At least 45 people have been killed and more than 130 wounded in a string of explosions in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, police said.

The first explosion took place in the Old Market area, popular with tourists.

Other blasts followed in the nearby area of Naama Bay, which is packed with hotels. Witnesses said a four-star hotel was heavily damaged.

Britons, Dutch, Qataris, Kuwaitis and Egyptians were among the casualties, police sources said.

Police sources said initial reports suggested there had been at least four and possibly seven car bombs.
Full: bbc.co.uk

LONDON (Reuters) – Scientists are questioning the safety of a Star Wars-style riot control ray gun due to be deployed in Iraq next year.

The Active Denial System weapon, classified as “less lethal” by the Pentagon, fires a 95-gigahertz microwave beam at rioters to cause heating and intolerable pain in less than five seconds.

The idea is people caught in the beam will rapidly try to move out of it and therefore break up the crowd.

But New Scientist magazine reported on Wednesday that during tests carried out at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, participants playing the part of rioters were told to remove glasses and contact lenses to protect their eyes.

In another test they were also told to remove metal objects like coins from their clothing to avoid local hot spots developing on their skin.

“What happens if someone in a crowd is unable for whatever reason to move away from the beam,” asked Neil Davison, coordinator of the non-lethal weapons research project at Britain’s Bradford University.

“How do you ensure that the dose doesn’t cross the threshold for permanent damage? Does the weapon cut out to prevent overexposure?,” he added.

The magazine said a vehicle-mounted version of the weapon named Sheriff was scheduled for service in Iraq in 2006 and that U.S. Marines and police were both working on portable versions.
yahoo.com/news

The news this morning that a ‘suspected suicide bomber’ had been shot dead at a London train station and that other house raids had resulted in individuals being shot to death by police has been received with barely a mumur of questioning as to who these individuals were and why police needed to use deadly force.

Reuters is now quoting Sky News in saying that the man shot five times at Stockwell was not one of the would-be suicide bombers who attempted to detonate bombs on Thursday and whose CCTV photos have been released.

Experts told the BBC that the shooting was likely carried out by special forces, although eyewitnesses also said police were involved in the pursuit.

The man was pursued, tripped, pushed to the ground and then shot five times in the torso area. If the police and special forces pursuing the man knew he had a bomb that he was potentially about to detonate then why would they risk setting the bomb off by shooting at it?

BBC quoted Roy Ramm, former Met Police specialist operations commander, as saying,

“The fact is that when you’re dealing with suicide bombers they only way you can stop them effectively – and protect yourself – is to try for a head-shot,” he said.

Former government intelligence analyst Crispin Black agreed there was no other way of stopping someone who was an “immediate threat to life”.

So here we can establish that if the police suspect this guy had a bomb strapped to him, they would go for a head shot. Therefore we can conclude that the police knew he didn’t have a bomb so they shot him in the stomach and chest area.

So then why does BBC contradict itself by quoting Professor Michael Clarke, professor of defence studies at King’s College London, as saying,

“The fact that he was shot in this way strongly suggests that it was someone the authorities knew and suspected he was carrying explosives on him.”

Excuse me? We were just told that the only safe way to deal with a suicide bomber is to go for a head shot, otherwise you run a high risk of setting the bomb off. But now they flip it 180 degrees and tell us the opposite, that they were right to shoot in the area where the explosives would be. This doesn’t make any sense.

This is a blatant attempt to justify the cold blooded pursuit and murder of a man that was not one of the suspected suicide bombers involved in yesterday’s attacks and a man who the police knew did not have explosives strapped to his body, which is why they shot him in the torso area.

And what of the witness reports of a bomb belt and wires coming out of the man’s jacket? They seem to have been swept under the rug. The modus operandi is simple. Put out the story that this guy was a suicide bomber with wires hanging off him about to blow a train up and the public have no problem in accepting the response of the police in killing him. The later retraction that he was not a suicide bomber goes under the radar as the British population prepares to go on a Friday night drink binge or curl up and fester in front of the television.

