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London knew about attacks
Possible trigger:
The Ministry of Defence has drafted plans for a significant withdrawal of British troops from Iraq over the next 18 months and a big deployment to Afghanistan, the Financial Times has learnt.
In what would represent the biggest operational shake-up involving the armed forces since the Iraq war, the first stage of a run-down in military operations is likely to take place this autumn with a handover of security to Iraqis in at least two southern provinces.
MoD plans Iraq troop withdrawal
Prior knowledge:
British police told the Israeli Embassy in London minutes before today's explosions that they had received warnings of possible terror attacks in the city.
Terror warnings received before blasts (AP story)
British police told the Israeli Embassy in London minutes before today’s explosions they had received warnings of possible terror attacks in the city, a senior Israeli official said.
Israel says Scotland Yard was warned of possible attack
Army Radio quoting unconfirmed reliable sources reported a short time ago that Scotland Yard had intelligence warnings of the attacks a short time before they occurred.
Report: Israel Was Warned Ahead of First Blast
The former Mayor of New York, Rudolph Giuliani, was near London's Liverpool Street station when the blast happened there and described the explosions as "dastardly, cowardly acts".
...Earlier on Thursday morning there had actually been a security drill with armed officers entering the New York subway - although this was unrelated to the London attacks
US boosts security after attacks
I was near Liverpool Station when I was notified of the first bomb going off.
Statement from Rudolph W. Giuliani on the terrorist bombings in London
Giuliani in London as Blasts Hit, To Appear on ABC Special Tonight
New York police carried out a safety drill on a Manhattan subway station while Amtrak, the major US rail company which serves some 46 states, heightened its security threat level.
US transport on orange alert after London attacks
My first thought when I heard - just on a personal basis, when I heard there had been this attack and I saw the futures this morning, which were really in the tank, I thought, 'Hmmm, time to buy.'
Hume's "first thought" on hearing of London attacks: It's "time to buy" futures
The three bombs went off nearly simultaneously at about 8:50 a.m. Thursday, said Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick said, revising earlier accounts that they occurred within a 26-minute span. An explosion tore through a double-decker bus nearly an hour later.
New information about the timing of the explosions also suggested they were detonated with synchronized timers rather than by suicide bombers, although officials said nothing had been ruled out.
Police: London Blasts Were Seconds Apart
Suspected al Qaeda militants behind the London bombings may well have come from a previously unknown local cell and yet had access to military explosives, European security officials familiar with the probe said.
"The explosives appear to be of military origin, which is very worrying," said Christophe Chaboud, head of the French Anti-Terrorism Coordination Unit and one of five top officials sent by Paris to London immediately after Thursday's attacks.
London bombs suggest local but well-equipped cell
POWER: Today we were running an exercise for a company - bear in mind now that I'm in the private sector - and we sat everybody down in the city - 1000 people involved in the whole organization - with the crisis team. And the most peculiar thing was it was we based on a scenario of simultaneous attacks on a underground and mainline station. So we had to suddenly switch an exercise from fictional to real. And one of the first things is, get that bureau number, when you have a list of people missing, tell them. And it took a long time -
INTERVIEWER: Just to get this right, you were actually working today on an exercise that envisioned virtually this scenario?
POWER: Almost precisely. I was up to 2 oclock this morning, because it's our job, my own company. Visor Consultants, we specialize in helping people to get their crisis management response, how you jump from slow time thinking to quick time doing. And we chose a scenario with no assistance, which is based on a terrorist attack because they've been close to a property occupied by Jewish businessmen there in the city, and there are more American banks in this city than there are in the whole of New York - a logical thing to do.
INTERVIEWER: How extraordinary today must feel for you as it unfolds. You mentioned a few moments ago there our experience with Irish Republican terrorism. And of course it was very different wasn't it because however perverted their behavior, the IRA believed itself to have some sort of code of honour, and tended to issue some kind of warnings, of course they often came too late to do any good.
London Underground Bombing 'Exercises' Took Place at Same Time as Real Attack
Lending weight to the theory is the fact that all four men had paid up their parking tickets before boarding a train at Luton for King's Cross, and that they all bought return tickets to the capital.
The paper said the men were carrying their explosives inside rucksacks, not strapped to their bodies as is common practice among suicide bombers.
None were reported to have cried "Allah Akbar" (God is Greatest) before setting off their charge – something which most Middle Eastern suicide bombers do.
Police suspect bombers tricked
One of the London bombers was investigated by MI5 last year but was deemed not to be a threat, it has been revealed.
Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, was subject to a routine assessment by the security service because of an indirect connection to an alleged terror plot.
MI5 said bomber was not a threat
The Mossad office in London received advance notice about the attacks, but only six minutes before the first blast, the paper reports, confirming an earlier AP report. As a result, it was impossible to take any action to prevent the blasts.
"They reached us too late for us to do something about it," a Mossad source is quoted as saying.
Mossad tells Brits: Same explosives likely used in Tel Aviv and London blasts
"The policeman said 'mind that hole, that's where the bomb was'. The metal was pushed upwards as if the bomb was underneath the train. They seem to think the bomb was left in a bag, but I don't remember anybody being where the bomb was, or any bag," he said.
