Jihadi U. Grade Inflation
The bumbling raises the question of whether we are just lucky in this case. I’d still like to know what the smart ones are up to.
Blotter says US knew something was up in Glasgow.
Pajamas is rounding it up.
Meanwhile, Powerline: put it on a bumpersticker.
Captain’s Quarters: “Jihadi U seems to have suffered from massive grade inflation.”
Here’s Stratfor on the questionable tactics in this attack, the incompetence of which does not detract from the fact of the attack as a headsup:
Although London Metropolitan Police counterterrorism chief Peter Clarke said early on in the investigation that the device could have caused “significant” loss of life had it detonated, several factors make this improbable.
The device possibly was meant to be an explosive-actuated incendiary device. Such devices — more commonly called firebombs — work by using a relatively small low-intensity explosive charge to ignite a more volatile flammable material. This results in an intense, rapidly spreading fire that can quickly engulf a confined space such as a building, rail car, subway car or airplane. A firebomb would not be as dangerous in an open outdoor space like the one in this case.
Furthermore, powerful explosive-actuated incendiary devices are extremely difficult to make, and getting the explosive charge to ignite the fuel is challenging. In many cases, the initial explosion merely hurls the tanks or otherwise fails to puncture the containers or ignite the gas — or it damages the tanks to the point that the gas leaks out harmlessly. The amount of flammable gas apparently recovered in this incident would have been sufficient to create a massive fireball, though in order for the device to reach its full explosive potential, it would have to have been carefully designed with a precise mixture of fuel and air.
The bombmaker and the car’s driver (assuming they are two people) erred in deploying the device. By crashing into the trash bin, the driver brought attention to himself and the vehicle, while the escaping gas fumes also called attention to the Mercedes. In any case, with so much forensic evidence remaining intact, British authorities have a good chance of identifying the culprit or culprits soon. Furthermore, the heavy closed-circuit TV coverage in London should allow authorities to obtain video and still photos of the would-be attackers.
Initial reports of the discovery of a “massive” car bomb indicate the level of tension in London regarding potential militant plots. Coming on the heels of several high-profile terrorism convictions and arrests of suspected militants in the United Kingdom, this incident will serve to increase tensions — and vigilance — in London. Following the Haymarket incident, British police cordoned off another area in central London, Park Lane, to investigate reports of a “suspicious vehicle” believed to be connected to the Mercedes.
Remarking on the incident, new Prime Minister Gordon Brown confirmed that the United Kingdom faces a “serious threat” from terrorism. Vigilance will likely increase in the rest of Europe as well. Before this, German authorities already were reporting elevated threats of militant attacks after receiving intelligence from U.S. authorities.
So what are the smart ones up to? Keeping a low profile, watching and learning, I’d guess.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:19 am on Sunday, July 1, 2007
9 Responses to “Jihadi U. Grade Inflation”
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July 1st, 2007 at 1:32 pm
So what are the smart ones up to? Keeping a low profile, watching and learning, I’d guess.
No doubt. But maybe the smart ones are also figuring out jihad hasn’t been such a spectacular success after all, with Osama and tribe driven into Pakistani caves, Iraqi Sunnis turning on al-Qaeda thugs (and turning them into sushi if not turning them in), the Great Palestinian Hamas Democracy project revealing itself as just another bloody Arab turf war, and world opinion steadily coming down against them, despite the best efforts of socialist-minded western elites. In that case, the smart ones might be more content to let the idiots bumble along.
Or maybe not, given their apparent inability to reason things out, but one can hope.
July 1st, 2007 at 2:17 pm
RebeccaH, one thing that the Marine Corps teaches is ‘Mission Focus’ we would be amiss if we didn’t think that the opposition does the same thing. The recent bunch weren’t trained officially. They had the desire but not the knowledge. We’re in a real war with a real enemy and the ‘loyal’ opposition doesn’t recognize it.
July 1st, 2007 at 2:50 pm
The dopes, like Richard Reid (the shoe bomber) are recruited and used as fodder for the cause.
Which should make the dopes angry, but it doesn’t, because they’re dopes.
How to recruit them is all laid out in the Al Qaeda training manual. (However, whether or not this is AQ or some wannabe lookalikes is beginning to sound beside the point.)
Anyway, the guy on fire at Glasgow airport reportedly shouting “Allah ! Allah!” might also be a dope, but dopes can and do kill.
July 1st, 2007 at 7:47 pm
I don’t understand the suicide car bomb thing at all when you can get a functioning radio/servo kit for about a hundred bucks these days at any hobby shop that deals in model cars/planes.
Calmly drive up, flip the master power switch arming it, then walk away nonchalantly then use the radio control to detonate. This sort of mechanical design is not rocket science.
Dopes must be cheap. They’re certainly too dumb to even realize they’re being wasted when $100 worth of COTS hardware could do the same thing.
July 2nd, 2007 at 4:02 am
“Dopes must be cheap.”
For the jihadi, life is cheap. All life. It’s just that the dopes are most easily persuaded of this “fact.”
For the Masters, all life is cheap–except their own.
July 2nd, 2007 at 9:39 am
Dopes are cheap, ask one of the 14 or 15 year old Saudi boys recruited for a mission in Iraq.
…of blossoming (suppressed) adolescence who hope to finally get to kiss a girl in heaven.
Little does he know it’s gonna be 72 white raisins at best.
A less publicized aspect of this whole awful phenomenon, the exploitation of young people and even small children, whose adult culture pumps them up (see especially “Palestine”or boy only Madrassas in Pakistan ) with the glories they bring to themselves and the honor to their families by blowing themselves to bits.
The dope masters themselves, of course rarely take on those glorious missions .
July 2nd, 2007 at 11:45 am
Watch part 1, at least. Birmingham England Green Lane Mosque.
You won’t have a problem imagining how a “brilliant” 26 YO Jordanian trained neurologist might be running around the UK planting car bombs.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=undercover+mosque+6&search=
July 2nd, 2007 at 1:15 pm
Hassan Butt (I think he was on 60 Minutes awhile back) is a self described “reformed” fanatic.
He really lays it all out in this article (in case the video didn’t lay it out enough)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=465570&in_page_id=1770
July 3rd, 2007 at 10:35 am
Forgive me, BUT these kinds of stories seem important to me and we shouldn’t just distract from the “British thing” and get back to the our usual blather in the US press.
Besides, they read like a real life 24.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2018878.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article2017532.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article2017621.ece