Was it suicide?

If you have flipped through Fox News or most of the other US cable news channels, NPR or even CSPAN in the last few days to hear the latest news and analysis on the London terrorist bombings, you will have heard a pretty much uniform message coming from a procession of Islamic and middle east terrorism experts, consultants and pundits, like  William Krystol, Stephen Schwartz , Steve Emerson, Daniel Gour'e, as well as several other authoritative terrorism book writers and think tankers. The message is that the London  bombings are the latest strike by the world-wide Al-Qaeda Conspiracy and are in character with past Al Qaeda/spin-off attacks. They are, with little doubt, fanatical suicide bombing carried out by young, religion steeped Islamic extremists, say our cable TV experts and consultants.

 

But many jarringly normal aspects (seemingly well adjusted, wives, young children, close families, good jobs, good school/work histories, non- or only weakly-religious background, etc) of the alleged suicide bombers' and bombmaker/mastermind's backgrounds are now emerging.

These elements of the bombers' lives refuse to mesh easily with the grainy-photo'ed, bug-eyed malcontent Islamic extremist/fanatic suicider profiles we are all used to seeing  and hearing the "experts" jabber on about on US cable TV news.

In spite of what the US media has been saying,  British investigators have never themselves used the term "suicide" to decribe the bombings, and today they explicitly reminded the media of that fact  in a Reuters story.

LONDON (Reuters) - Police have not yet definitively established that four men who carried bombs on to London's transport network intended to die in last week's blasts, a Scotland Yard spokesman said on Saturday.

He was commenting on a report in the Daily Mirror newspaper suggesting the bombers, who all died in the July 7 explosions, may have thought they had time to get away after planting the devices.

Police have carefully refrained throughout the investigation from publicly using the term "suicide bomber," describing the four men only as bombing suspects.

"We've never used the phrase 'suicide bombers'. We've always been aware that among the things we need to clarify is the notion these people intended to die as well as letting off a bomb," the spokesman said.

Now even more curious things about the behavior of the bombers on the day of the event are starting to reveal a pattern inconsistent with suicidal behavior:

16 July 2005
EXCLUSIVE: WAS IT SUICIDE?
Why did they buy return train tickets to Luton? Why did they buy pay & display tickets for cars? Why were there no usual shouts of 'Allah Akhbar'? Why were bombs in bags and not on their bodies?

THE London bombers may have been duped into killing themselves so their secrets stayed hidden.

Police and MI5 are probing if the four men were told by their al-Qaeda controller they had time to escape after setting off timers. Instead, the devices exploded immediately.

A security source said: "If the bombers lived and were caught they'd probably have cracked. Would their masters have allowed that to happen? We think not."

The evidence is compelling: The terrorists bought return rail tickets, and pay and display car park tickets, before boarding _ a train at Luton for London. None of the men was heard to cry "Allah Akhbar!" - "God is great" - usually screamed by suicide bombers as they detonate their bomb.

Their devices were in large rucksacks which could be easily dumped instead of being strapped to their bodies. They carried wallets containing their driving licences, bank cards and other personal items. Suicide bombers normally strip themselves of identifying material.

There are many curious aspects to this London terrorist bombing.  The British investigators seem to be doing a careful and deliberate investigation. We should wait for their  official evidence and pronouncements in the coming days and weeks, and not be too quick to  accept the pat "suicide bomber" conclusions that Fox News and the corporate media pundits and experts seem to be pushing hard right now.

•  Confusing for Fox News

  Do they call them Homicide Bombers?

  Or are they forced to conclude that they are not, in fact, Homicide Bombers, thus revealing the intellectual vacuity of their language abuse.

  by pontificator on Sat Jul 16, 2005 at 01:51:16 PM PDT

  •  Funny thing about Fox....

    the 'Homicide Bomber-Bombings' phemomena has kinda turned into a hodge-podged mess for Fox. Some anchors use the term, others don't at all. Frankly it seems like some of them just threw in the towel because I think Fox institutionally thought it could force the term to become the spectrum wide standard and it failed.

    Uma Pemeraju has on several occasions referred to 'Homicide Suicide Bombers'.

    by LeftHandedMan on Sat Jul 16, 2005 at 02:09:13 PM PDT

•  I just posted a diary along the same lines

  please go read it, and tell me if i should take it down, or do you want to combine a diary... if that sort of thing is ever done.

  Suicide Bombers or Murdered Men?  LONDON BOMBING

  by suskind on Sat Jul 16, 2005 at 02:05:00 PM PDT

  •  Its okay with me if they both stand

    I'll go read yours.

    by shumard on Sat Jul 16, 2005 at 02:14:36 PM PDT

    •  I think they were carrying money.... a lot of it

      That's why they were on CCTV so much.... And I think that's a big difference from the 911 pilots who trained down in Florida... the ones who paid in masses of cash... They only wanted to learn how to take off a plane... they had no interest in learning how to land a plane.  The flight instructor thought this was very odd... but the money was good so he said nothing.

      by suskind on Sat Jul 16, 2005 at 02:23:57 PM PDT

      •  If they were, there should be plenty of currency

        fragments at the scene.