"I was in tube bomb carriage - and survived"
Although announced yesterday while London was reeling from attacks on its mass-transit system, the MTA's plan to have the NYPD search subway riders' bags was in the works for weeks, the agency insisted. It spent lots of time formulating what sounds like a big hassle, but in these perilous times, bag searches are worth a try.
Searching for security in the subway (7/22/05 Editorial that appeared in print as well)
Prior experience:
For almost two years the Sunday Herald has been investigating the activities of the FRU -- the Force Research Unit, an ultra-secret wing of British military intelligence. Fulton worked for the FRU for much of his career as an IRA mole. This unit, which has been under investigation by Scotland Yard commissioner Sir John Stevens for more than a decade, was involved in the murder of civilians in Northern Ireland.
Nicholas Benwell, a detective sergeant formerly attached to the Stevens Inquiry, says the Scotland Yard team came to one conclusion: that military intelligence was colluding with terrorists to help them kill so-called 'legitimate targets' such as active republicans. FRU handlers passed documents and photographs to their agents operating within paramilitary groups detailing targets' movements and the whereabouts of their homes. Pictures were also handed over to help gunmen identify their victims. But there was a problem. The targeting was far from professional and many of the victims of these government-backed hit squads were innocent civilians.
Exclusive: confessions of a secret agent turned terrorist
They include the man known by the pseudonym Kevin Fulton who warned police that a man was making a large bomb to use in Northern Ireland, two days before the dissident Real IRA blew up the Co Tyrone town of Omagh killing 29 people in August 1998. His information was not acted upon.
In the video, Fulton, a former soldier who joined the Provisional IRA at army intelligence's request, gives details of operations where he saved lives as well as accounts of occasions when he says he told his security force handlers about planned IRA attacks but they did nothing to stop them.
He demonstrates how he was involved in developing a technique to remotely detonate a bomb using an ordinary photographic flashgun unit, like the one used in the mortar attack which killed RUC constable Colleen McMurray and seriously injured her colleague Paul Slain in Newry, Co Down in March 1992. And he claims M15 and the FBI helped him travel to the United States and buy state of the art infra-red equipment for the IRA so that they could trigger bombs from over a mile away.
Ulster spies to 'blow MI5 cover'
British intelligence paid large sums of money to an al-Qaeda cell in Libya in a doomed attempt to assassinate Colonel Gadaffi in 1996 and thwarted early attempts to bring Osama bin Laden to justice.
The latest claims of MI6 involvement with Libya's fearsome Islamic Fighting Group, which is connected to one of bin Laden's trusted lieutenants, will be embarrassing to the Government, which described similar claims by renegade MI5 officer David Shayler as 'pure fantasy'.
MI6 'halted bid to arrest bin Laden'
In his new exposé of the National Security Agency entitled Body of Secrets, author James Bamford highlights a set of proposals on Cuba by the Joint Chiefs of Staff codenamed OPERATION NORTHWOODS. This document, titled “Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba” was provided by the JCS to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on March 13, 1962, as the key component of Northwoods. Written in response to a request from the Chief of the Cuba Project, Col. Edward Lansdale, the Top Secret memorandum describes U.S. plans to covertly engineer various pretexts that would justify a U.S. invasion of Cuba. These proposals - part of a secret anti-Castro program known as Operation Mongoose - included staging the assassinations of Cubans living in the United States, developing a fake “Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington,” including “sink[ing] a boatload of Cuban refugees (real or simulated),” faking a Cuban airforce attack on a civilian jetliner, and concocting a “Remember the Maine” incident by blowing up a U.S. ship in Cuban waters and then blaming the incident on Cuban sabotage. Bamford himself writes that Operation Northwoods “may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government.”
Pentagon Proposed Pretexts for Cuba Invasion in 1962 {National Security Archive at George Washington University}
TAGGANTS IN EXPLOSIVES
Issue: Should taggants be mandated in commercial explosives?
Discussion: Taggants can refer to two types of marking technologies. Detection taggants are used to detect explosives before detonation. Identification taggants are intended to be used to trace explosive materials to their source.
The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 requires detection agents for plastic explosives. Without detection agents, plastic explosives are difficult to detect and pose a safety and security threat in the hands of terrorists. It is possible to add these detection agents to explosives without compromising the performance of affected materials. IME supports the marking of plastic explosives with detection agents. However, identification taggants present a different story.
TAGGANTS IN EXPLOSIVES (an Institute of Makers of Explosives article)
In an age of widespread terrorism, the ability to trace explosives to identify their point of origin is vital to curbing further illegal acquisitions. Microtrace Microtaggant® Identification Particles are currently being used by explosives producers to comply with mandatory pre- and post-detonation identification requirements. The code material delivers the ability for law enforcement and government agencies to identify manufacturer, batch, distribution source and purchasers of explosives. Bulk Microtaggants may be incorporated directly into the explosives material, as well as in or on the packaging materials, detonation devices and other components associated with explosives. Please contact Microtrace directly for more information.
Explosives Tracing
All the worlds a stage
Shakespeare
This is a work in progress. If you have something worthwhile I'll try to squeeze it up here
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Last edited by ogvh5150 on Jul-26-2005 at 20:26
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