http://www.cdi.org/program/document.cfm?Do...ge=../index.cfm
London Bombings: In Search for Answers
By Jeffrey Schwerzel, Free University of Amsterdam
The day after London was awarded the honor of organizing the 2012 Olympics, and on the first day of the G8 summit meeting, four bombs targeted London’s transportation system. After some initial confusion, it became clear that three devices exploded on underground trains and one on a double-decker bus. One day later, at the time of this writing, about 50 people were known to be killed and scores wounded. The authorities reacted swiftly and professionally and scenes of complete panic and chaos were absent. In the event, the principle goal of terrorism – to terror, confusion, panic and suffering – materialized only partly. In spite of the carnage, the attacks have largely failed.
‘Who done it?’
It is obviously too early to make any definite statements about the perpetrators, but some credible scenarios can be assembled on the basis of the information available.
The attacks caused only limited carnage compared to, for example, the Madrid attacks. The train bombs used there were more powerful – or at least more destructive – than those in London. The plans for the July 7 attacks seem to have partly failed, as further evidenced by the fact that three underground trains and one bus were attacked – a combination of targets which was probably not intended.
Trains are a tempting target for the likelihood of two secondary effects that, thankfully, did not materialize in London: fire and panic[1]. Recent years have seen serious accidents in tunnels that caused huge loss of life due to fires, which, being contained in tunnels, are all the more lethal. A bomb explosion and raging fire in an underground tunnel during rush hour could then easily result in large-scale panic, which in itself can cause further injuries and death. Fire and panic also make for gruesome media images, and massive mediatized suffering is a central part of the intended results of terrorist attacks. A successful attack would only add to latent fears of tunnels and public transport.
Further investigations will give us more insight into reasons for the relatively low death toll, but the size of the bomb charges may be a part of the reason. The bus bomb is probably the best example. Comparison of the bus bomb’s damage to that inflicted by Palestine suicide bombers in Israel indicates that the London bomb was either badly built or much smaller. The Chechen suicide attacks in the Moscow underground also caused far greater destruction. The London bus bomb may well have been the size of a small package.
Who then might be behind these attacks? Let’s assume once more that the attacks partly failed and did not bring about all their intended effects on a desired scale, and let’s assume that this is partly due to ineffective bomb charges and inaccurate estimation of the effects these bomb blasts might cause.
Aside from acquiring the explosive material (either by manufacturing it on ‘the kitchen table’ or by smuggling) the actual planning and execution of the attacks would not have been hugely complicated. By far the most difficult factor is the human one: gathering a group of people and maintaining absolute secrecy over a period of months, if not longer. Remaining undetected and maintaining group cohesion and unity of purpose in London while planning the attacks may well be a bigger challenge than preparing and executing the attacks themselves.
This would lead to two possible scenarios. It may have been a Sept. 11-type group of extremely well-trained foreigners who had received specialist training in remaining undetected for extended periods of time. But in the post-9/11 climate of increased surveillance, this seems like an unlikely feat. Implanted perpetrators would need to eventually communicate with their operators outside the United Kingdom, and this would substantially increase the potential for detection.
At the moment it seems more likely that most of the individuals involved were ‘locals’, from immigrant families or converts to Islam, who teamed up with foreign ‘Arab Afghans’ or other jihad veterans. This would increase the likelihood that at least some of the individuals involved are somehow known by the authorities.
The Muhajirun – an extremist, U.K.-based organization that openly advocates jihad – has already been mentioned as a possible culprit. But the Muhajirun are being very closely surveilled, and their chances of successfully concealing the plans for an attack of this scale and complexity are correspondingly slim.
However a group of radicalized ‘local’ Muslims, under the sway of a charismatic jihad veteran, aided by an individual with the prerequisite training and knowledge to acquire and construct explosive devises, could well have been behind the July 7 attacks. This would be a pattern similar to the Madrid attacks. (Likewise, Mohammed Bouyeri, murderer of the Dutch film director Van Gogh late last year, was member of the Hofstad network, ideologically led by a jihad veteran.) This would point to a model in which strategic use is made of locals converted to a specific form of radical Islam, spotted, recruited, indoctrinated and led by ‘Arab Afghans’ who are connected to international jihadi networks and with that access to technical expertise to plan and execute attacks.
Why?
