UK authorities openly doubt that alleged bombers intended suicide

[JackRiddler]

UK bombers 'tricked' - All four paid for return train tickets
Monday, 18 July 2005

British police are considering the possibility that the four key suspects in the London terrorist attacks may have been tricked into triggering their bombs.

(...)

Police believe the bombers may have been tricked by a "master" who told them they would have time to escape when in fact the devices were set to explode instantly. Investigators are giving the hypothesis serious attention given the unusual behaviour of the four bombers for such a sophisticated terrorist action.

The four men are seen together on closed-circuit TV at Luton railway station at 7.20am on Thursday July 7, 90 minutes before the first bomb exploded.

(...)

All four men had paid their parking tickets before boarding a train at Luton, 40km north of London, for King's Cross station and had all bought return tickets to the capital. "We do not have hard evidence that the men were suicide bombers," a Scotland Yard spokesman told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper.

More here and all around the Web:

http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=news&subclass=international&category=general%20news&story_id=409269&y=2005&m=7

Some obvious questions are suddenly being raised in public by the British investigators at Scotland Yard, the Sunday Telegraph reports.

The U.S. press is still referring to the London bombings as suicide attacks. Six pages worth of today's NY Newsday are devoted to sociological analyses of what makes suicide bombers tick.

But skeptics of the 7/7 official story have been saying all along that this makes little sense. Why waste valuable willing terror agents on suicide bombings, when this is unnecessary? (Palestinians and Tamil Tigers resort to the tactic when they have no other means of attack.) Had they survived, the London bombers might have been able to launch many more attacks.

Why did the alleged bombers carry IDs that led police directly back to their homes, possible accomplices, and a cache of further explosives that they curiously chose not to use?

Note that there has never been a coordinated suicide attack of this kind. Note that there has never been a suicide attack in Britain, despite its decades of terrorist attacks.

Isn't the simpler explanation that the bombers were duped into carrying bombs that their controllers then detonated ahead of plan? Recall reports that cell phones were used as timers!

Now think about this: Why would "al-Qaeda" deceive willing recruits in this fashion? Aren't they aware that this would harm future recruitment?

What kind of planners would have interest in making sure the bombers were found dead at the scene and the case was thus open-and-shut?

The following excerpt is from Canberra Times, but the story originated with Sunday Telegraph (which I cannot find) and has been picked up by many English and German-language media that I have found:

[Donailin]

1. Oh hell fucking no

I see where the article is going with this. . . nothing would shock me. I freely and openely admit (and have posted on DU the day after the attack in Londond) that this is an inside job. One week earlier, Bush was forced to get on national TV with his desperate plea why we need to "stay the course" in Iraq because of the falling approval ratings. At the same time, he must have had a heads up on the fact that Rove was about to be named. Then add in the DSM picking up steam and the laughable G8 summit that would be nothing but rhetoric and no substance.
The timing was just way too coincedental.

[Dover]

2. Yes, agreed. Makes you wonder if the 9/11 "terrorists" knew they

were going down with the planes, eh?

[mirandapriestly]

3. Oh, that is an interesting thought

I'm going to walk my dog and think about it, hmmm.

[daleo]

4. I think the theory of the case must be unraveling

If this account is true, it smacks of desperation by the police.

I mean, suicide bombers who weren't really suicide bombers, but rather bomb planters that were tricked and murdered by an Al Qada Dr. Evil type. It starts to seem too complicated. Besides, if it was true, would anyone ever volunteer for the cause again?

It seems possible that the police pursued the wrong theory and are doing their best to salvage it.

[barb162]

18. but people do volunteer to be suicides in Palestine and in Baghdad

[daleo]

19. Yes, but this claim is that they didn't volunteer

That they were tricked by a "master" who blew them up, when they thought they were just planting bombs and going home.

[1932]

5. It is so smart of UK Gov't to publicize this: will make it much harder

for terrorists to recruit people.

I definitely believe this is true (and I think the same thing probably happened on 9/11).

Had the US publicized this theory after 9/11, it might have made it harder for this team to be recruited and fooled.

[dArKeR]

6. London attackers may have been tricked: UK police

British police are considering the possibility that the four key suspects in last week's London attacks may have been tricked into setting off their bombs, a British newspaper reported yesterday.

"We do not have hard evidence that the men were suicide bombers," a Scotland Yard spokesman told the Sunday Telegraph. "It is possible that they did not intend to die."

According to the paper, one police hypothesis is that the bombers were tricked by a "master" who told them they would have time to escape -- when in fact the devices were set to go off immediately.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2005/07/18/2003263980

Now here here. Just after 9/11 I posted on the DU;
"I think the Bush/Cheney planned or knew about the events. But intel was that these were hijackings. And actually they were supposed to be just hijackings. Since the FBI/CIA had at least two undercover agents in the group or roommates of them. Bush's poll numbers were so low that Rove set this up to pump up Bush. Rove/Bush/Cheney accepted that a few people might be killed but as long as Bush stepped in and solved the situation he'd finally look Presidential. BUT, a super secret cell of Mujahadeen within the group set up a secret plan to crash the planes into US landmarks. Not even the other hijackers/FBI agents knew of this. "They were tricked by their MASTERS".

