London Subway & Transit Rocked By Bomb Blasts
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WARNING: London Police ask civilians to avoid the area around Victoria Station. Possible undetonated bomb there.
Eyewitness accounts from a number of survivors:
Edgware Road: "All of sudden there was this massive huge bang. It was absolutely deafening and all the windows shattered. The train came to a grinding halt, everyone fell off their seats. There were just loads of people screaming and the carriages filled with smoke, you couldn't really breathe and you couldn't see what was happening. The driver came on the Tannoy and said 'We have got a problem, don't panic'.Aldgate East: "I think some people may have died. The blast had pulled some people’s clothes off. I was on the train and there was a fire outside the carriage window and then there was a sudden jolt which shook us forward. The explosion was behind me. Some people took charge. We went out of the back of the carriage. A carriage was split in two, all jagged, and without a roof, just open. I saw bodies, I think."
More eyewtiness accounts here.
From CNN:
Near simultaneous explosions have rocked London, killing several people and injuring dozens in what UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said was an apparent terror attack coinciding with a meeting of G8 leaders in Scotland.From the National Post
London was thrown into a panic during the morning rush hour after at least six explosions took place -- both in the underground subway system and on buses.No one has taken responsbility yet, but this has Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda written all over it. Reports so far confirm two dead and perhaps several dozen wounded. The explosions occurred during rush hour in the confined spaces of London's subway or as they call it, "The Tube". If that's the extant of the dead and injured, Londoners may have been lucky. It'll never seem lucky for the families of those who were killed or critically injured, but it sounds like it could have been far worse.
Update: ITN and others now reporting at least twenty dead and ninety injured.
Update: Wapo reporting Death toll now at 33 with ~350 injured.
Update: Death toll at 37, injured said to number over one-thousand. Uncomfirmed.
Not to be too cavalier but this attack was predicted after the latest video of Dr Aymen al-Zawahiri was released. No one knew where or when it would happen, but the correlation is high between video of Al Qaeda's number two man making the case for Jihad and subsequent violence.
It'll be interesting to watch our WH try to play this tragedy to their advantage. On the one hand they're probably thrilled with anything that knocks the Rove investigation and Iraq off the front page. On the other, they're aware that this happened while Bush was in the UK on a scheduled visit, and people might notice that Al Qaeda is still around or that having elections in Iraq had zero effect on their ability to carry out attacks.
So here's a legitimate question for Iraq War Supporters ... Doesn't it make sense if you want to stop terrorist attacks that you actually go after the terrorists who are planning and executing the attacks? If your answer is "no", haven't these dang ole terrorists heard that Iraq is a democracy now? Wasn't that supposed to stop terrorism somehow, someway, although no one ever bothered to explain how? Blogosphere Reaction.
From Hunter at Kos:
As bad as these attacks are, London will most certainly not be intimidated by them. London has collective memories of far worse; this will momentarily frighten, yes, but London will not be shut down by such cowardly crap. I think we in America will be surprised by the reaction we see ... Blair isn't going to get a "bounce" out of people dying, unlike the reaction to 9/11. I expect we will be hearing serious questions, in the UK, about Bush's policies of "fill the swamp." There are many other likely ramifications.Streel level account from a UK Blog:
Fate is a strange thing. On this particular day a series of events transpired such that I ended up on a Tube train that was destroyed by terrorists. Fortunately it was only the carriage in front of me, but tragically it resulted in a serious amount of injuries. This is my story.
People claim the Iraq war has nothing to do with 9/11. But they miss the point! By putting troops in Iraq we turn Iraq into a terrorist magnet. So the terrorist blow up iraqi civilians rather than coming over seas bothering us!
Thanks to the Iraq War we needn't worry about terrorism ever again on home soil. I'd rather we fight them over there than on our own streets!!!