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London: Experts blame al-Qaeda
08/07/2005 14:20 - (SA)
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| Tube passengers are escorted away from Edgware Road Tube Station in London following an explosion. (Jane Mingay, AP) |
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Gleneagles - Co-ordinated explosions that ripped through three London subway trains and a bus on Thursday have the trademarks of the al-Qaeda network, three terrorism experts said.
"It is quite clear that a major terrorist attack has been carried out on London," said Paul Wilkinson, a security expert at St Andrews University in Scotland.
"The attack has all the trademarks of the al-Qaeda network," he said. "That is to say, the attacks are clearly aimed to cause casualties among the public and aimed at the transport network, which they have done before at Madrid," where 191 people were killed in co-ordinated train bombings last year.
London and its transportation network are "a very tempting target; it's one of the most obvious targets in Europe," said Magnus Ranstorp, another St Andrews security expert. "It's impossible to guard against this."
Not planned overnight
Ranstorp said the attacks were likely co-ordinated by several loosely affiliated groups. At least 10 to 20 people would have had to be involved, he said.
Mounting synchronised attacks "requires major co-ordination," he said.
He said the attacks were almost certainly timed to disrupt the Group of Eight summit of world leaders being held in Gleneagles, Scotland.
"It's definitely timed for the G8," Ranstorp said. "Any suggestions about the London Olympics are nonsense because you don't plan this overnight. This is purely to overshadow everything that happens at the G8."
Lawrence Freedman, professor of war studies at King's College in London, agreed.
"This is clearly an al-Qaeda style attack. It was well-co-ordinated, it was timed for a political event, and it was a multiple attack on a transportation system at rush hour," he said. Like the Madrid attack March 11 2004, he said, the London one targeted the capital of a country that is a member of the United States-led coalition in Iraq.
Freedman said many terrorist groups are imitating al-Qaeda now, so an investigation would be needed to determine whether al-Qaeda was behind the London explosions, or one of its followers such as al-Qaeda in Iraq.
He said that, while the subway attacks in London seemed like al-Qaeda, the bus blast did not. Freedman said it was important to determine whether that explosion was set off by a suicide bomber and, if so, whether he intended to do it there or at another site he was travelling to.
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