So these are the new rules we have to live our lives by? If you’re late for the bus or train and are seen running then the police can just mow you down no questions asked?

If, as in the case of this individual, you’re wearing a heavy coat on a relatively hot day (and it certainly hasn’t been as hot today in England as it was last week) then that’s also a sure fire sign that you’re about to blow yourself up?

What about people from scorching hot climates who haven’t adapted to the British weather? What Brits call hot, someone from Pakistan would call mild.

It appears that law enforcement has been granted the same powers as President Bush. If the suspect is defined as an enemy combatant or a terrorist they can be located and killed on the spot. No evidence, no trial, no questions asked.

The British public needs to ask serious questions about who is really behind these bombings and what these outrageous new police abuses mean for the future of freedom in this country.
prisonplanet.tv

Another Phony Al-Qaeda Group Claims Responsibility For Latest London Bombings
A group linked to al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the latest London bombings, as forensic teams examine the rucksack bombs found on a bus and in Tube trains.

The group, Abu Hafs al Masri Brigade, also claimed responsibility for the explosions on July 7.

The statement’s authenticity could not be immediately verified and some doubt has been cast on the group’s previous claims.

Abu Hafs al Masri Brigade was described by the Boston Globe as a “phantom organization.” The same group claimed responsibility for the Madrid train bombing.

There is no evidence that the group even exists. They have claimed responsibility for everything from the 2003 blackout to car bombings in Iraq, yet in no case is there any proof of their involvement.

Ben Venzke, CEO of IntelCenter, a private company that specializes in analyzing terrorist messages for government agencies, said: “They started claiming responsibility for just about everything in the world. We’ve never been able to determine if it is just one person sitting at a computer having fun or if it really is a group.”

NEW YORK — Police on Thursday began random searches of bags and packages carried by people entering city subways, a new security measure announced after another round of bomb attacks in London.

“We just live in a world where, sadly, these kinds of security measures are necessary,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. “Are they intrusive? Yes, a little bit. But we are trying to find that right balance.”

The inspections began Thursday on a small-scale basis in at least one location in Manhattan, where a cluster of officers was seen stopping five men over a 15-minute period as they entered a subway at evening rush hour. In each instance, the officers peered briefly into the men’s bags, then waved them through.

Full-scale inspections are scheduled to be in place by rush hour Friday.
Passengers carrying bags will be selected at random before they pass through turnstiles, and those who refuse to be searched won’t be allowed to ride, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.
Full: washingtonpost.com

A man widely reported to have slipped into Britain to “mastermind” the London bombings was an innocent Pakistani who happened to have a similar name to a suspected al-Qa’ida leader.

The man, in his 30s, was the subject of intense media speculation surrounding his visit to the UK, which culminated in him flying out of London the day before the attacks. His presence in the country, apparently unmonitored, led to criticism of MI5.

However, The Independent has learnt that the man had no role in the attacks. Inquiries in the past week have discovered that the man was an innocent Pakistani traveller who had a similar name to an al-Qa’ida terrorist who was on a watch list of several foreign security agencies.

A similar mix-up is understood to be behind the claims by US intelligence that Germaine Lindsay, 19, the bomber who carried out the King’s Cross attack, was on a British watch list. This was because the “fourth” bomber was wrongly identified in the United States as Lindsay Jermaine – someone with a similar name to a terrorist suspect.

Scotland Yard is concentrating on establishing the movements of the four bombers from Leeds and Aylesbury, and what explosives they used.

Sniffer dogs are being used on the Tube to detect explosives. Dozens of dogs will be deployed throughout the London Underground system and the police may also introduce random checks using metal and bomb detectors on the Underground.

