Glasgow Caliphate Jihadist Terrorism

Glasgow Caliphate Jihadist Terrorism

Sunday, July 1, 2007

On May 4, 2007, I warned readers in OPORD Analytical’s public information dissemination section about the dangers revealed in the use of a new weapon tactically delivered by Caliphate Jihadist terrorists—the propane bomb. In the video linked above, the propane bomb used by the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) also contained military-grade munitions and other high-explosives with great effect. While the terrorist bombs found in Britain in recent days did not contain military-grade munitions along with the propane and gasoline tanks that were used to construct the devices, this form of terrorist weapon is precisely what I was warning western governments about. This is the type of weapon that can be constructed using any fuel-combustion engine type vehicle and driven through layers of security undetected to any predetermined terrorist target and detonated. The terrorists in Britain were hoping to park one vehicle in front of a busy night club area where unsuspecting civilians were expected to gather that evening. News reports from Britain estimated that over 800 of its people would have been exposed within the maximum effective range of the terrorist devices had they detonated on schedule. That means 800 of our British cousins could have been killed or seriously maimed in this thwarted terrorist attack.

When the vehicle bombs were detected and British security services descended upon them to secure the weapons, in Glasgow another terrorist vehicle crashed into the front of the Glasgow Airport facility and detonated a fuel bomb from within the SUV. One witness at the scene of the detonation and censored by the leftist international media was interviewed on video and stated that he had attempted to run to the terrorist vehicle thinking that the activity was the result of an accident and he was going to try and assist the victims. As he approached the vehicle he said that he heard one of the occupants scream “Allah Ahkbar!” while on fire, the terrorist falling to the ground and burning alive. A security person near the scene then told the witness to get away from the vehicle because it was a terrorist attack and to just “let the bastard burn.”

The attack upon Glasgow Airport was clearly designed by terrorists to have an economic impact against Britain. Commercial airports must remain open continuously in order to be profitable, combined with consumer confidence. If the general population becomes afraid to use commercial passenger aircraft as a means to get around from one city or country to another, airlines and airports themselves go bankrupt very quickly, taking a very large chunk of the local economy with them. The United States experienced these effects during and after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

The Glasgow terrorist attack caught a lot of media attention because it was more successful than the other vehicle bombs that did not detonate. The media had film footage of smoke, fires, rescue crews, a damaged government facility and casualties to report. That is the just the right combination of activities that terrorist organizations seek in order to get their exploits on television in front of an international audience—the desire being the spectacular attack, the shocking attack.

Media reporting of the incident was deplorable. It reminded me of the September 11, 2001, al Qai’da terrorist attacks against the United States. When the first plane hit the World Trade Center, one news anchor stated that someone needed to contact the airport to tell them their planes were “off course”. Later as the attacks were in full swing and the first tower fell, another news anchor said that there was “no confirmation” that a tower fell as millions of viewers watched it collapse on television almost 3 minutes before. In the new British terrorist incident, the media immediately went into “homegrown” terrorist mode, or tried energetically to claim that the unsuccessful attacks were not connected to al Qai’da or some other major terrorist organization so there wasn’t any need to “rush to judgment” about the conspirators. Then as word spread that some of London’s 200,000 security cameras captured clear images of the conspirators, “terrorism experts” were brought on television to talk down the incident. The terrorist attack upon Glasgow Airport however effectively neutered attempts by the media to suppress information about the sophisticated plan.

Terrorist planning is the key insight here. We are talking about three or more different vehicles that all contained gasoline and propane bombs combined with nails and other projectiles to create as many British casualties as possible in the terrorist areas of operations. The bombs were wired with cell phones, the trademark initiators used by Caliphate Jihadist bomb makers. It is predicted that the same Jihadist engineer constructed all of the devices in this particular terrorist operation because all of the vehicles didn’t detonate as they were primed to, not even the vehicle at Glasgow Airport. Media’s attempt to marginalize this incident as something other than Caliphate Jihadism planned and executed through the mosque archipelago is quite simply denial of the truth and running interference for the terrorists.

Other mistakes were made as well. British officials should have released the images of the terrorists as soon as possible. This would allow foreign security services the opportunity to study the images and determine who the individuals belonged to, and gave the general public a hand in spotting the terrorists which would lead to their apprehension. By not releasing the images gives the impression that the British government was trying to hide the identities of the terrorists from the public for some predetermined reason, whether that be to control public outrage over recent terrorist activities in Britain or as some combined effort to downplay the attack in a deceptive way. None of that is productive.

Another mistake is not having MI-5 as the authority to elevate British security standards and alerts. A critical alert due to this terrorist incident did not appear until hours after the Glasgow attack and that attack occurred hours after the first propane bomb vehicle was detected and secured. The instant a propane bomb type weapon is detected the threat level should have been immediately elevated to “critical” in order to warn the unsuspecting public and all government agencies and support personnel of the situation. This means taking that decision out of the hands of civilian bureaucrats that do not understand terrorism or even know what terrorism is and putting that responsibility directly into the lap of folks that do understand, and in Britain’s example, that would be MI-5. Britain does not serve itself well by having military officers that are claiming to be terrorist experts giving interviews on television trying to put this terrorist plot on some type of scale with al Qai’da’s terrorist planning. It doesn’t matter where the terrorist plot originated—it had all of the trademarks of a Caliphate Jihadist operation. When the first news reports of the terrorist plot hit the United States and the word “propane tank” was mentioned, I immediately knew who was behind the plot and so should the full scope of the British security apparatus that is tasked to defend from terrorism. It requires training beyond what Britain experienced with the Irish Republican Army. Most of the media opinions about this attack were judged using a sliding scale and IRA terrorism by the self-proclaimed “experts”. It is a major mistake to judge Caliphate Jihadist terrorist planning and what Jihadist engineers construct as devices with the Irish Republican Army’s activities against Britain. These are two completely different animals.

Caliphate Jihadist engineers are masters at improvisation. They can build military-grade rocket munitions from scratch and load them with thousands of steel ball bearings. They can fabricate launching platforms for those rockets. The failed propane bombs found in Britain are not an indicator of lack of experience on the part of the terrorist cell that constructed them. Always study Caliphate Jihadist terrorist attacks very closely because when these terrorists fail in a planned mission to attack a target, they go back to it, just as they did in the World Trade Center. The Jihadists are attracted to the areas surrounding Hyde Park—that is where they attacked the buses and trains before, and where they have parked two of their car bombs this time around.

Know your enemy, and they are not “homegrown”.

Christopher Farmer

MS, National Security

Caliphate Jihadist terrorists have attempted to use propane bombs against unsuspecting British civilians. Should MI-5 have the authority to raise the security alert level when terrorist activity is detected in Britain?

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