We stayed at an Airbnb in Southwark in March, we were around there every day. 
Stay safe London Dopers!
This is certainly an…odd…attack. Very disjointed and just weird. CNN was doing a phone interview with a guy who owns a restaurant near where this went down live. They were showing a picture of one of the suspects and trying to figure out whether the guy had a suicide vest on or whether it was something else. Hard to see, though looked to me as if it were an improvised body armor thingy (of course, in the picture the guy looked like a red head to me, so who knows?).
Hopefully it’s over at this point…whatever ‘it’ was.
London police declared the incidents at London Bridge and Borough Market as terrorism a couple of hours ago.
“Just part and parcel of living in a big city.”
At what point do U.K. residents start to lose patience with this? And I don’t mean getting bumble bee tattoos. Though if you live near the area, and want to help, hospitals not running triage could probably use some donated blood about now.
Declan, it’s usually because the police can’t tell who’s the one or two bad guys in the crowd, and maybe they’re carrying explosive suicide devices too, and who’re the ordinary people just trying to make it out O.K. It’s not unknown for terrorists to try to blend in afterwards so they can escape. So, the cops herd people away from the area where the shooting and bombing was happening, to a safer area where other police can segregate and search everyone.
I am from India. I know the mentality of great number of brainwashed people from pakistan. Deluded, full of persecution complex, backward, shameless hypocrites, intolerant for any other religion except Islam, slaves of saudi arabia. This mentality is spread across muslim population of other parts of the subcontinent as well in varying degrees. Muslim of india will be far more tolerant and far less brainwashed than a muslim of Pakistan on average. But yes, Islam (sunni Islam in particular) is a problem worldwide. Yesterday 20 people killed the bombings in a funeral in Afghanistan as well.
All three shot dead by armed police units. According to the head of the counter-terrorism unit, they were shot around eight minutes after the first calls were received. That says a lot about how high the threat-level actually is, whatever the stated public position.
It is not Islam. I know many Muslims. It is Wahabism. It is a reactionary intolerant religion promoted by the ruling House of Saud in Saudi Arabia which is supported by the West and the US in particular. KSA is an ATM for every jihadi outfit on the planet. Everyone knows this, but Trump just signed a deal for hundreds of billions in arms to this barbaric outfit. Obama did the same. So stop blaming Muslims. The real villain is the House of Saud and those who keep it in power.
I’m guessing the forum moderators are all in bed.
With the Daily Mail’s fascistic reporting style? Oh we did that long ago. Otherwise I don’t get your point.
I am blaming Islam only…wahanism is a subset of Sunnism only. Don’t blame just the wahabism/saudi arabia. Of course, they are culprits. But sunni Islam itself is problematic. Maybe you don’t want to accept as it has many followers.
I likely know more Muslims than you. I have advocated several times here that Islam as a religion (or a way of life, whatever you wanna call) and Muslims at an individual level should be seen separately. One should respect and love Muslims at the level of an individual just as you love and respect a non-muslim.
Is the knief fight confirmed to be part of the attack or just took place around the same time coincidentally.
The BBC are reporting that the knife attackers jumped out of the van. I’m not sure where you’re hearing ‘knife fight’.
It’s one thing. Three guys drive a van into some people, then jump out and start stabbing people. Six dead, plus the three terrorists shot and killed.
THIS IS THE FIRST and ONLY note in this thread about this…if you wish to discuss the political aspects of could be’s and any possible group, take it to another thread…like in GD.
Let this one be about the news story and try to keep it political or religious jab free or without dumping on any group.
Thank you.
The point is that London’s mayor, casually/cruelly dismissed the concerns of Americans about Islamo-terrorism, after a bombing in NYC in September of last year, with the quote I cited in my post. The larger point I was trying to make with that quote is, if London’s elected officials seemingly don’t give a shit about terrorism; that, to repeat myself, [terrorist attacks are] part and parcel of living in a major Western city these days, then I don’t understand why Londoners should expect the rest of the world to care when they happen there.
And please: if Trump had said something so brain dead as that quote from Mayor Khan, this board would be talking about it for years as further evidence of his cruelty, idiocy, and overall unfitness to rule. Not excusing it as part of a “fascistic reporting style.” “Fascistic?” The Daily Mail? The Sun, maybe, but the Mail? Words fail me. You do know that “fascistic” isn’t a synonym for something that displeases you?