* Police have until Saturday to continue questioning a 29-year-old man arrested in West Yorkshire last week in connection with the bombings. He is the only person to have been arrested so far in Britain over the attacks. Full: Independent.co.uk

Notice, they don’t print his name. And what happened to all that backstory, and to the ‘suicide belt’ full of explosives he was purportedly walking arounf Karachi with?(see below earlier today) And then they throw the Germaine Lindsay stuff in to boot. A deliberate disinformation campaign. Sick and sicker. The mini bomb blasts today provide a good diversion. The Independent pronounces London “A City of Fear.” Fear is indeed the name of the game. Fearful people will buy any crap.

LONDON – Explosions struck three London Underground stations and a bus at midday Thursday in a chilling but less deadly replay of the suicide bombings that killed 56 people two weeks ago.

Only one person was reported wounded, but the lunch-hour explosions caused major shock and disruption in the capital and were hauntingly similar to the July 7 bombings by four attackers.

The London police commissioner confirmed Thursday that four explosions took place in what he described as “a very serious incident.”

“We’ve had four explosions — four attempts at explosions,” Metropolitan Police Commissioner Ian Blair said outside police headquarters at Scotland Yard.

“At the moment the casualty numbers appear to be very low … the bombs appear to be smaller” than those detonated July 7.

At a news gathering, Prime Minister Tony Blair appealed for calm. He said the people behind the incidents are trying to “scare people” and “make them anxious.”

Blair said police were hoping to get the city’s transit system “back to normal as quickly as possible.”

Chase
Minutes before the prime minister spoke, police with their weapons drawn escorted a man away from the gates at the end of Downing Street.

A police officer drew a firearm and aimed it at a target beyond the range of television cameras. Another officer then led away a man whose black shirt was undone. The man also wore black trousers and appeared to be of Asian or Middle Eastern origin.

Meantime, police were searching a London hospital Thursday for a man wearing a blue shirt with wires protruding from a hole in the back, a TV report said.

An internal memo at University College Hospital in north London urged staff to watch for the man, described as a black or Asian male, about 6-feet-2, Sky News television reported.

One witness told Sky TV that a fellow subway passenger told him a backpack exploded at the Warren Street station and there were reports of smoke.

Sky TV reported that police said no chemical agents were involved in the explosions.

Explosions also were reported at the Shepherds Bush and Oval stations.

Emergency teams were sent to all three stations after the incidents, which began at 12:38 p.m.

Witnesses said they had seen what could have been a would-be bomber running away after dropping a rucksack on one of the trains.

“We all got off on the platform and the guy just ran and started running up the escalator,” one witness who gave her name as Andrea told the BBC.

“Everyone was screaming for someone to stop him. He ran past me…and he ran out of the station. In fact he left a bag on the train,” she said.

Passengers were evacuated off a bus in Hackney, east London, and police cordoned off streets nearby. The bus company said a blast blew out the windows of the bus but a police officer on the scene said there were no signs of damage.

A police officer told Reuters: “The bus driver heard a bang at the back of the bus. He thought it was probably a vehicle that had hit him.

“He stopped at a nearby bus stop and saw a suspect package at the back of the bus.”

The fire brigade put on protective clothing before moving towards the bus.

Closed-circuit TV cameras on Hackney Road showed the No. 26 bus immobilized at a stop with its indicator lights flashing. The area around the bus had been cordoned off.

Full: msnbc.msn.com

In the early confusion about what is actually happening in London, several things are already clear.

– This immediately stalls questions about the first bombing. The mainstream media were finally beginning to highlight the fact that the government’s official story did not fit together. This takes those issues off the front pages.

– This further promulgates the fearmongering and creates a pliable public that is willing to accept draconian anti-terror laws. They are trying to turn us into Israel, with an alert or a bombing every fortnight.

– On the very day that the Patriot Act is due to be renewed, Bush can use the alert level to grease the skids and bully Congress into re-authorizing the bill.

