A pro-Palestinian protester, with a fake explosives belt, demonstrating near London's Trafalgar Square. (Photo: Fernando Cavalcanti)
Posted on 05/20/2002 9:58:17 AM PDT by Cinnamon Girl
A pro-Palestinian protester, with a fake explosives belt, demonstrating near London's Trafalgar Square. (Photo: Fernando Cavalcanti)
LONDON - British Jews recently began an organized effort to prepare for a possible outbreak of suicide terrorism, but those involved decided to keep the effort under wraps to avoid causing panic.
On Wednesday Jewish activists and rabbis will meet with the Israeli group Zaka - the Haredi Rescue and Recovery voluntary organization - to discuss Jewish law procedures for evacuating the bodies of terrorist victims. Zaka is preparing a seminar to train volunteers to evacuate and identify victims of terror attacks, based on experience and lessons learned in Israel.
The course begins in June and dozens of volunteers have indicated an interest in registering for it. Experience accumulated in Britain during incidents such as the 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 disaster at Lockerbie will be reviewed.
But the Jewish community is not alone in believing it is just a matter of time until a mass suicide attack reaches Britain. British security sources say Scotland Yard and intelligence experts are worried that the suicide terrorist phenomenon could soon arrive in Britain, and local security forces lack the know-how or means to counter such a threat.
This assessment was reinforced several months ago when a senior delegation from Scotland Yard visited Sri Lanka and Israel to study how both countries deal with suicide attacks. The British visitors got an unequivocal message - suicide bombings will increase in the coming years, and not just by radical Islamic groups, but by militant secular organizations seeking to spread terrorism.
Israeli security officials briefed Barbara Wilding, who led the Scotland Yard delegation, on how the suicide tactic has gradually spread in the Middle East. A source knowledgeable about British security forces told Ha'aretz: "The use of suicide bombers has become a ritual that crosses borders and organizations, and is regarded as an efficient response to the intelligence, military, and technological superiority of the security services in the West. In the Middle East, we've seen how the use of this weapon has been developed and improved by Hezbollah in Lebanon, and then copied by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas, and lately moved over to secular organizations like Fatah or the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Now these organizations recruit men and women alike for these operations."
According to this source "suicide attacks are regarded today in Britain and among other security services in Europe as a general threat, because the concept of martyrdom could also take hold among extreme Christian right-wing organizations, and there are already some signs of this in the United States. The concern is that Europe might be the next target for these types of attack."
Scotland Yard has formed a special committee led by Wilding, the head of security at Scotland Yard, to handle the threat of suicide terrorism. Relying on lessons drawn from the experiences of security services in Israel, the U.S. and Asia, this team is devising preventive procedures.
The Sunday Times reported last week that the task force is studying how to deploy snipers against suicide bombers and has asked the Home Office to design robots like those used in Israel to detect and disarm explosives. But some security experts are saying these efforts are "too little, too late."
Pro-Palestinian activists have received logistic and financial support from left-wing organizations, as well as encouragement from some Labor Party MPs, including George Galloway, who is married to a Palestinian, and Jeremy Corbyn. At a discussion at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies on May 2, Galloway was reported as saying: "The suicide bombers are freedom fighters, not terrorists. I salute all of the fighters and all of the martyrs of Palestine ... Children throwing stones and becoming suicide bombers are heroes ... we must support the PLO and assist them in wiping out the Zionist entity."
Galloway's alleged comments apparently contravene British laws against incitement and promotion of terrorist attacks. Ha'aretz contacted Galloway for a reaction, but he was unavailable by press time.
As reported in Sunday's Ha'aretz, a week ago 20 pro-Palestinian leftists tried to storm the Israeli embassy in London. Embassy guards, reinforced by British police, repulsed these protesters. News of the attack was suppressed from the media for a week - again to avoid alarming Britain's Jewish community.
Islam out of Britain. The BNP is right on that count at least.
How are we to know the explosives are fake? If I see someone with an "explosives" belt, they're gonna get shot...Period. I'm not going to risk my life and the lives of my loved ones on the chance that they were a "protester".
Sorry, but the difference escapes me. France might be out spoken with its anti-Semitism., where as America, paper tiger, puts up a false front but abandons her friend and only democracy among the Middle East snakes. Time and time again, America speaks with forked tongue and faked smile while cuffing the hands of Israel.
The only friend Israel has is G-d.
It doesn't sound insensitive to me.
We see here the simple truth that the barbarians have been allowed within the gates. Anyone foolish enough to commit such stupidity can not complain when one day the barbarians decide to rip them apart.
The U.S. has similiar failings, to be sure. The question is, what are we civilized people going to do about it? Continue listening to the politically-correct mewlings of the left, or wake up and recover the situation?
I read somewhere recently that scientists have been able to implant electrodes in hte brains of rats. They then can control the rat's movements by remote control. Now why can't we implant electodes into the brains of Asians (British speak for Pakastani Muslims) and direct thier bomb laden bodies into Mosques? Seems to me the Brits could clean out the problem in a matter of months.
Where are these 'signs'?
For the same stupid reason there are Al Qaida cells in the U.S. - STUPID WEAK IMMIGRATION LAWS. And now the U.S. and the United Kingdom are going to suffer until they get rid of those cells that exist in the United Kingdom and the U.S.
ALEXANDRIA, VA. (AP) - Walk-in suicide bombers like those who have attacked public places in Israel will hit the United States eventually, FBI Director Robert Mueller said Monday.
``I think we will see that in the future, I think it's inevitable,'' Mueller said in response to a question during a speech to the National Association of District Attorneys meeting in suburban Alexandria, Va.
Mueller said the degree of fanaticism an informant must exhibit to get into the inner circle of a terrorist group makes it difficult for law enforcement agencies to penetrate such organizations and prevent such attacks.
``I wish I could be more optimistic,'' he said.
Mueller's prediction follows Vice President Dick Cheney's warning Sunday that because no specific information is available, the United States is finding it difficult to respond to the latest intelligence hints that al-Qaida may be planning another attack.
The rest of the article is here
Where the hell did that swipe at the right wing come from? It's like brushing their teeth right after rolling out of bed, they do it everyday.
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