Suicide bombers? revisited again...

Well, the enquiry is moving apace. Pictures of the bus bomber show he at least was wearing a rucksack, not carrying a holdall. That'll teach me to believe anything I read in the Mail (see previous entry).

Nevertheless, the bomber in the photograph does have a bag that can be left rather than a bomb belt/jacket. An article "Was it Suicide?" in today's Mirror newspaper picks this up (and makes me feel less of a nut). I was wondering whether the bombers had bought return tickets! The Mirror article also notes (so I don't have to!) a few other points weighing against the simple suicide bomber hypothesis.

I'm warming to Ian Blair, the head of the Metropolitan Police - he's becoming London's Rudolph Guiliani (though Ken Livingstone has a lot of insight, too). Previously, he'd been a been a bit too outspoken, especially during the General Election campaign. He's emphasising "al Qaeda links" and that the bombers were "foot-soldiers" in this operation, and this has been picked up by the media (who hardly seem to be able to think for themselves this week - maybe the Sunday papers will have some intelligent articles in). We've heard much less of the "search for the 5th man" over the last 24 hours. It's generally sinking in that this was a complex operation. Some appreciation of the expertise and materials required to make the bomb would reinforce this. It may not just have been made with TATP ("Mother of Satan") as most sources seem to imply. It may also have contained C4, like the shoe-bomb, the TATP being used to detonate this. The Times here (last paragraph) seems best informed on this, but this article yesterday and this one from a few days ago are also interesting. This is not to mention any electrics which may have required a different technician.

Incidentally, I tried to find out how much of the shoe-bomber's support network had been rolled up, but didn't get too far. Anyone know where to look? This Time article gives some background.

Ian Blair has also appealed for information about the "missing 81 minutes" of the bus-bomber. Spot-on! The televised appeal made it clear (to anyone with a London A to Z, anyway) that the bus the bomber caught was travelling north, but had not yet reached King's Cross. So he either walked quite a way (seems unlikely to me, especially on a hot day with that rucksack) or, as I've said previously, caught a tube heading in a southerly direction before getting a bus back to King's Cross. Obviously there are lots of leads to follow up, but in terms of working out what exactly happened (and whether it was what all participants intended or thought was going to happen) this is key, as well as rebuilding the bombs to determine the detonation method, of course, though I expect that will take some weeks.

It's important that we understand that this attack was international terrorism, masquerading as home-grown terrorism. I suspect the chain of command planning this operation will lead to the centre of al Qaeda, for the particular reason that the use of British "mules" is so calculated to divide us (see here for an alarming development, for example). For a similar reason Saudis were used on the 9/11 planes. The idea (so the theory goes) was to undermine US support for the Saudi regime.

The "mastermind" of this operation has made sure that the homegrown aspect was obvious: the bombers' id has been found easily (the fact that one bomber's id was found at 2 sites is particularly suspicious!), the car in Luton contained explosives and bomb "factories" appear to have just been left (rather than dismantled) in Leeds. (These obvious leads might also be an attempt to distract the police from other lines of enquiry, that might lead to the "mastermind" himself, of course).

We must be careful in our response. The terrorists want to undermine integration and tolerance in modern Britain. This outrage happened here, yes, partly because we have many alienated young Moslems who are susceptible to the ideas of the extremists, but also because the reverse is true, we have many Moslems who are integrated into the broader community, and this is a threat to the extremists. So, whilst we've been mad to allow some of these fanatics to preach to impressionable young people, we must not lurch towards intolerance.