I swear I posted this more than a dozen times on the DU. What, do I have a sixth sense or is MI5/MI6 reading the DU for ideas?

[1932]

7. Why murder the bombers? To cover the tracks of the adults who plan

these things.

It's probably relatively easy to find the footsoldiers. What's a little harder is covering your tracks so that you don't get arrested.

Why carry ID? If you think you're going to drop your bomb and make it back, if you get arrested, it's not like not having ID is going to save you. If you're told not to carry ID, you might start wondering if they plan on killing you.

Why would al-Q. deceive recruits? Their plan was to make others think it was a noble suicide. They thought they'd be dead and wouldn't be telling the press that they were set up.

[merwin]

8. Considering that one of the things they look for is

People who buy one way tickets, maybe they were just trying to avoid suspicion. looks to me like the media is just pushing the standard fear tactics.

[LeahD]

9. Do they scruitinize one-way ticket holders on trains

like they do for air travel? Just wondering.

[sojourner]

10. not in the UK...

trains are commonly used by all sorts of people...and this was the "tube" anyway, wasn't it?

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. One possibility: the return train tickets could have included

the underground portion too (I know you can buy return train tickets into London that include underground travel in the centre of London). I don't know if you can buy single tickets that include underground travel - it's quite possible that you can't (or that you can't buy them from a ticket machine, which only has buttons for the commonly requested tickets, but have to go to the counter). So they might have chosen return tickets including tube travel just so they could buy them quickly, without having to stop to buy tickets again once they were in London.

[CJCRANE]

12. Return tickets

are also only slightly more expensive than one way tickets, so it usually makes sense to buy them, rather than double your cost and buy another one-way ticket later if you need it.

[merwin]

15. Doubt it.

[JoFerret]

27. No

Not in those circumstances at least. Happens all the time. Would not be suspicious.

[pinniped]

13. Same BS story that they tried on Iraq.

All the suicide bombers were duped. Sure.

[sojourner]

16. huh? I don't get your comment.......

color me dense! :dunce:

[pinniped]

24. There were stories claiming some Iraqi suicide...

bombers were duped into carrying bombs and unknowingly blowing themselves up in the process.

Either way, I don't think there is a shortage of people willing to sacrifice themselves to their cause.

[sojourner]

25. I get that. But the guys who supposedly did this suicide job

don't fit the profile, that's all. Makes me suspicious...and leads me to wonder if the notion of their being "duped" might have some merit.

[JackRiddler]

26. so, your magic bird

Tells you that all attacks in Iraq labeled "suicide" are in fact the work of suicide bombers? Amazin'.

The point here is not whether suicide bombers exist in the world. They do: as do bombers who plant bombs and live to plant more.

The question is what happened in Britain. In the States we are being sold as certain a story that on its face is problematic, and that is being doubted by the UK authorities themselves.

[CJCRANE]

14. IMHO

I think these guys didn't want to see their consequences of their actions and didn't want to live to fight another day. Just like 9/11 and 3/11 it was a one-off symbolic act designed to send a message to that particular country.

[sojourner]

17. How can we be speculating about what they were or weren't thinking?

Even the UK investigators have not made up their minds whether the guys intentionally detonated bombs that killed them or not. The profile of these bombers doesn't fit IMO - so I am waiting for more info upon which to base my speculation.

[mainer]

20. No ID required to buy underground or train tickets, as I recall

Much of it is simply automated. You never have to deal with a human being. Just put your money in the slot.

[sojourner]

21. I don't recall automation for the train...no ID was needed, tho'

but on the tube, no personal contact...just put money in and get a ticket...

[goforit]

22. Yes....."suicide bomber"......is an over used excuse for every explosion

Certainly the British Intelligence can be more creative than that!!

[Rex]

23. The BFEE might have fucked up on this one.

Depends on how much integrity Scotland Yard has. FWIW, I put my money on Scotland Yard.

[NNN0LHI]

28. This is pure bullshit

Where were these guys going to "escape" to after placing the bombs? Back to fucking Leeds? These guys knew hundreds of security cameras were watching their every move the whole time. The wanted their pictures shown on TV after the bombing.

Why didn't they all wear some kind of disguise like Groucho glasses or something if they were planning on "escaping"? Why did they carry identification with them saying who they were?

Soon as I read the headline my bullshit meter pegged. This has been studied before. Suicide attackers scare the shit out of people. And the UK government knows this.

Don

[malaise]

29. That's been my feeling from day one

these are very young men with wives and infants. One has a pregnant wife. Still I don't know who duped them but it is horrible. They too were victims.