith and City line station, police told reporters that a man had threatened to blow himself up and then ran off.
Sosiane Mohellavi, 35, was travelling from Oxford Circus to Walthamstow when she was evacuated from a train at Warren Street.
"I was in the carriage and we smelt 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 BBC's Rory Barnett said there had been no smoke on the platform at Warren St.
Liz Edwards, who works near Warren Street Underground station, said the area was full of activity.
"There are police, fire engines and ambulances all around there. A guy from our office had just come back from the station and said the police were aggressively keeping people away from the station and that you could not get anywhere near it."
Do you drool while you type? The bombers in London were IMMIGRANTS or offspring of IMMIGRANTS! Welcome to our country....oops....this IMMIGRANT 'sloded himself...! Are you daft? You like making money from illegals?.....whatever bud...when your employees "mule" explosives to kill your clientele do you believe that might be , err...extreme?
No one accuses you of being "too smart" do they?
If it didnt happen with 9/11, why would it happen with subways?
hmmm and what would you do?
You overestimate the resources of our enemies. These "jihadists" are having problems killing civilians in train stations, attacking America with an "EMP" weapon is B.S. at this time....
I'd move to the US. How 'bout you?
Your comments are so hateful and strident. Are you a liberal?
Your comments are so hateful and strident. Are you a liberal?
Tell me how we are going to do this.
The British empire has long attempted to disarm its subjects. It has more or less succeeded for law-abiding citizens in recent times. But don't think that you have any real security because of it. Learn about the Swiss model of arming every able-bodied man with a full-auto assault rifle and ammunition. And ask yourself if you'd rather be Swiss or British if a massive uprising of Islamists happened in your city.
I think that sums up the nannygov position nicely.
I was responding to someone who advocates, without exaggeration, the extermination of entire races of people and you call me "hateful and strident"?
I didn't know myopia was contagious.
"It must have been those white neo-fascists again! [picture of Ben Affleck in 'Sum of All Fears']"
Now, that was funny. Get a clue, Hollywood.
"Round up the Amish, Quakers, Buddhists and Sikhs! Must have been them that did it!"
And, while they're at it, we should step up bag checks of nuns and grandmothers. Oh, wait. We're already doing that.
Test runs or decoys for the big one at the 31st day?
The question was "are you a liberal". I didn't ask who you were responding to or if myopia was contagious.
My post was a circumlocutionary way of saying that I wouldn't respond to such a ridiculous question.
Here's the sad news. We can't stop weapons from coming into this country. If we could stop a bomb we could also stop all drugs from coming into the country. Do you think that's possible? I don't believe we could stop all drugs from coming into LA, no less the whole country. If fact, since we have drug sniffing dogs, it's more likely we could stop all drugs before we could stop all weapons.
This isn't a little country like Israel. It's not small, it wasn't developed with enemies on all sides.
The sad truth is that defensive stances won't work. And that leaves the other, not as comfortable choices. One is MAD. Mutually Assured Destruction. It worked for many years with the old USSR - and it might work with the Arabs. We're limited to some extent with Arabs - we don't "get" them. That's a big problem. We always understood the Russians - they were chess players. And their leaders were goons. Typical totalitarians. AQ is that, but more. There's a "true believer" element in them that's unstable. And followers who are both zealots, unsophisticated, angry, and enthralled with cult charm. Not a great mix.
This is a very bad situation. Add into it that our real enemies (like North Korea) could arm AQ and wipe out two or more groups they could do without).
As to EMP's the best way around them is find cheap ways to start hardening our chips. It would be too costly to redo the ones in place, but there must be some stop gap measures that would work for some. Then replace them on a priority basis -- most crucial to keep the society running first. Power plants, grids, etc., are first. This war isn't easy. Lots of pitfalls.
Here's the sad news. We can't stop weapons from coming into this country. If we could stop a bomb we could also stop all drugs from coming into the country. Do you think that's possible? I don't believe we could stop all drugs from coming into LA, no less the whole country. If fact, since we have drug sniffing dogs, it's more likely we could stop all drugs before we could stop all weapons.
This isn't a little country like Israel. It's not small, it wasn't developed with enemies on all sides.
The sad truth is that defensive stances won't work. And that leaves the other, not as comfortable choices. One is MAD. Mutually Assured Destruction. It worked for many years with the old USSR - and it might work with the Arabs. We're limited to some extent with Arabs - we don't "get" them. That's a big problem. We always understood the Russians - they were chess players. And their leaders were goons. Typical totalitarians. AQ is that, but more. There's a "true believer" element in them that's unstable. And followers who are both zealots, unsophisticated, angry, and enthralled with cult charm. Not a great mix.
This is a very bad situation. Add into it that our real enemies (like North Korea) could arm AQ and wipe out two or more groups they could do without).
As to EMP's the best way around them is find cheap ways to start hardening our chips. It would be too costly to redo the ones in place, but there must be some stop gap measures that would work for some. Then replace them on a priority basis -- most crucial to keep the society running first. Power plants, grids, etc., are first. This war isn't easy. Lots of pitfalls.
Is that an answer to your question?
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