Talk:7 July 2005 London bombings/Archive 7

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Contents

Bus route details

I've been adding details of the bus route, heavily based on an article in the London newspaper the Evening Standard ("A piercing scream... then their lives were shattered" - Keith Dovkants - 12/07/2005, p10 of 'West End Final' edition). The important bit is "Shortly after it [the number 30 bus] pulled onto its stand at Euston bus station at 09:35am, [the driver] was told to follow a 'safe alternative route' [...] to avoid King's Cross [...] The bus stand was crowded with people who had been turned off the Tube."

Chillingly, the article also reports that the bomber emitted an ear-splitting scream just before the bomb went off. Carcharoth 21:00, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Aylesbury house raids

I realise I may be more in possession of facts than other because it's happening outside my own front door, but do tonight's house raids in Aylesbury warrant inclusion in this article? -- Francs2000 | Talk 23:27, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

It might be worth waiting a day or two to find out if anything significant was discovered. I suspect there will be a lot of raids all over the place in the next few months, and probably not many of them will turn up something of significance. I hope you get a peaceful night's sleep, anyway! -- Arwel 23:40, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
The Aylesbury raids are apparently linked to the fourth bomber. I think worth including. [commenter lost]

Investigation section

"Police are examining about 2,500 CCTV footage and forensic evidence from the scenes of the attacks, looking for, among other things, DNA evidence." This sentence badly needs rewording. Does it mean 2,500 separate CCTV cameras? 2,500 minutes of CCTV footage? 2,500 hours? Also, although grammatically and logically correct, lumping video surveillance and other forensic evidence together makes the example of DNA sound strange since you can't get DNA evidence from video. –DeweyQ 00:08, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

That's "footage from 2,500 CCTV cameras" - there are an awful lot of them around in the UK. -- Arwel 00:19, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Template

Since the template reappeared, and its VfD appears to be failing (plenty of keep votes), I moved ahead to trim it down so that it doesn't have a bunch of red-link articles. The template was just a slightly trimmed 9/11 template and doesn't necessarily reflect the needs of this particular story. I fully expect it will grow, but I hope it will grow to meet the needs of the article, so that additions only occur when an article is ready. Discussion of additions to the template should occur at Template_talk:Jul7Bom. --Dhartung | Talk 06:40, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Stratford Street mosque

There is currently no article on this subject. It is the radical Leeds mosque which three of the suspects attended. It is likely to become a far more prominent part of the story as the investigation continues.

It appears the term "radical mosque" may be somewhat inaccurate. [1]

Unnamed the same?

In the list of suspects there are two unnamed persons seen on video footage. Are they actually different people or did we dupe this info? --Lee Hunter 13:08, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

BBC lists four bombers including an unnamed man; one man who has left the country; and a missing Egyptian Chemistry student (we have Professor). A total of six. [2]
He is no longer unnamed. BBC list him as "Jamaican-born Lindsey Germaine"

I'm still wondering whether these two individuals are actually referring to the same person (i.e. should we delete the unnamed person below). Both items seem to be referring to the fifth person in his early 30s seen on the CCTV footage: --Lee Hunter 16:36, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

  • Ejaz Fiaz (also named as Eliaz Fiaz): possible co-conspirator and at first thought to have been the suicide bomber on the Piccadilly Line train. In his early thirties, from Beeston, Leeds.
  • Unnamed: co-conspirator seen on CCTV footage with the four bombers, believed to be the bomb-maker and cell organizer. Described as a Pakistani in his 30s, he entered Britain through a port some time in June 2005, and left the country on 6 July.
Long time past, but they're not the same -- I've disambigged. --Dhartung | Talk 19:32, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

urban legends and chain letter

This is doing the rounds of various offices right now (15PM, 14th july): "FYI Hi all, I have been strongly advised by one of my work colleagues who is informing everyone she knows that the police will be putting officers on tube stations 24/7 for the next week as they highly expect another attack within this time. She has a friend in the police force who has just been in meetings confirming this. I have been advised to avoid the tube at all costs for the time being. This news will filter through apparently through the media in the next few hours. Please take care on your journeys home. I don't want to worry you all (a bit late now), but I would follow this advice if you can. Kind regards, (name witheld by Adidas)" So much for the 'spirit of the blitz!' Adidas 14:00, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

updating my own post here, turns out, this is not a chain letter - it was a forward from one company to another going through only one employee. Anybody got information corroborating its contents? Adidas 16:15, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Update due

There is a police update due in ten minutes (i.e. at 15:30 BST).

did it happen? I can't see anything about it on the usual web sites Adidas 15:20, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
Not seen anything beyond the fact that the BBC is reporting that the police have released CCTV images of the bombers. Perhaps it was a very short event.
you're right - cnn has pix of the police with a projected image behind them of the CCTV grabs during the conference. Cheers. Adidas 16:12, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

WP article top hit in Google

I was surprised to see that this article was the first hit when I googled for "London bombings" this morning. --Lee Hunter 16:15, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Sub-headings

