Suicide bombers?

The previous post explains some of my long-term reasons for starting this blog. This post deals with the immediate cause, what prompted me to start it today.

Apart from being the early hours of Bastille Day (hoping the French have a good holiday... honest... really...), it's just a week since the world changed over here, on the other side of la Manche (that's the English Channel to the rest of you). It's starting to become clear what happened and a "story" is being put out in the media.

The media narrative (and this link to the Independent is just an example) is that 4 young men from Yorkshire, with outside assistance, armed themselves each with a bomb in a rucksack. They arrived at King's Cross at 8:30am last Thursday, 7/7, and 3 of them detonated their bombs within 50 seconds of each other at 8:50am, on separate tube trains heading south, east and west. The 4th bomber couldn't get on a train heading north, due to an unrelated problem on the (infamous) Northern Line. Instead he got on a number 30 bus headed north and detonated his bomb nearly an hour after the others.

There are many puzzling aspects of the story we have been given. Whilst I hope the police are keeping more of an open mind, my concern is that we have collectively jumped to a conclusion. We're not about to convict the wrong people, as we did after the Guildford and Birmingham pub bombings 30 years ago, but could suffer all kinds of other consequences. The investigation may be affected, legislation and other government (and transport provider etc.) action may be misguided and, worst, the effects on community relations in the UK may be exacerbated.

The media account (the police themselves have been more cautious in their statements) may be correct. That is quite likely. I don't want to get grassy knoll about it, but the problem I have is that it implicitly rules out other possibilities. Broadly these are:

• the boys weren't suicide bombers at all, and the bombs were detonated by timer;
• the boys were suicide bombers but at least the first 3 of the bombs were detonated before they expected.
  

Clearly both scenarios rely on the bombs being detonated by a timing device. The BBC today has been saying (on News 24 and here, for example) that the police have not found timing devices. This contradicts earlier stories, here, for example. What is not clear is whether the police are saying there definitely were no timing devices or whether they could still find them. This is crucial.

Why do I think the bombs may have been detonated by timer? Two main reasons:

• the synchronicity and timing of the explosions.
  
• surely at least one of the 3 tube bombers would taken some time to compose themselves. Assuming they went through with it, who could hold them to account?
• in particular, the Piccadilly line bomber had only just got on the train. Would he have had the self-awareness to realise the prearranged time had arrived as soon as he'd got on? Wouldn't he in particular have needed to calm himself after (presumably, if this story is correct) having been worried about not being able to get on a train before the deadline? The bombers had been on the Circle line trains for 10 minutes, given the distance they had to travel. They had no way of knowing the other bomber had just got on a train. Why cut it so fine?
  
• we're told the bombers arrived at King's Cross at 8:30 and the bombs went off 20 minutes later. This just doesn't feel right. Why the rush?
• the positioning of the bombs: we're told the bombs were on the floor of the tube trains.
  
• if you were going to blow yourself up would you put the bomb at your feet? No, of course not. You'd want to die instantly and would want the bomb at chest level.
  
• how did they detonate the bombs? Leaning over (if sitting) or bending down (if standing) seems awkward. How did they detonate the bombs if they were in rucksacks, anyway?
  

Perhaps the boys weren't even suicide bombers. We've not been told that (as is customary for suicide bombers in Israel at least) videos were made beforehand - though of course the police could be withholding this information. But again, what I find most puzzling is that they used bags, rather than body belts. They also left explosives behind in the car (and in Leeds). Why did they take explosive material they wouldn't need? To help the police investigation?

If the bombs did go off prematurely, this suggests the bombers were on their way somewhere. First, what is this idea that the bombers were going in all 4 directions of the compass? If you go north from King's Cross you leave central London. Not only would there be fewer victims (it was the morning rush-hour, remember - people are by and large travelling in to London to work), you are also lessening the impact of the bombing - who's heard of al Qaeda or any other terrorist groups for that matter carrying out their "spectacular" in a suburb? Second, why the 1 hour delay for the bus bomb? The theory is that the bus bomber tried to get on a north-bound Northern line train, but there was a problem with this line that morning. He then left the station and got on a bus and set off his device within 1/2 mile of King's Cross. This just wouldn't take that long. He had over an hour. Did he stop for breakfast as well? There are a number of possibilities. For example:

• it was always the plan to bomb a bus an hour after the tube trains, the bomber waited and the bomb was detonated manually. This is incompatible with the "4 directions" hypothesis.
  
• the bomber was trying to get somewhere. For example, he caught a tube train, but exited at a station (Warren Street perhaps) when the trains were stopped in response to the explosions. He then caught abus back towards King's Cross. His bomb then went off unexpectedly - perhaps his timer was defective.
  

I suggest, instead, that the bombers were all following different routes to the same place. If you follow the Circle line round from King's Cross in either direction (it's circular, that's why it's called the Circle line) you reach Westminster, for example. The Piccadilly line can also take you to Westminster, with one change. The Victoria line would be another option from King's Cross. (I'm not claiming Westminster was necessarily the destination - there are plenty of other landmarks they could have been headed for).

So the bombers could have been suicide bombers or on their way to plant the bombs. In either case their bombs may have exploded before they expected, the timer set by the bomb-maker.

Perhaps the alternatives are no more likely than the dominant media story and the true picture should come out in the investigation, anyway. Maybe I just don't understand the suicide bomber mentality and can't accept that as a regular user of London public transport I have so little control over my fate - I can at least be alert for packages left in trains and on buses. Nevertheless, it seems to me this could be a case of media effects distorting the picture presented to the public, with indeterminate, but potentially far-reaching consequences.