(After looking for Studebakers, a standard Detroit car ain't nuthin'!)
Posted on 11/21/2003 6:08:45 PM PST by TexKat
The heightened threat of suicide bombings was last night forcing UK embassies around the world to re-evaluate their defences against what an al-Qaida statement described as its "cars of death".
The explicit warning of fresh "martyrdom operations" was published as police in Istanbul detained seven suspects in connection with the devastating blasts at the British consulate and the HSBC bank.
All are understood to be Turkish passport holders.
Two of them, tentatively identified by the Turkish media as Azad Ekinci and Feridun Ugurlu, were close friends of Mesut Cabuk and Gokhan Elaltuntas, the men who carried out the suicide bombings of two synagogues in Istanbul last Saturday.
Ekinci, who fought in Chechnya and Bosnia, and Ugurlu, who trained in camps in Pakistan, reportedly hired the cars used in the synagogue attacks.
All four came from Bingol, in south-eastern Turkey and had connections to an Islamist paramilitary group renowned for killing liberal opponents.
The size of the car bombs assembled by the men could force an extensive rethink about the perimeter security of embassies and consulates.
The device which levelled two buildings in the Istanbul consulate is understood to have contained at least 225kg (500lb) of explosives.
Because of constricted road space near the consulate, a protective concrete block had been placed inside the main gates. Lessons about where barriers should be placed in future will now be studied by the security officers in every mission around the world.
A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: "We have instructed all departments, particularly those in the region, to review security practices".
It would be impossible for Britain to carry out its diplomatic, consular and visas responsibilities if security was the only consideration, she added. "Balancing the operational requirements against risks is very difficult."
In Jakarta, for example, the British ambassador, Richard Gozney, said that his mission was "trying to guard most of all against car bomb or parcel bomb attacks". The security at the consulate general was being "further tightened".
A Whitehall source warned that because al-Qaida had struck British interests abroad rather than at home did not imply that Britain was safe from attack.
The intelligence services and Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist branch have consistently advised that an al-Qaida atrocity in the UK is a matter of when, not if. "We share that sentiment", said the source. "We can do our very best, but it is difficult. We must be prepared for it."
The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, who inspected the ruined HSBC building yesterday and met the widow and elder daughter of Roger Short, the murdered British consul general, said the bombings were evidence of a "global threat" to the civilised world. "We who represent the civilised world are facing a global threat, and we have to deal with it in a global way."
One leading Turkish commentator last night said he believed al-Qaida had targeted Istanbul because it was the ultimate "symbolic city" that bridged the east and west, Islam and Christendom.
"The attacks send a message to the Islamic world that those countries which reform and acquire democratic values, like Turkey, will be a target of Islamic radicalism," Hussein Bagdi, a security expert at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, said.
A group close to the heart of al-Qaida yesterday claimed to have deliberately assassinated Mr Short. The Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades posted a statement on its website saying it had targeted him because he was the "mastermind of the British policy in Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Iran because of his extensive experience in... combating Islam".
In what amounted to a highly unusual apology to Muslim victims, the statement - outlining Operation Islamic Iron Hammer, a sarcastic reference to the US military clampdown on guerrillas in Iraq - said: "We admit that the cars of death that targeted the British bank were put in an inappropriate place, which caused some casualties among innocents." But it promised further "cars of death".
The Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack on the UN offices in Iraq in August.
If there's actually a wave, most Muslims will be crying for deportation - the citizenry will make life miserable for them.
(After looking for Studebakers, a standard Detroit car ain't nuthin'!)
It's gonna mean killing a lot of Islamists.
LOL. How about 'Weapons of Muslim Dinks'?
A) US citizen sees "Car of Death" coming.
B) US citizen unsheaths weapon of choice, preferably a 357, 44, or 50 cal magnum, and ventilates the cranium of the muslim beast driver of "Car of Death".
C) Repeat as necessary to maintain a free country.
This is OK with me.
South Bend forever!
Shall we take a guess about how many mosques will be standing the following day? It will be open season.
1968 Valiant
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