The ‘why’ of the attacks is still mystifying. Terrorism, an act of mass and seemingly random violence, also works partly through its symbolism, which makes understanding terrorist attacks an exercise in interpretation. Al-Qaida-type attacks such as Sept. 11 and Madrid seemed to have several layers of significance. These, however, are less obvious in case of the London attacks.
Firstly, the very defining feature of terrorism is the desire to kill, and cause damage and disruption. Whoever perpetrated the attacks succeeded in the first goal. The disruption and destruction achieved must be most satisfying to its perpetrators, with the entire city down for a day and significant damage to at least one of the underground stations. Although initial reactions of the London population were dignified, city-wide trauma effects are likely.
But al-Qaida attacks also have a deeper strategic goal. With Sept. 11, this would have been to draw America into a global war as start of a global division between Muslims and non-Muslims. With Madrid, this would have been to initiate a political change and, indeed, the bombings sparked protests that eventually led to the incumbent government’s defeat in elections, and to the withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq – a severe slap in the face of the U.S.-led coalition in the fight against terrorism.
To make attacks extra effective, death and destruction is aimed at symbolic targets such as the Twin Towers in New York, or timed to coincide with important dates such as national elections (the case of March 11 attacks in Spain). The ultimate Western symbols of democracy (free elections) and capitalism (Twin Towers) were thus attacked in reality and in symbolism (not to mention that attacking the crowded Twin Towers guaranteed the deaths of many people). Furthermore, the attacks were timed in the morning to ensure a full day of mediatized suffering.
But what was the deeper goal of the London bombings? If they were indeed perpetrated by an al-Qaida-affilliate organization, what kind of strategic change were the perpetrators trying to achieve?
There are no elections coming up in the United Kingdom any time soon; they took place a few weeks ago (and, indeed, many experts feared an attack at that time). The ongoing G8 summit took place far from London and it had, in fact, never been interrupted; even Prime Minister Tony Blair flew back to the meeting after attending to the early stages of rescue operations. A U.K. withdrawal from the global campaign against terrorism is such an unrealistic scenario that it, too, must be considered an implausible goal for the terrorists.
Of course, London is one of the two most powerful financial centers of the world, along with New York, and it can be considered the capital of the non-American free world. The attacks are a slap in the face of the democratic community, the United Kingdom and Blair, but that in itself hardly constitutes a strategic goal. The dignified handling of the aftermath of the attacks also negated much of the intended humiliation. In summary, early signs indicate that the attacks are producing little symbolic value for the terrorist beyond the sheer carnage and destruction.
The London attacks draw attention to the centrality of Muslim diaspora populations living in the West to the campaign against terrorism. The al-Qaida-type jihadists clearly seek to create global divisions between ‘true Muslims’ and the rest, and the battle is played out daily among Muslims in Europe and elsewhere. Jihadists actively court and recruit among diaspora populations, often capitalizing on difficulties experienced by immigrants in their integration into their host societies. Terrorist attacks are partly meant to aggravate the divisions between immigrants and host societies, thus facilitating both the radicalization of Muslim communities in Europe and the jihadists’ recruitment efforts. Many Muslims faced discrimination after the Sept. 11 attacks, as well as after the Madrid bombings and the Van Gogh murder in Holland. In the coming years, the reaction of European Muslims to this pressure will be crucial. Muslim immigrants are both a potential source for ‘fifth column’ collaborators with terrorism as well as our best hope for a bridge for mutual understanding, insight and sympathy with the Islamic world.
The objective of the attackers may also have been to influence the relationship between Great Britain and the United States, either in order to weld them together if British general politics harks toward a hard-line stance, or to split them should the U.K. population blame their government’s tight association with the United States for the July 7 attacks. Either way, the perpetrators may believe that they have created a win-win situation for themselves. Both weaker ties and close cooperation with the United States could be viewed as beneficial to their long-term goals. A divided West would be considered victory for the July 7 attackers by creating exploitable divisions among the European countries and the United States. Conversely a West strongly united against the rest of the world – particularly the Muslim world -- would be an ideological boon for the jihadists.
It is, however, highly unlikely that the U.K. government will define its choices in this draconian way, as either an abandonment of the United States or uncritical support for Washington’s policies. Al-Qaida-type terrorists espouse a specific view of the world and concomitant explanations of why things are the way they are, and they formulate policy options arising from that world view. But the world is not as simple as they may wish it to be, Western foreign policy is infinitely more complex and nuanced. The United Kingdom will no doubt remain a steady ally of the United States, engaged in the war on terror, and the United Kingdom will no doubt continue to pursue a policy of engagement with Muslims both in the United Kingdom and Muslims the world over. If the attacks were meant to provoke an unequivocal change in U.K. foreign policy, they are guaranteed to fail.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] This would also have brought in an element of mirrored retribution, as the Taliban and al-Qaida fighters were also smoked out of their tunnels.
