London bombs killed 'at least 50': BBC latest

[emad]

The final death toll for the London bombs will be at least 50, the head of the Metropolitan Police says.

Sir Ian Blair said there were a number of bodies still in the Tube train at Russell Square but that the final figure was unlikely to top 100.

Sir Ian said the police had an "implacable resolve" to track down those responsible for the blasts.

The blasts on three Tubes and a bus left 700 hurt, with 100 held overnight in hospital and 22 serious or critical.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4663931.stm

[maddezmom]

1. Police struggle to reach bodies after London blasts

<<He said the final death toll was not yet known. Police had yet to reach one of the bombed underground carriages near Russell Square station in central London as the surrounding tunnel was unsafe.

Blair said no survivors were trapped underground and the task now was to retrieve bodies. Andy Trotter of the British Transport Police said the number of bodies still trapped was not known, but one police source said it could be more than 10.

"This was a crowded tube train at rush hour in central London with several hundred people on board," Trotter said.

Andy Hayman, of the London police specialist operations branch, spoke of the "extreme circumstances" under which rescue services were working, saying they faced the hazards of tunnel collapse, vermin and "dangerous substances" in the air.>>

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050708/ts_nm/security_britain_dc_10

[emad]

3. Russell Square station is the deepest subway tunnell in London

and the Piccaddilly line tunnel among the oldest and least safe.

The irony is that this is almost a copycat bombing of a 1974 IRA-atrributed multi attack when 3 underground trains were bombed at the same sations: Kings Cross/Russell Sq, Aldgate and Edgware Road.

THAT atrocity was eventually found to have been the work of Stasi-contollled Soviet illegal immigrants in London working for bent UK spooks who were on the political payroll to attribute ALL UK mainland bombings to the Irish.

[fedsron2us]

8. The IRA were certainly busy in 1974

with fatal bombings on the M62, in Guildford and Birmingham but as far as I can recall the tube was not a target. Their main attacks on the London Underground took place in 1975 and 1976.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/9/newsid_2531000/2531191.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/15/newsid_2543000/2543605.stm

[emad]

10. There was a 1974 attack because I was among the passengers

who were in it.

The tube staff marched us out of the platform and into a disused part of Russell Square station when someone shouted that there was another bomb on the train near the one that had already exploded.

We the had to go back into the main exit route past the platform with the bombed train on it and start running up the emergency staircase which is the deepest in London. About 400 steps up to street level - a Victorian wrought iron spiral staircase surrounded by a concrete pillar. Seem to remember it stank of urine and dead rats.

Eventually a smaller device to the one on the train went off in the liftshaft and pulverised the elevator.

[fedsron2us]

12. Well its not in any of the lists of IRA attacks

published by CAIN or the Northern Ireland Veterans Association

http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/othelem/chron/ch74.htm

http://www.nivets.co.uk/chron/mainland.htm

[emad]

16. My post #3 refers:

"THAT atrocity was eventually found to have been the work of Stasi-contollled Soviet illegal immigrants in London working for bent UK spooks who were on the political payroll to attribute ALL UK mainland bombings to the Irish."

Mainly members of the Freeman and Gelli families.

[mom cat]

2. My heart goes out to all of them and all the victims of war, terror,

calculated starvation and all of the other forms of human cruelty that are meant to terrorize and oppress, and to all of the loved ones and friends. :grouphug:

[Psephos]

13. Amen n/t

[Initech]

4. BBC - London death toll now up to 50, cites "Intelligence failure"

London bombs killed 'at least 50'

Police say there is nothing to suggest a suicide bombing
More than 50 people died in the London bomb attacks, the head of the Metropolitan Police has said.

Forty-nine people are confirmed dead, but Sir Ian Blair said efforts to recover bodies from the wreckage of the Russell Square Tube train continued.

<snip>

'Intelligence failure'

Home Secretary Charles Clarke said looking for potential bombers was like searching for "needles in haystacks".

A claim on the website of a previously unknown group, the Secret Organisation Group of al-Qaeda of Jihad Organisation in Europe, saying it was behind the blast, was now being taken seriously, he said.

The failure to predict Thursday's bombs should not obscure past successes, he said, but admitted: "It certainly was a failure of intelligence in the sense that we didn't know this was coming."


Passengers evacuate an underground train at Kings Cross (Photo: Alexander Chadwick)

Prince Charles spent more than an hour, along with the Duchess of Cornwall, visiting casualties and staff at St Mary's Hospital near the Edgware Road tube blast.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4663931.stm

edit: Forgot to add link

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

5. I beg to differ.

An "Intelligence" failure is at the very heart of this matter.

[Initech]

6. I'm pretty sure "intelligence" is used loosely

At least that's my thought when I read the article.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

7. As loose as Jared's old bikini briefs.

[tuckessee]

11. When they say "intelligence failure".....

....it really means "We need more police state powers, especially secret detentions and free use of torture" and/or "We need millions and millions more of dollars".

[Psephos]

14. How about blaming the bombers? Sheesh.

I'm not reacting to you, EOO, but to the report. Interesting post.

[allemand]

9. 52 confirmed dead, including one suicide bomber

Police give warning that bombers may strike again
By Sean O’Neill, Daniel McGrory, Tom Baldwin and Stewart Tendler

THE al-Qaeda terrorists who killed more than 52 people in the London rush-hour bombings are still at large and could strike again, security sources gave warning yesterday.
Investigators are increasingly convinced that only one bomber — who killed 13 people in the explosion on a double-decker bus — died in the blasts.

The others are thought to have left their bombs — consisting of less than 10lb of high explosive hidden in rucksacks and fitted with timed fuses — on the floors of three Tube trains before escaping. (...)

A police source told The Times: “Our main fear is that this group is out there still sitting on a cache of high explosives knowing that their bomb designs worked.

More:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22989-1686680,00.html

[ed2004]

15. The next ones could be worse

Last year the Brits foiled a much bigger bombing plot so one should expect that enough malicious elements are within the country and could strike again.