Related: Bush sees London attacks as reason for Patriot Act

Some early reports from the scene of the incidents are very interesting.

Reports are that Arabs were seen running from the sitesof the explosion. London’s population is 20% Arab. If a bomb exploded near you, would you run? One of the Arabs is reported as saying “what is wrong with these people?” which suggests he was just scared but was immediately identified as a scapegoat.

Sky News is showing scenes of random Arabs being arrested. Watch for the fearmongering of ‘four terrorists on the loose waiting to attack’ – this will enable emergency stop and search powers to be used. How likely is it that all four bombs would fail to detonate?

ITN news reported that one of the suspected suicide bombers was arrested and taken into Whitehall. Why would somebody so potentially dangerous be taken into a government building and not to the police station?

Sky News reported that ‘something was in the air’ and that several stations had been closed due to an alert at 11am.

BBC reported that one of the individuals’ rucksacks exploded and he looked surprised and dismayed. Who is planting these devices in people’s luggage? Or are these people copycats?

Sky News reported that Tony Blair was already in a crisis meeting in an underground bunker which overlapped with the alert. Another case of preparing to ‘control’ the chaos as it unfolded?

Sky News also reports Blair was set to meet with MI5 and MI6 as well as Secret Service later today. This suggests Blair’s schedule was planned ahead of time to coincide with these incidents.

There are already ‘Atta passport’ type stories of Arabs planting the bombs and running away and being chased by members of the public. This immediately creates the psy-ops stroyboard that this is the work of Al-Qaeda.

The Israeli government is renowned for pulling off these dummy bombings to keep their population in a state of fear.
Full: prisonplanet.co

Tony Blair will today meet senior intelligence officers and police chiefs to discuss what extra powers may be needed in the wake of the July 7 London bombings.
Ministers are already fast-tracking three new offences into law with the support of the opposition Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. Mr Blair wants to know if more can be done.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair was expected to be among those to attend.

The controversial issue of whether evidence from phone-tapping should be admissible in court is likely to be discussed.

The government announced yesterday that extremists who use radical preaching, websites or inflammatory articles to incite others to commit acts of terrorism will face automatic vetting before being allowed into the country.

The home secretary, Charles Clarke, said officials would draw up a list of “unacceptable” activities intended to promote or provoke terrorism, in the wake of the London bombings, which killed 56 people and injured hundreds more.
Full: guardian.co.uk

D.C. considers random searches
“The suggestion that we’re just going to do it randomly literally invites abuse and focusing on people who for subjective and unverifiable reasons are more suspect, which means that their skin is a different color.”

US and UK don’t need the pretext of terrorism to curtail the civil liberties of their citizens, but it does make it easier. Whoever is behind 7/7 has far bigger fish to fry.

British Seeking Cleric’s Top Aide in Connection With July 7 Attack
LONDON, July 20 – The police investigating the terrorist bombings here have begun a worldwide hunt for a former aide to one of Britain’s most militant Islamic clerics who they believe may have played a key role in the July 7 attacks, according to British, European and American intelligence and law enforcement officials.

The man, identified as Haroon Rashid Aswat, 31, originally from Dewsbury in north-central England, was a senior aide to Abu Hamza al-Masri, the blind, one-armed militant cleric who preached at the Finsbury Park mosque in north London until his arrest in April 2004. Mr. Masri, who urged young men to wage jihad in Afghanistan, Iraq and beyond, is now facing extradition to the United States to face terrorism-related charges.

Several intelligence and law enforcement officials said they believed that Mr. Aswat was also involved in a plan to set up a training camp for Al Qaeda in Oregon six years ago.

A theory now being pursued by Scotland Yard is that Mr. Aswat provided the four British bombers with support for the coordinated attacks in London’s public transportation system, killing 56 people and wounding 700, several senior intelligence and law enforcement officials said Wednesday night.

Those officials declined to say what specifically made them believe that Mr. Aswat was linked to the bombers, all of whom died in the attacks.

