Locations of the London Bombing

[smirkymonkey]

Between Kings Cross and Russell Square Stations

Edgeware Road Station

Between Aldgate East and Liverpool Street Stations

Tavistock Place, near Russell Square



For those of you who know London - any thoughts on these particular areas? I don't know London well, but they seem kind of obscure (not to minimize the death and destruction in the areas they occurred, but it seems like the terrorists could have chosen more strategic locations.)

I am just trying to determine if there was any strategy to this or if it was completely random. What do these areas trend toward politically. Yep, I know :tinfoilhat:

[DIKB]

1. The reich-wing counterpoint

that they used to justify the paranoia in small towns here in the U.S. is that they would strike a small place to make everyone afraid. Which goes completely against the attacks of 9/11. Those were designed to cripple, economically (WTC), and strategically (Pentagon). These attacks don't fit in w/ the thinking of al qaida.



Though I have been asleep (physically) for 8 hours and am just now awake and figuring everything out.

[smirkymonkey]

3. That's what I mean - they don't seem to fit the pattern.

This will cause fear, but it won't disable the city or the financial centers in London.

Unless, of course, the idea is to turn London into a practical land mine like Israel, with explosions going off here and there with no apparent pattern.

[alcibiades_mystery]

17. Al Qaeda explosions will follow shortly after Tyrone Slothrop's erections

So sayeth Thomas Pynchon.

;-)

[Behind the Aegis]

2. Supposedly

The explosion at the Liverpool station was near the hotel were Netanyahu was supposed to be for a meeting. It could just be a coincidence.

[WolverineDG]

4. I was just there last month

Kings Cross is actually Kings Cross/St. Pancras. It's a very big & busy station, housing railroads, the Tube, & Thameslink. The mostly residential neighborhood around the station seems to be populated by immigrants from Pakistan & India. Maybe from other parts of the Middle East & Asia as well. Not rich, but not poor either, and Camden Town is close by. Lots of small hotels & a couple of chain hotels close to the station. IIRC, lots of professional-type people coming & going out of the station at rush hour. Tourists at all times of day because you can take Thameslink from Gatwick & Luton airports, as well as the railroads.

Russell Square tube station is very small, only on one line (Piccadilly, which you can take from Heathrow Airport) & you have to take an elevator to & from the platforms. There are more chain hotels in this area close to the British Museum, so higher level of tourist traffic, & a good restaurant (Il Fornello) on Southhampton Row (a few blocks from where Southhampton turns into Woburn street). Again, residential area, tonier than Kings Cross, but not super-wealthy as in Kensington & Knightsbridge. Same holds for Tavistock Place, just a few blocks from Russell Square up Woburn Street.

I'm not too familiar with the Edgeware Road station, as we passed through it on our way to Paddington Station. Area around Paddington Station again mostly residential, some hotels, restaurants, schools. Edgeware is on the Bakerloo line.

Liverpool station is a large station, on several lines (Circle, Bakerloo, Hammersmith & City), as well as railroad connections & Thameslink. CLose to the Spitalfields Market, Whitechapel (although Aldgate is closer to Whitechapel), many immigrants in this area from India, Pakistan & Bangladesh, but some gentrification is occurring around Liverpool station because the area is close to the City.

dg

[smirkymonkey]

5. Thanks for the info!

Now I have to wonder why Islamic terrorists would stage attacks in neighborhoods largely populated by Muslims?

[Clark2008]

8. Isn't there also a large Muslim population near the Liverpool

Station?

It's been a year and a half since I was there. I can't remember.

[WolverineDG]

9. Yes

many Bangladeshis are Muslim, as well as Pakistanis.

dg

[T_i_B]

24. Are you thinking of Bethnal Green?

That was a little way off from the attacks. It's the next stop from there on the Central Line. You go from the heart of the city with the yuppies at Liverpool Street to what is quite possibly the most dirt poor and deprived area of Britain at Bethnal Green.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. A BBC reporter pointed out you could plant all 3 bombs at King's Cross

all 3 tube lines travel out from King's Cross/St. Pancras tube station; and the bus passed King's Cross before the explosion.

Not that obscure - all 3 lines would be very busy at that time of day (and all are fairly close to mainline overground rail stations - King's Cross and St. Pancras, Liverpool St., and Edgware Road is close to Paddington and Marylebone (and Fenchurch St. is close to Aldgate - so, that's all 4 Monopoly board stations ... ). The area round Russell Square is busy (close to the British Museum, a lot of bits of London University, not far from the Law Courts - and the bomb exploded outside the British Medical Association headquarters - they all ran out to help).

[Jane Eyre]

12. Bombs placed close to the doors

There was a press conference this morning describing the placement of the bombs. At least two of them were placed near the carriage doors in the standing area. That would seem to support the theory that all bombs were planted at one station, with the terrorists making quick drop-offs on several trains which passed through the station. The trains may even have been chosen at random, with the bombs simply dropped off on the first trains to come along.

The timing devices on the bombs assured that the detonations would occur more or less simultaneously. The timers would have been set to assure that the explosions happened in various areas of the city, however they would not have allowed enough time for busy commuters to notice a stray knapsack on the carriage floor.

The bomb planted on the bus may well have been meant for a train at a nearby station, but the terrorists' timing was a bit off which meant that the bomb planter's access was blocked after the stations were closed due to the earlier detonation. The bomber then jumped on a nearby bus, where the bomb detonated. There was some speculation yesterday that there was a suicide bomber on the bus. Maybe, but maybe not intentionally so.