        My tinfoil theory:

        I'm inclined to think based on what i've read so far they thought they were delivering a shipment of a white powdery substance, ~5 kilos per backpack, to various delivery points in London, which they believed was some kind of illicit drug; heroin, cocaine or exctasy  maybe. Upon delivery they would be getting a handsome pay-day for a quick morning's work. For college bound kids and young fathers struggling to make ends meet raising young kids and supporting a wife, it might be very tempting.

        Trouble was, the bags of white powdery substance in the backpacks was not drugs,  but rather TATP triacetone triperoxide with a hidden timing detonator in each pack . TATP very touchy high explosive that is not detected by the normal airport and shipping container sensors which pick up most (nitrogen/nitro based) explosives. Thus it would be about as easy to smuggle into the country as drugs. [NPR report speculated the "Egyptian Chemist" made  this amount of (50 lb) TATP  in his Leeds apartment bathtub. Farfetched IMO].

        This "assumed drug delivery" scenario better explains the suspects background, evidence, Luton station car/ticket  and the behavior caught on cctv the four friends/acquaintances casually walking/high fiving with other at the train station looking like they going on a camping trip, not to their martydom.    
        

        by shumard on Sat Jul 16, 2005 at 03:18:49 PM PDT

        •  Nah, it doesn't convince me

          There are plenty of al-Qaeda bombers who are very well-educated and plenty sanguine at the moment of carrying out their attacks. I remember reading an account of the assassination of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Northern Alliance leader murdered by al-Qaeda two days before 9/11, and was struck by how well educated and sophisticated both bombers were. Also, at how cool they were setting up their explosive camera, asking questions of Massoud, displaying absolutely no nervousness, and setting off their bomb.

          I don't think we understand the mentality of suicide bombers very well. Rather than lunatics, we should see them as people absolutely devoted to a cause. My sense is they are profoundly optimistic about the future of humanity, and are completely at peace with the choice they have made to bring out what they see as a better world.

          Yeah, their vision is fanatical and religious, but it definitely includes some fairly definite real world outcomes. I think we need to understand their optimism if we ever hope to understand what makes people like Atta, and thousands of others, tick.

          Or, like George Bush, we could just try to kill them all...

          by litho on Sat Jul 16, 2005 at 03:31:36 PM PDT

        •  yes, same thing

          i didn't mean they were carrying actual money, but that they THOUGHT they were.  I agree with you.  The job had to be a quick one.  The risks had to be minimized... They were caught on CCTV talking to a fifth man who I think organized it... and they may not have met this man previously.... Also is there any indication that the four bombers even knew each other?  Three lived in the same neighborhood???

          by suskind on Sat Jul 16, 2005 at 08:28:53 PM PDT

•  Oh Amen, amen, amen....

  I desperately want my cable provider to have several International news sources to go with the cabal of MSNBC, FOX, and CNN I'm so sick of their schtick. I'll take RAI Italia with subtitles and the BBC with a bad signal and snow over what I am getting now.

  Its all about the news coverage's lack of caution in regards to clearly identifying theories as theories, and speculation as being promoted as airtight fact... when really there is a great amount of work to be done to get to the truth, and such behavior can only make things harder, and there really is not an effort to reign any of this in as far as I can see. I agree with your diary wholeheartedly.

  If you have flipped through Fox News or most of the other US cable news channels, NPR or even CSPAN in the last few days to hear the latest news and analysis on the London terrorist bombings, you will have heard a pretty much uniform message coming from a procession of Islamic and middle east terrorism experts, consultants and pundits, like  William Krystol, Stephen Schwartz , Steve Emerson, Daniel Gour'e, as well as several other authoritative terrorism book writers and think tankers.

  Amen, with two additions; Nancy Grace and Bill O'Reilly.

  Of all of these people, from the arrogant American Emterprise Institute Fellow of the moment, to the Cato Institute drone, to even 'name' pundits like William Kristol... they all pale in comparison to the frighteningly undeserved reach of up-and-comer Nancy Grace and Bill O'Reilly. Its like Louella Parsons-Hedda Hopper-Walter Winchell are all back from the dead, covering the news like they know what they are talking about, and everybody with a cable news network wants one.

  by LeftHandedMan on Sat Jul 16, 2005 at 02:05:40 PM PDT

  •  Amen to that

    Two hundred digital channels on my cable and not one international origin (not even Canada) English language news channel.

    by shumard on Sat Jul 16, 2005 at 03:33:22 PM PDT

•  Answers

  See, this is a good speculation diary.

  (a) Bought tickets so as to not arouse suspicions in case they were on a watch list
  (b) I don't know why they bought tickets for their cars, and not sure I understand what that means in England.
  (c) If the bombs were on timers they didn't know the exact time they'd go off, so no shouts of Allah Akhbar ("It's a trap" of God?). Or, more probably, they just didn't know shouting that was the cool thing to do or knew and just didn't.
  (d) The bombs were obviously in bags because they could fit more explosives in them then they could on their bodies. They came down all the way from Leeds and I imagine they wouldn't have wanted bulky explosive packed on their person and figured bags were more convenient.

  Could've been duped though. The eyewitness accounts of the bus bomber rummaging in his rucksack are interesting.

  by Addison on Sat Jul 16, 2005 at 02:09:24 PM PDT

  •  hopefully when more cctv of the buses and trains

    and other witness reports are released we will have a clearer idea of what they did or did not say/do while on the transport.

    by shumard on Sat Jul 16, 2005 at 02:34:52 PM PDT