One official noted that Mr. Aswat was raised in Dewsbury, the same area where Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, one of the four bombers, lived. On Wednesday, Mr. Aswat’s family said he had not lived at the family’s home near Dewsbury for 10 years.

Mr. Aswat’s whereabouts are unknown, but several senior investigators said they were almost certain that he was not in Britain now.

Officials say he is of Pakistani descent, like three of the four bombers, but his family’s neighbors said the family was from Gujarat, India.

“Nobody’s tying him in or making him the mastermind yet,” a senior American official said. “There’s no real substantiation yet. But people are looking at some of his confederates and connections, and saying that it’s a possibility.”

An American official and two European officials said Mr. Aswat spent several weeks in Bly, Ore., in late 1999 and early 2000, trying to help several associates establish a Qaeda training camp there. Although he was not identified by name in court papers in the Oregon case, several American officials said he was an unindicted co-conspirator in the indictment of James Ujaama, who pleaded guilty to aiding the Taliban. Mr. Ujaama, 39, is now the leading witness in the United States terrorism indictment of Mr. Masri, American officials said.

Two American officials cautioned it was not fully confirmed that the Mr. Aswat being sought was the same man implicated in the Oregon case.

Mr. Aswat is believed to have met Osama bin Laden sometime in the late 1990’s, senior investigators said. He trained at Qaeda-run camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan, they said.

In recent days, Mr. Aswat has emerged as a suspect of intense interest to investigators searching for a principal plotter behind the London bombings, according to interviews with 10 officials. Scotland Yard says it believes that the four British bombers had logistical, financial and technical support from several accomplices, and Mr. Aswat had the ability to provide that kind of leadership, two senior American officials and two European officials said.

The hunt for Mr. Aswat was especially evident this week in Pakistan, where a senior government official said two men with names similar to Mr. Aswat’s were arrested and released when neither proved to be the man they were looking for.

Another Pakistani intelligence official said Mr. Aswat had been under criminal investigation in Britain since 1999, but British officials declined to comment on that. The Metropolitan Police have said previously that a man on Britain’s security “watch list” entered England by ferry two weeks before the July 7 bombing attacks and then left either the morning of the bombings, or the night before from Heathrow Airport, officials have said. Officials declined to say Wednesday whether Mr. Aswat was that man.

Several senior European and American officials said it was reported that Mr. Aswat died during an American bombing raid in Afghanistan in late 2001, but investigators now say that he is still alive.
It’s worth resurrecting him from the dead for this. How is it he was allowed into England a few weeks ago? Clearly, there are advantages to being dead.

Pakistan questions Briton on ‘key role’ in bombings
Security officials in Pakistan were yesterday questioning a British man arrested on suspicion of playing a key role in the 7/7 bombings in which 56 people died.

Haroon Rashid Aswat was carrying a belt packed with explosives, a British passport and a substantial amount of cash when he was seized, according to intelligence sources in the country.

His name is understood to have been passed to Pakistan’s security agency, Inter Services Intelligence, by British authorities after it emerged after an examination of the mobile phones used by the four bombers.

The arrested man is thought to have been born in Dewsbury and grown up in Batley, West Yorkshire, a short distance from the three suicide bombers who were from Leeds, and the fourth, who grew up in Huddersfield. Counter-terrorism officials in the UK said they believed the detainee and a 30-year-old from Yorkshire, who has the same name, are probably the same person.

The Briton being questioned in Pakistan was also hunted by the FBI for several years after he allegedly travelled from London to Oregon in November 1999 in an attempt to establish an al-Qaida training camp. That search was scaled down, however, after the agency heard that he had been killed while fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan.

It was unclear whether Aswat was also the name used by the so-called “fifth man”, a known al-Qaida suspect who was reported to have slipped into the UK through an east coast seaport several weeks before the attacks, but who was not placed under surveillance and flew out on July 6.