The sections entitled bombers and accomplices should be changed to suspected.... as at the moment it has not been legaly confirmed that these people were responsible for the bombings. Even though the police may have stated that they believe them to be the bombers it is prejudicial to state it as fact until they are found guilty by law. Should they be found not to have been the bombers (as with so many other facts related to this event) wikipedia could be guilty of libel under British law. DavidP 17:04, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

They are sub-headings of "suspects". Andy Mabbett 17:15, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
In fact, they weren't, but I've fixed that, now. Andy Mabbett 18:12, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
You've got to be kidding. Among other things text such as Media reports suggest the following people are suspected of participating in the attacks is used; and they're all over the national newspapers. I know British libel laws are more plaintiff-friendly than in the US, but there's only so many times we can use words like "suspected" and "alleged". --Dhartung | Talk 17:29, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
Sounds reasonable to me. I've changed the subheads to 'alleged bombers' and 'alleged suspects' --Lee Hunter 18:10, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
Um, you've sparked an edit war. It cannot be libelous to label someone a suspect. A suspect is someone the police have named. The Richard Jewell problem came about because he was not a named suspect when the AJC and NBC came out with their news stories. In this case, the police are making arrests and executing search warrants based on these identities. That's encyclopedic enough for me. --Dhartung | Talk 18:44, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
The problem is not naming them as suspects. The problem is that we're assuming that the reader is going to make the connection between the heading Suspects and the latter subheading of Suicide Bomber. This might be obvious to some WP editors (it's not to me) but I suspect would not be at all clear to a casual reader since the only indication of structure is a slight difference in font size. If you have a bold heading that says "Suicide bomber" and a list of names underneath, you are strongly indicating that this is a fact. --Lee Hunter 19:28, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
Just so you know, I would be far more concerned if the suspects were presumed alive. Dead, I'm not sure it matters that much. I found this about posthumous libel [3] (Gladstone), and it appears that the bar is higher at "malicious intent". --Dhartung | Talk 02:19, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
Lee is of course very concerned with preserving the good names of the suicide bombers (of blessed memory). Let's call a spade a spade, These people were Muslim (not presbyterian, or quaker, or methodist, or even unitarian universalist) suicide bombers (not militants) engaged in Jihad against the Infidels. Klonimus 04:08, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
Um, yeah, whatever. Why don't you go haunt Little Green Footballs, or something? They like your kind there. --Dhartung | Talk 04:15, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
It's well known that unplesant facts make people uncomfortable.Telegraph:BBC edits out the word terrorist Klonimus 07:35, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
Oh, stop this childish trolling. Go someplace where it's appreciated. We're trying to create a factual article here. If you're not going to contribute to that goal, you're just noise. --Dhartung | Talk 19:34, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
Klonimus, I don't quite understand your comment. Religion is irrelevant to the question of whether this early police interpretation should be accepted as fact. It's not like the British police have never jumped to conclusions about a bombing (see Birmingham Six) --Lee Hunter 13:40, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Is this encyclopaedic?

I feel it is merely the authors opinion - 'is considered likely' by whom? why not just reference those who do?

Al-Qaeda involvement is considered likely, as it follows their pattern:

  • Bombs were detonated nearly simultaneously;
  • No warnings were given by the perpetrators;
  • The bombs were detonated early in the day to catch the news; and
  • The bombs were detonated at a time and location designed to inflict maximum death and injury to a civilian population.
  • It is now considered probable that the bombers died in the blasts, raising the possibility that they were suicide attacks.

suspects section

A police press conference on 12 July provided further details on the progess of the investigation. Investigators are focusing on a group of four men, three of whom were from Leeds, West Yorkshire, and are reported as being Cleanskins. All four arrived in London on the morning of 7 July and were recorded on CCTV at Kings Cross station (the London terminus serving Yorkshire) at about 08.30. Property associated with three of the men was found near the site of the three Tube explosions, while property associated with the fourth man was found near the bombed bus. All four are believed to have died in the bombings, with the three Tube explosions thought to have been possible suicide bombings. Police raided six properties in the Leeds area on 12 July: two houses in Beeston, two houses in Thornhill, one house in Holbeck and one house in Alexandra Grove, Burley. One man was arrested. A vehicle thought to be associated with the bombings was found at Luton railway station and subjected to a controlled explosion [4], [5], [6]. -- quote italicized by Jtkiefer

I think this section could probably use a rewrite since even though it's sourced I think that we should inherently distrust a paragraph that uses the phrase "thought to be" as many times as this does. Jtkiefer 06:26, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

I gave it a scalpel. I think it should sound better now. --Dhartung | Talk 08:37, 15 July 2005 (UTC)


Note: the bombs were not designed to inflict maximum casualties as they included no fragments, nails etc, as is the usual terrorist tactic, this can be seen from the types of injuries and the relatively low (though no less tragic) loss of life in the crowded tube trains. A bomb went off in one packed carriage for instance and killed only seven people. Th bombs were mainly blast bombs designed for structural damage. Police reports claim large quantities of TATP were found in Leeds, a classic blast bomb substance. However this is odd as most net based articles I've read today on TATP say it does not produce flame or heat just a gas blast. SO where did all the burn victims on the trians come from? Issues like this are important as they reveal the mindsets of the culprits and possible agendas, as well as test the official reports for contradictions.