The Meaning of the London Attacks
Mark Burgess, CDI Research Analyst, mburgess@cdi.org
The parallels between the London bombings and their forerunners in Madrid are so obvious as to require no further explanation here. However, the two atrocities are also not without their differences. Most obviously – and most thankfully – at this point, the attacks on the U.K. capital appear to have been less deadly than those in Spain. Underlying this is a bigger reality. Namely, that while the London bombings horrifically highlighted the vulnerability of mass transit systems, they also appear to illustrate the limitations of the terrorists’ preferred means of carnage. While the cost of the London attacks was high in blood and treasure, the latent potential for destruction was mercifully under-realized – in no small part because of a lack of panic among the victims and the professionalism and prior-planning of the emergency services. Hundreds of people are crammed daily onto a rush-hour London subway train. In that light, the casualties look mercifully low. Care must be taken lest this emerging truth is lost by imbuing the London attacks with an exaggerated or unbalanced symbolism, and those who carried them out with an inflated sense of their own accomplishments or capabilities.
The desire to understand terrorists often leads to a symbolism being ascribed to their choice of targets. However, this symbolism is also often conferred retrospectively or over-emphasized. This is not to say that there was no significance in the selection of targets in, for instance, New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001 – however symbolism does not kill people, destroy property, or cause financial markets to collapse. Bombs and bullets (or, in the case of Sept. 11, hijacked aircraft used as ballistic missiles) do that.
Terrorism is primarily a technique. As such its practical elements are sometimes in danger of being overlooked in favor of the more symbolic, whether real or imagined.
As was evident from the Madrid bombings, the timing and means of attacks is tactically and strategically highly practical. This was true not only of their timing in relation to such things as national elections (as in Spain), but in relation to the amount of carnage such attacks can inflict at certain days of the week and certain times of the day - bombing empty trains on a Sunday morning or outside rush hour is not very cost effective. There is also some value in carrying out atrocities early in the news day. However, this is arguably of secondary import. Even before the advent of today's 24-hour culture and its accompanying media programming, terrorist attacks would simply be covered as soon as the news cycle permitted, with their spectacle arguably lasting correspondingly longer. Indeed, the shock value of people waking up to such news having gone to their beds falsely secure (not to mention its symbolism if we wish to pursue that argument) should not be overlooked.
More importantly, symbolism can also be a double-edged sword, working as much against terrorists as in their favor. The sheer absence of the Twin Towers from the New York skyline, not to mention the horrific footage of the terrorist attacks on them, was as powerful in stiffening the resolve of their targets as that of their perpetrators. Likewise, London’s cosmopolitanism, the fact that it is home to a significant proportion of the U.K.’s Muslim population, and that the country is closely aligned with America, may provide a ready-tailored symbolism to any such attacks, but is also serves as powerful rallying point for those who would defy them. Moreover, the United Kingdom’s coincidental (purposeful or otherwise) hosting of the G-8 summit and, more fancifully (given that is unlikely but not impossible that such an attack could have been mounted at such short notice), the previous day’s announcement that the 2012 Olympics will take place in London, also give a certain symbolism to the July 7 attacks. However, they also lend symbolism and resolve to those who would resist such atrocities and bring their perpetrators to justice.
The London atrocities, like others before them, were both terrible and unacceptable. They also represent a tactical success for those responsible for them. However, this success is at best limited. More significantly, the London bombings potentially represent a strategic victory for the West – albeit horrifically pyrrhic – in that they serve as a fresh wake-up call to the dangers of terrorism, the need for unity in the face of it, and an increasingly-needed shot in the arm to the counter-offensive against it. If there is any symbolism taken from the events in London on July 7, 2005, it would be distilled most usefully from the response of the public and the emergency services. The image of a bombed-out, red double-decker bus may become the iconic symbol of the London attacks. If it does, it must serve as a symbol of defiance and a reminder that the London bombings, while terrible, exposed the limitations of terrorism as well as its dangers.
Author(s): Mark Burgess , Jeffrey Schwerzel