UK counter-terrorism officials said they were “interested” in the British detainee, but added that there was no firm evidence to link him to the blasts on three tube trains and a bus two weeks ago.

Mr Aswat was being held for questioning in Islamabad last night after being flown by helicopter from the small town of Sargodha, 110 miles west of Lahore, where he was arrested four days ago. He is expected to also be questioned by British intelligence officials based in the city.

A second Briton, Zeeshan Siddiqui, 24, from Hounslow, west London, is also being questioned in Pakistan about an alleged plot to bomb targets in the UK. Mr Siddiqui, who was arrested in Peshawar on May 18, was a close schoolfriend of Asif Hanif, also from Hounslow, who killed himself and three other people in a suicide bomb attack on a bar in Tel Aviv in April 2003.

Police had rounded up about 200 men in raids on mosques and madrasas within 24 hours of Tony Blair saying he was anxious to see Pakistan crack down on militant teaching in religious schools.

Some were being questioned about possible links with the three suicide bombers from Leeds – Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, Shehzad Tanweer, 22, and Hasib Hussain, 18 – whose families originated in Pakistan, and who are known to have travelled there late last year.

Several security sources in the country, who did not wish to be named, said Mr Aswat had been arrested when police first began rounding up suspected militants. “We have arrested Haroon Rashid in Sargodha three days ago,” said one security official.

Pakistan’s interior minister, Aftab Khan Sherpao, and information minister, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, yesterday denied the arrest. Intelligence sources insisted, however, that Mr Aswat had been detained. One source close to the investigation told the Guardian that he had links with Jaish-i-Muhammad, one of four major Islamist groups active in the country. Other sources say that he is linked to al-Qaida.

As well as the belt packed with explosives and the British passport, Mr Aswat was said by one of the security officials to be in possession of around 1m rupees (£9,650).

The name Haroon Rashid Aswat came to the attention of security services around the world after a man by that name allegedly attempted to establish an al-Qaida training camp in Oregon almost six years ago.

According to documents lodged with a federal court in New York, he was one of two men who travelled from London to assist a local man, James Ujaama, in setting up a “jihad training camp” near the town of Bly. After his arrest, Ujaama, 39, a convert to Islam previously known as James Ernest Thompson, cooperated with the FBI and was jailed for two years after he admitted providing aid to the Taliban.

The FBI is understood to have believed Mr Aswat was killed while fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan, but has continued searching for Oussama Kassir, a resident of Sweden, who is said to have been the second man who travelled from London.

Briton Named as Bomb Planner; Met With Bin Laden
Wed Jul 20 2005 20:20:53 ET

Terror investigators hunting the London bombing mastermind are to question a suspected Al Qaeda planner held in Pakistan.

British-born Haroon Rashid Aswad was seized at a religious school with a suicide bomb belt, explosives and GBP 13,000 in cash.

Security sources in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, claim he had up to 20 telephone conversations with London bombers Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer. One of these is believed to have been just hours before the blasts.

The UK’s DAILY MAIL reports on Thursday: Security sources say he trained at an Afghan camp which was visited by Osama Bin Laden and that he is linked to two of Bin Laden’s planners and an Al Qaeda suspect held in America.

U.S. investigators have been told that Aswad attended the Khalden camp in Afghanistan, favoured by foreign terror trainees. British shoe bomber Richard Reid is among those who attended the camp and it has been reported that London bomber Khan also went there.

Wow this guy has all the stuff: US connections, Osama, Richard Reid, religious school, AND a ‘suicide belt. Dead too.

Roberts Coauthored Amicus Brief in Support of Mountain Top Removal.

Roberts’ Lobbying Efforts Cost the American People $500 Million a Year.

Roberts Argued that Private Citizens Do Not Have the Right to Sue Over Environmental Regulations.
Full: americablog.blogspot.com

This makes Roberts a good nominee for both the Democrats and Republicans.