Judging by the headlines, you’d think that London police averted the detonation of a nuke.
BRITISH police have defused a car bomb in the heart of London, a week before the second anniversary of the city’s deadly July 7 bombings.
A police spokesman confirmed the device was a bomb, and that it was found after a member of the public reported a suspicious vehicle shortly before 2am (11am Melbourne time).
Explosives officers defused the device, found in a car parked in The Haymarket, a central London street, London police said. “They discovered what appeared to be a potentially viable explosive device. This was made safe.
So what was this mysterious device?
Larry Johnson was hardly impressed:
So I turn on the telly this morning and find breathless CNN anchors hyperventilating over the nuclear suicide car weapon of mass destruction discovered smoldering outside of a London nightclub. One report from the scene notes that:
London police were contacted when witnesses saw a Mercedes being driven erratically near London West End night club Tiger Tiger, and the driver jumped out of the automobile and ran away. The car was reported to have two gasoline canisters and be full of nails.
Explosives officers discovered the fuel and nails attached to a “potential means of detonation,” inside the vehicle. Officers “courageously” disabled the trigger by hand, he said. Security sources told CNN that the “relatively crude device” in the first car contained at least 200 liters, or about 50 gallons, of fuel in canisters.
You know what you call a vehicle with 50 gallons of gas? A Cadillac Escalade. The media meltdown over this incident is simply shameful.
For starters, gasoline is not a high explosive. If we were talking 50 pounds of Semtex or the Al Qaeda standby, TATP, I would be impressed. Those are real high explosives with a detonation rate in excess of 20,000 feet per second. Gasoline can explode (just ask former owners of a Ford Pinto) but it is first and foremost an incendiary. If the initial reports are true, the clown driving the Mercedes was a rank amateur when it comes to constructing an Improvised Explosive Device aka IED. Unlike a Hollywood flick the 50 gallons of gas would not have shredded the Mercedes into lethal chunks of flying shrapenal.
The fact that “officers courageously disabled the trigger by hand” coupled with the report of the smoke in the car leads me to believe that the mad London “bomber” tried to construct a Molotov cocktail of sorts and lit a cloth fuze. Fortunately he left the windows in the car up and there was not enough oxygen to really get the fire going. Looks like the brave British police reached in and snuffed the flame.
Judging from the overreaction to this non-incident I think we can safely conclude that Osama Bin Laden will remain holed up in Pakistan and let the fear mongers at CNN, MSNBC, and FOX do the dirty business of scaring the shit out of people.
Typical Andre.
Just as he was convinced that the deadly and destructive Qassam rockets did less damage than a hailstorm, he’s now convinced that carbombs are harmless.
Anything to excuse Islamic terrorism for Andre.
Of course, if an Israel gets into a punchup, well that’s just appalling, but if Islamofascists plant explosives? Well, they’re really just firecrackers aren’t they?
Islamofascists planting explosives BenZ?
By all mean, do share the evidence with us. Or does any random act of violence become the work of Al Qaeda these days?
Johnson is a CIA employee. If he doesn’t buy this crap, it’s probably for a good reason. Why would the Islamofascists waste their time on something as innocuous as a glorifies Molotov cocktail?
…except it wasn’t gasoline - it was closer to propane gas cylinders. The UK (like Australia) does not refer to gasoline as ‘gas’ but as ‘petrol’. The US reports suffered from bad translation - try Sky UK for a better take on it.
This event just smells of all MI6 set-up, as the news of dead soldiers in Iraq keeps coming in the MI6/Government do need a smoke screen. Well this is it.
Its amazing how the Media (known for their exaggeration) give this event the same media attention as what 9/11 got.
Let just wait for United Kingdom “Family Jewels” to come out into the open, the unfortunate thing is that we might have to wait for over 60 years.
This is now getting boring, the constant deliberate reminder by the government of the police state and to be in fear all the time (or at least what the government wants us to be like).
Lets focus on the real issue, the illegal war in Iraq and a solution for the biggest Palestinian concentration camp in Palestine. The source of all the problems we face in the west.
It is amazing that the media immediately attached the event to Al-Qaeda. The device must have had ‘Made by Al-Queda’ on it or had Bin Laden fingerprints on it.
It is amazing that Al-Queda are giving out their business cards and drumming up so much membership, yet the CIA, Mossad and MI5 are unable to catch this elusive and dangerous figure.
Yes. Sorry. What was I thinking. Who ever heard of that…
The CCTV footage emerging was actually of a pissed-off Buddhist monk. The whole thing was simply a parking dispute. Right Andre?
Dylan,
Even with the mistranslation, propane is still primarily an incendiary compound that produces nothing close to a blast you would get from Semtex, nail or no nails. While the purpose of the car bomb is clear, this was no sophisticated operation, though the government and the media in the US and Britain, are trying to these incidents to the IED’s being used in Iraq.
BenZ,
What CCTV footage? Have you seen it?
Do you actually read the news? Or are you too busy finding ways to excuse terrorists and vilify Israel.