UK authorities openly doubt that alleged bombers intended suicide

[JackRiddler]

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:

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

[chookie]

1. That's what I have been thinking

None of the alleged bombers fit either the psychological profile of a suicide bomber or the usual MO. This is troubling. Deceit carried out upon the bombers by the organizer of the crime offers a plausible scenario. "Patsy" kinda fits too. Quite likely we will never know the truth about what happened that day -- a fact that will continue to skew how the attacked nation will respond.

[JackRiddler]

2. Please, no resignation

Quite likely we WILL know the truth; it usually comes out, sometimes only for those willing to see, more often for all. It can take days or decades, but the truth invariably outs.

[ovidsen]

3. None of this makes sense... yet.

I'm not dismissing the idea that the 4 bombing suspects (if indeed they were the bombers) were duped into carrying explosives that somebody else rigged to blow up in a way that would kill them too.

But where's the strategy? If these guys were willing to plant the bombs, why not let them live so they can plant more? Were they killed so they wouldn't talk? And if so, why kill them in such a way that their IDs, tickets, etc. made it easy for the cops to trace them to their homes, families, schools, and other suspects?

Is it possible they didn't know they were carrying bombs?

Call me clueless.

[lockdown]

13. If they knew they were carrying bombs,

they had to know it was a suicide mission I think. They'll have known there'd be cctv all over, from which they'd be quickly identified as a group who split up in the directions of the bombings. The only imaginable chance of escape would be getting to some "safe-haven" country very fast, and imo they'd have to be very naive to think that was feasible after such an act.

[ovidsen]

14. Maybe they were naive

They could have thought it would be easy to drop off their backpacks, hightail it to another London train station, catch the Chunnel to France, and disappear. I'm not saying they could have pulled this off, but maybe somebody told them they could, and they believed it. It was several days before the video showing the alleged bombers was found, and they were identified. By then, they could have been anyplace.

It would have also been incredibly naive of them to believe that their lives wouldn't be in danger as they carted around their little, personalized, IEDs.

Whatever... naivete + stupidity = death.

[lockdown]

15. You're right

I'm giving too much credence to big brother capabilities, and too much common sense to people prepared to blow trains up. I think they probably had been identified on cctv a lot sooner than disclosed though, by the first weekend police sources were already painting the picture we now have of a home-grown Islamist "cell". (Giving them the benefit of the doubt in assuming that was based on evidence, I know...)

(I'm sort of loath to kick the thread now it's dumped in September 11 where it doesn't belong, but hey ho)

[DELUSIONAL]

4. This is a much more logical explanation

Perhaps they thought they were carrying something other than a bomb -- perhaps for someone important?

The supposed photo (on the BBC website) of the "bombers" -- one appeared to have a backpack. Did he really know what was in that backpack? Did he own a backpack like that?

Questions questions questions -- hopefully the British police will explore all the questions -- and not accept a Blair stonewall of the investigation.

Who wins? Humm. . . didn't I read that bushie's numbers went back up after the bombing in London?

And yes the world is far less safe with bushie sleeping in the white house.

[dArKeR]

5. 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?

[dArKeR]

6. Shouldn't this be LBN!

[JackRiddler]

7. Well, it's worthy of GD too

I'll post it at LBN as well but I think this is worthy discussion fodder.

[daleo]

8. They may have been tricked, but by whom?

Sometimes it seems like we might all be getting tricked.

[bigtree]

9. This is entirely possible. It would possibly serve to give pause to future

recruits, if the reports prove accurate. But, this version also serves the British authorities who may want to stifle any appearance of a murderous native son. Also, the theory that these young men were tricked by al-Qaeda would allow Blair to deflect from the impressions of the suspect's friends and families that they had become increasingly agitated in the past few years over the invasion and occupation of Iraq and our military's killings there.

[helderheid]

10. what if the "master" was the company that hired Visor Consultants for bomb

drill on the same day with the same targets?

[helderheid]

11. to clarify

what if the company that hired Visor Consultants to do war games the same day, hired these men and explained it was of national security they never reveal what they were up to, which was pose as terrorists in the drills Visor was hired for. Then...

BOOM

by remote control.

Convenient?

[helderheid]

12. I hate that I seem to be a thread killer.