TA-ANALYSIS: NY Officials Shed Light on London Bombings

The Drudge Report has linked to a new story by WNBC which seeks to shed some light on information provided to the NYPD in a recent briefing. The briefing surrounded the recent London attacks on 7/7 and 7/21. Among highlights of the briefing is the revelation that both attacks employed similar explosives but differing detonation methods.



There are quite a few components of this story which I find interesting and upsetting. First is the fact that these explosives are relatively easy to manufacture and store. Next is the fact that there were no suicide bombers as evidenced by the revelation that the three tube bombs were set off using cell phones whose alarms were all set to go off at 8:50am.

It was only a matter of time before a terror effort clearly indicated how easy it is to mount a homegrown offensive using commonly found items. Between the insurgency we are carefully incubating in Iraq and efforts like this to unsettle those who seek to unsettle the Middle East, there's quite a large "Learning Laboratory" in place for terrorists these days.

(I had intended to link to pages describing HMDT or Acetone Peroxide to demonstrate the relative ease with which an individual could synthesize these highly explosive compounds but I decided against it. Run your own Google search if you're looking for a good scare. I don't want to be accused of disseminating explosives recipes...there are enough people out there who seem intent on doing so.)

This is interesting insight to how these terrorist think. Obviously they have priorities and treat the explosives with higher priority than other items. These are things that could help spot some suspicious activity.

If the tube bombs were detonated using cell phone timers, what roles did the four suspects caught on CCTV play? If they were suicide bombers, why use timers? If they were only delivery men, were they killed in the explosions? If not, where are they? If so, what kind of story do you tell four unwitting blokes to get them to assemble in one location loaded with rucksacks and take off on different tube lines? How does the behavior of the final bus bomber fit into the equation...was his last minute fiddling with the device an effort to trigger it? If so, why use timers if the bombs are triggered by the bombers? If not, did he expose his ignorance of the whole plan by panicking and searching his bag when he put two and two together and figured out that the explosions he had heard about were detonated on the tube lines his buddies just took?

Many questions...

And cell phones likely were used to set them off.

Hmmm...

For the bombs in the tube, how deep underground were they?

I normally don't buy the major conspiracy theories about these bombings, and I don't buy them now either. But, I am curious how well a cell phone signal could penetrate into the Tube.

It seems a bit unrealistic to have a bomb triggered by a cell phone inside a tunnel. In the D.C. area, as soon you enter most tunnels on the metro (our version of the tube), you lose your signal.

And, to cast further doubt on the idea of using a cell phone as a trigger, I recently found this story on Snopes.

An interesting bit of this story caught me:

Mobile phones do not work in many parts of the London Underground, and satellite signals cannot reach there either. While dialing 112 or 999 will put you through to emergency services in Britain when your mobile has signal, such calls will not go through when your unit does not. Many sections of the London Underground are far too deep for satellite signal to penetrate; in those areas, calls to neither 112 nor 999 will connect.

So, again, how could a cell phone trigger anything inside a tunnel on the tube? And if I am way off on this (for instance, I know nothing about the underground, so I don't know if the stations attacked were very far underground), please correct me.

Originally posted by Hamburglar
So, again, how could a cell phone trigger anything inside a tunnel on the tube? And if I am way off on this (for instance, I know nothing about the underground, so I don't know if the stations attacked were very far underground), please correct me.

You turn on the alarm for a preset time. It will go off no matter where you are.

The mobile phones were triggered by their clock alarms on their phones, which obviously dont need a signal.

Spacemunkey

What I'm wondering is why are New York Officials a source of information about what happend in London?

Any and all information on what explosives were used, trigger mechanisms and such should be comming out of London imho.

And quotes like:

"It's more like these terrorists went to a hardware store or some beauty supply store."

Are speculation, we don't care whats most likely, we care about whats actualy used. London is still saying military explosives. Who are these NY officials to say otherwise? Where do they get their information? How come London or UK Officials aren't the ones to give out this information?

Originally posted by thematrix
How come London or UK Officials aren't the ones to give out this information?

Don't know,

But Scotland Yard are very pissed off with NYPD for releasing information. I believe Scotland Yard told NYPD to stop releasing information about the case and "sharp words" were used by Scotland Yard.

[edit on 8-8-2005 by infinite]

Didn't I read somewhere that the police were told off for telling people to use their mobile phones after the bombings to report their witness accounts and even to send pictures to them. In addition, so many people were calling loved ones and friends that the lines were jammed up.

I just find it weird that now they are saying mobiles were used to detonate the bombs.

I find the whole story a bit strange..like why after the attacks police authoritys didn't shut down networks for phones.They knew that Madrid bombings were triggered by phones.If triggered by phones why the need to sacrifice themselves?Doesn't make sense.
Also what the story of Visor consultancy running security exercise at the same time,media hasn't mentioned much about that.
And where is all the cctv footage?
smells like a 6 week old haddock