You guys—by which I mean the EU, and U.K. too—have a problem. (So does the U.S., FWIW, but a much smaller one.) The U.K. has a sizable minority, a very small portion of which commits horrific acts using religion as an excuse. This small portion journeys to foreign lands to learn how to commit these acts more effectively, incurring observation by different Western security services, which nonetheless seem incapable of stopping these idiots before they blow themselves up or run down a crowd of innocent people. How many times have we read that these guys “were under the eye of law enforcement?” Yet these attacks still happen. A larger portion of this minority, while not willing to commit these acts, still will support the fiends that do, with money, and shelter. And a still larger portion are willing to turn a blind eye when they see the above occurring. Go read Pew’s polling on the acceptability within the Muslim community of suicide bombing.
I don’t think that living with terror attacks should be part of living in a Western society and I resent the hell out of a mindset that thinks there’s no alternative to it.
Good grief, where do I even start with this.
Firstly, you clearly have NO CLUE about the Daily Mail and its disgusting political agenda. There isn’t a worse proponent for anti-muslim/immigrant/black/poor/gay propaganda in the country. Do me a favour and just Google ‘Daily Fascist’ and find me an article on the first page that ISN’T about the Daily Mail. If you don’t know what the Daily Mail stands for, then you are showing utter ignorance about the British press.
Secondly, the Daily Mail loathes Sadiq Khan because he has the temerity to be a left-wing son of brown immigrants. Oh, and a Muslim! How DARE he!
Now that you’ve heard what a filthy rage the Mail is, perhaps you’d do a bit more googling to get some wider context for what Sadiq Khan was actually saying. He wasn’t saying we should just put up with it, he was saying that we have to be vigilant.
Here you go, try reading the interview from at least one less reactionary source, such The Independant.
Adam Silverman, a front-pager at the Balloon Juice blog, made the obvious point:
The only way you can stop every attack is by going the fascist route with communications tightly controlled, overwhelming police presence, and informers on every block. You can resent that all you like, but that’s reality.
…this is London.
They are no stranger to terrorism. I can guarantee you that London’s elected officials give a huge shit about terrorism. They probably don’t expect the rest of the world to care. Fortunately: most of the world do give a damn. There are Londoners who are fighting in Afghanistan, have fought in Iraq, all doing their part to keep you safe. I’m sure they will be glad to hear that you don’t give a damn about them.
Here is the full quote: from the article cited by the Daily Mail.
***"“It is a reality I’m afraid that London, New York, other major cities around the world have got to be prepared for these sorts of things,” he said.
That means being vigilant, having a police force that is in touch with communities, it means the security services being ready, but also it means exchanging ideas and best practice."
He added: “I’ve had a sleepless night thinking about all of this and I’m sure the Mayor has as well.”***
There is nothing wrong with what he said. The “part and parcel” quote wasn’t actually a quote: it was a paraphrase of what the Mayor said and I see no evidence that he actually said that.
Who the fuck is turning a blind eye? Point them out and I shall personally shun them. But that isn’t happening. It is fucking hard to stop a determined person from driving their van into a group of people. You help to stop this from happening by “being vigilant, having a police force that is in touch with communities, it means the security services being ready, but also it means exchanging ideas and best practice.” Which is exactly what the position the Mayor of London has taken.
And did you read that list of Terror Attacks on London? Did you see that huge list of incidents that were the responsibility of the IRA? Did you know the Manchester Bomber was banned from his Mosque and did you know he was reported a number of times to the authorities by Muslim family members and associates? They did the right thing: yet you accuse them of “turning a blind eye.”
When you come up with the magic solution to eradicate terrorism from society please feel free to let us all know. There will be a Nobel Prize waiting for you with your name on it.
If you’d like to actually view the entire clip of the interview with Sadiq Khan, you can do so here: New York explosion: Sadiq Khan says terror attacks are 'part and parcel of life in a big city' | London Evening Standard | Evening Standard
The exact quote from the video is “What I do know is that part and parcel of living in a great global city is that you have got to be prepared for these things. You have got to be vigilant.”
I don’t see anything in what he said as either casual, cruel, or indeed dismissing any concerns that anyone might have. And I resent the hell out of a mindset that thinks that cheap political shots are an appropriate response to an unfolding situation in which people lost their lives.