Glasgow attacked
British police have arrested more suspects in the car-bombing of the Glasgow airport.
Recent reports I hear at CNN suggest to me that suicide was more central to this Glasgow operation than usual in such attacks. The perpetrators are said to have doused themselves with gasoline. This was not in fact like Iraq, where the idea was to take as many Shiites with them as possible. Here, their methods were not in fact likely to cause much or any loss of life among others (gasoline is not a high explosive) but were guaranteed to kill them. It is said that they resisted being rescued.
I've learned, though, it is dangerous to read too much into initial reports.
Labels: al-Qaeda
posted by Juan Cole @ 7/01/2007 02:41:00 AM
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4 Comments:
Witnesses claim the vehicle occupants appeared to be Asian. I guess the British are getting better at sorting them out from Brazilians.
The Buffalo in the Midst: Oh, so they were only making a statement when they crashed a flaming car into an airport full of people, right (in Scotland, no less)? Now that I think of it, maybe the bombers on 7/7/05 were just trying to show us how depressed they were.
Believe it or not, there are people out there in the world with bad intentions who are not *gasp* American. Cruelty transcends national, racial, ethnic, class, and political differences.
(I also like how you used the word "distraught" to describe these people. Yes, because the normal response of a "distraught" person is to plow a car into a building and then set it on fire, especially in countries as oppressive as Scotland).
"gasoline is not a high explosive"
liquid gasoline is not, but gasoline vapor can be very explosive, indeed.
sorry to quibble
I appreciate that this doesn't necessarily affect your thesis.
The Kiwi and Australian press seem to make a big thing of a new "Caliphate" arising out of old grievances that resulted from the Crusades. They assert that the US and Australia are lumped together with the UK in that endevor (which seems historically impossible...or hysterically impossible !) Iraq and oil just don't seem to figure in their reasoning.
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