Wave Of Attempted Car Bombings Hit UK

Two Car Bombs Found In London, Burning SUV Crashes Into Scotland Airport


A burning SUV slams into the main building at Glasgow Airport

In a dramatic 24 hours, three suspected terror attacks using vehicles shut down Central London and Scotland's Glasgow Airport.

Two abandoned Mercedes containing materials that could have been used to turn the vehicles into bombs were found in the West End theatre district.

More on that, and the implacably calm response from most Londoners can be read on 'Your New Reality'.

In the last two hours, a burning SUV was purposely crashed into the main building of Glasgow's Airport. The dramatic events, and the immediate response from witnesses and police are detailed in this BBC report :

A car on fire has been driven at the main terminal building at Glasgow Airport, police have confirmed.

Eyewitnesses have described a Jeep Cherokee being driven at speed towards the building with flames coming out from underneath. They have also described seeing two Asian men, one of whom was on fire, who had been in the car. Strathclyde Police said two people had been arrested and detained in connection with the incident.

One eyewitness said: "I heard the sound of a car's wheels spinning and smoke coming out.

"I saw a Jeep Cherokee apparently as if it was trying to get right through the doors into the terminal building.

"The police ran over and the people started fighting with the police. I then heard what sounded like an explosion."

Eye-witness Richard Grey told BBC News 24: "A green Jeep was in the middle of the doorway burning.

"The car didn't actually explode. There were a few pops and bangs which presumably was the petrol."

Stephen Clarkson said he saw people running towards him and "panicking" then noticed a crashed Cherokee jeep. He said he helped police restrain one of the men.

"It was lucky that I was there," he said. "I managed to knock the man to the ground with my forearm and the police got on top of him and restrained him and put handcuffs on him."

Eyewitnesses said the two men smashed molotov cocktails around the crashed vehicle to "make sure the car would go up big style."

Taxi driver Ian Crosby said: "This was no accident. This was a deliberate attack on Glasgow Airport."

What would appear to be a co-ordinated series of attacks, all of which failed, come as new prime minister Gordon Brown takes over No. 10 from Tony Blair.

Not unsurprisingly, the British anti-terror squad believe the apparently co-ordinated series of attempted car bombings are linked to the Al Qaeda network.


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"The War On Terror Doesn't Exist"

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has had far more trouble trying to sell the notion to his people that the country, like the United States, is involved in a 'War on Terror' that could last for decades, or generations.

Although they weren't in the majority, millions of Brits blamed the actions of Blair and his involvement in the War On Iraq for bringing the violence of jihadi terrorism to London on July 7, 2005.

This blame-Blair reaction for the attacks increased in fervour when videotapes of at least one of the July 7 bomber surfaced, where he said exactly what some Brits already believed : that the War On Iraq had inspired him to strike in London.

But the British public clearly no longer believe that the War On Iraq is, as Blair has parroted Bush in saying, the central front in the War On Terror.

And this sentiment is being regularly acknowledged by former officials of the Blair government, former British intelligence agents and experts and high profile lawyers and civil libertarians.

The most popular article on the UK Guardian (one of the most popular news sites in the world) in the past three days is this story entitled 'The War On Terror Doesn't Exist'. The argument made is credible and realistic, and clearly a popular sentiment amongst the British.

Excerpts follow :

The director of public prosecutions, Sir Ken Macdonald, put himself at odds with the home secretary and Downing Street last night by denying that Britain is caught up in a "war on terror" and calling for a "culture of legislative restraint" in passing laws to deal with terrorism.

Sir Ken warned of the pernicious risk that a "fear-driven and inappropriate" response to the threat could lead Britain to abandon respect for fair trials and the due process of law.

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He acknowledged that the country faced a different and more dangerous threat than in the days of IRA terrorism and that it had "all the disturbing elements of a death cult psychology".

But he said: "It is critical that we understand that this new form of terrorism carries another more subtle, perhaps equally pernicious, risk. Because it might encourage a fear-driven and inappropriate response. By that I mean it can tempt us to abandon our values. I think it important to understand that this is one of its primary purposes."

Sir Ken pointed to the rhetoric around the "war on terror" - which has been adopted by Tony Blair and ministers after being coined by George Bush - to illustrate the risks.

He said: "London is not a battlefield. Those innocents who were murdered on July 7 2005 were not victims of war. And the men who killed them were not, as in their vanity they claimed on their ludicrous videos, 'soldiers'. They were deluded, narcissistic inadequates. They were criminals. They were fantasists. We need to be very clear about this. On the streets of London, there is no such thing as a 'war on terror', just as there can be no such thing as a 'war on drugs'.

"The fight against terrorism on the streets of Britain is not a war. It is the prevention of crime, the enforcement of our laws and the winning of justice for those damaged by their infringement."

Sir Ken, head of the Crown Prosecution Service, told members of the Criminal Bar Association it should be an article of faith that crimes of terrorism are dealt with by criminal justice and that a "culture of legislative restraint in the area of terrorist crime is central to the existence of an efficient and human rights compatible process".

The criminal justice response to terrorism must be "proportionate and grounded in due process and the rule of law," he said. "We must protect ourselves from these atrocious crimes without abandoning our traditions of freedom."

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