Another interesting thing to keep in mind is that London has thousands of closed circuit cameras planted in public areas around town. This has been the subject of much controversy concerning privacy rights. Surely there is video tape available showing suspicious persons entering the train station(s) with bulging knapsacks. Of the hundreds of people who were in the train station yesterday morning, there must be at least one or two people who noticed someone getting on and off the train rather quickly and whose memories will be refreshed upon seeing the video. The prevalance of the cameras throughout the city may also enable investigators to follow the path of the bombers as they approached their destination.

[smirkymonkey]

13. Thanks - for some reason I thought the bombs would have

been attached to the tracks or have been in the actual station, instead of being portable and being placed on the train. That makes a lot more sense to me now.

[DeepModem Mom]

7. Richard Quest of CNN (a Londoner) pointed out that these stations...

are used by commuters from London suburbs, the home counties, to transfer from trains to the Tube. His theory was that the idea was to "terrorize" a maximum number of people, both from Central London and beyond. He also said that they might have blown up the bus in order to have a visual on the news, as there would be none from the Tube below.

[Mugsy]

10. All heavilly traveled London inbound.

They are all busy inbound lines into the heart of London on a busy workday, guaranteed to affect a lot of people.

It also proves the bomber was very familiar with London.

[BooScout]

11. Evidence indicates.....

That these bombs were on timers. Most likely the bomber(s) set them and got off the train. They could only guess where the train(s) would be when the bombs went off.

I suspect the bus bomb went off by accident or the idiot carrying it forgot what time it was.

Kings Cross is big station.

[sweetheart]

14. Ok, lets explore

Kings cross is a major commuter train station to the home counties
north of london, which includes even cambridge and as well, to all other
destionations throughout britain. In that sense, by hitting the tube
station at that junction, they hit the artery of london's connection
to the north.

Edgeware road is extremely close to paddington, and the site could easily
be called "paddington". That location is where all the rail commuters
come in to london from the west, including from heathrow airport on
the "airport express".

Liverpool street towards aldgate is in the center of the city of london,
and was directly beneath "bishopsgate street" which got its name by being
one of the "gates" to the original city of london. This place is also
called "the square mile" and is equivalent to detonating a bomb on a
subway station underneath wall street itself. Liverpool street is
also a major rail station, connecting mostly to the northeast and
"essex" and statnstead airport... "east"

The terrorist messages says that they've instilled fear in the british
to the north, east, south and west if i recall correctly. This would
then fit with the description of north- kings cross, east - liverpool st.
West - edgeware/paddington ...

But south is not present. Russel square was a bus attack.

In russel square to my memory is the HQ of carleton (ITV) that was the
only british tv station granted an interview with GWB for the G8 summit.

So the cardinal direction they missed was "south" and this would
have been any of 4 train stations, victoria, waterloo, canon street,
or london bridge... so likely they did not have the connections in
their network to cover this assault location.

This could indicate that the terrorist cells are located in the
north of london.

The areas they hit were all where local commuters come in to the city
to work in the finance and media sectors amongst so many others.

They did not hit a major tourist location, or a royalty location,
or a government location. It seemed the attack was to put fear in
to the regular london commuter and not a special class of elite
(who doesn't ride the tube anyways).

On edit, the bus attack was an hour later from what i read. The
planners surely considred that teh tube would be shut down by this
point, so they needed another sort of target that would still be
operative... (bus).

[smirkymonkey]

21. Thanks for the analysis.

I find it very interesting!

I just thought of another angle, which is "Did the blasts avoid areas where the wealthy and powerful might have been at risk?"

[Jane Eyre]

15. Bombs weighed less than 10 lbs.

They could easily be stashed in a backpack.

The bus could have been planned as a way to get above-ground visuals of the terror. Underground terrorism isn't easy to photograph for the evening news and the newspapers.

I don't think that this was necessarily a well-financed, well-organized event. It could have been pulled off by just a handful of people with a bomb-making instruction book.

[geek tragedy]

16. Those areas tend to have a lot of Muslims living there. eom

[alcibiades_mystery]

18. Edgeware for sure

(there's a great shwarma place about a block and a half from the Edgeware Road Station, btw). But King's Cross? Not really.

[geek tragedy]

19. My memory isn't the best, but don't a lot of Bangladeshis or Pakistanis

live near Aldgate East?

[muriel_volestrangler]

20. Yes; Galloway's constituency, Bethnal Green and Bow

is right next to it (it may even include Aldgate - I'm not sure of the exact boundaries).

[sweetheart]

22. Yes, however the blast was VERY close to liverpool street

it was less than 150 meters down the tunnel from Liverpoolstreet as i
read. That would still place it under bishopsgate, and the neo-wealth
capital of the old city of london. This contrasts to the older-wealth
capital that is closer towards the thames from there where the bank
of england, stock exchange, the guildhall, liffe are.

Liverpool street also borders on the broadgate plaza where the queen
has her stock broker. I saw here there at broadgate once on a visit.
Apparently, that area, like the New York World Financial Center, was
reclaimed land from the nazi bombings... so it is all new and posh.

I don't see any race bias by the attacks. They clipped a chinese
person, australians, a woman name something like "sharmi islam" was one
of the missing. The targeted places are very similar to, if you want
to think of it in NYC terms like:
Grand central station (north)
Penn station (east)
New Jersey bus terminal (west)
and st james square with a bus (when wall street is the natural south)

They are in plaaces where all races walk about.

[T_i_B]

23. City of London

Liverpool Street and Aldgate East are in the City of London, the financial district. And at that time of the morning they are swarming with commuters going to work. Liverpool Street and Bishopsgate were also favourite targets of the IRA.

Indeed Liverpool Street is the station I go into when going to London and, as I'm in the commuter belt every morning my local train station is teeming with folk on their way to work down there.

The attacks seem to have been carried out mainly with an intention to cause maximum carnage.