Bus bomb originally intended for Northern Line?

There is talk the bus bomb was originally intended to detonate on an Underground train - on the Northern line. But the Northern line was not operational from Kings Cross that morning. Auswide

The Northern line was operating that morning but there were severe delays. Paul Tracy|\talk 12:46, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Police want to know if there was a late change of plan. That is, did a mastermind get involved in that 57 minute period after the 3 underground explosions? Auswide

Okay, you're asking the same questions the police are. It seems like they intended to create a 4-way "burning cross" (by some interpretations) on the map of London. We don't yet know that they intended any such thing. The speculation arises because it seems very strange that they used a simultaneous attack on one form of transport followed by a non-simultaneous explosion. It's one of many strange things about this case. The use of suicide bombers, for example, by itself is superfluous. --Dhartung | Talk 19:37, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Again (Dear Dhartung...please delete this as/if you wish, you are doing a great job) This is only a personal belief, but I think that the bombers would find Golder's Green (with its traditionally-high Jewish population) a hard target to resist. A pattern of bombs that would set us fleeing to the 'North, South, East and West' centred on King's CROSS can be made (with a bit of Deja-Vu) to have significant overtones to the Christian mind,...but I have no way of knowing if this has the same significance in the mind of a person with highly-extreme and unrepresentative Islamic beliefs. If I were one of these people, I think that I would rather draw a crescent on the face of London, (this being the most sacred symbol of Islam, signifying the crescent moon which signals the start of Ramadan - the Muslim holy month of abstenance - parallel to the Christian 'Lent'). The 'Cross of Fire' would seem to come from the extremes of the Christian religion (i.e. Ku-Klux-Klan imagery) which has, thankfully, little or no significance to either the British, or the UK's Muslim population. (ChrisR)

Suitability of Analysis

The following is a quote from the external link "Same Old, Same Old..." in the section "Analysis":

"Failed states in the Middle East — autocratic, statist, unfree, intolerant of women and other religions — blame the West for their self-inflicted miseries. Sometimes they are theocratic, like the late Taliban or the current Iranian mullahs. But more often they are dictatorial like the Syrians, Pakistanis, Saudis, or Egyptians, who all, in varying degrees and in lieu of reform, have come to accommodations with the terrorists to shift popular anguish onto the West and the Jews."

Is this really something we want to be linking? This guy can barely seem to go a sentence without spewing out what is blatantly opinion masquerading as fact, or at the very least sweeping, groundless assumptions -- all things we seek to avoid in Wikipedia itself.

Now I recognise that by the very nature of being an "analysis," it's bound to make assumptions and contain conjecture, but in the context of an encyclopaedia is it helpful to endorse partisan ranting, even if we do provide an "alternative" view which is attributed to a "conspiracy website"?

Now admittedly my own political position predisposes me to hate everything that Mr Victor Davis Hanson has to say; however I'm not trying to push my own politics on Wikipedia, I just think we shouldn't be linking slanted, politically motivated analysis, including the views of both the left and the right, at all in the interests of remaining objective. Chris Smowton 14:19, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

If you ask me, none of the three articles linked at the moment (Hanson, JPost, Infowar) is "suitable". They're all pushing agendas.--Dhartung | Talk 19:58, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
Yes, we should. Part of being NPOV is admiting and fairly documenting the different POV's that surround a topic. Thats includes POVs that we may disagree with. Refusing to document alternative POVs (as the BBC does) it's self a form of POV. VDH is an important political commentator in the US, and his views are representative of the neoconservatives who beleive the west is engaged in a war on terror. This article is not blog ranting, but was published in a leading american political magazine. Klonimus 20:01, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
Then let's document the points of view in an encyclopaedic fashion. Posting a link with no context but the word "Analysis," especially to someone not familiar with American political commentators and their various leanings, seems to me like an endorsement of a particular view. Seems to me, no matter how many views you endorse in this fashion (as opposed to reporting their views, which I personally would not equate to an endorsement) you're never going to "average out" the various viewpoints sufficiently to be truly neutral. For example, how many conservative articles should we link, and how many left-leaning, to obtain balance? Should they be equal in number, or proportional to the camps supporting the various POVs? If the former, should we give equal credence to the at least slightly deranged "Prison Planet" as to mainstream politics? If the latter, why are we even bothering to mention a tiny fraction of paranoiacs?
Then again, how do we quantify a balance? Does a slightly leaning article count for half of an extremist diatribe? How do we make this truly NPOV once we start bringing unverifiable, purely opinion-based POVs into the article? Chris Smowton 20:39, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
It comes back down to the issue of notability. Articles and analysis published in major newspapers and magazines, by people who are noted for commenting in the relavent areas ought to be included. Moonbats raving on Democratic Underground, probably not.
I don't see why this has to decend into POV warring. Just include a sample of representative articles written from different veiwpoint. I'm sure Robert Fisk/Alexander Cockburn/The Guardian all have something to say about all this too.
BTW, the like to Arieh O'sullivan's article has the full title, but it was shortened because it caused line break issues. IMHO the views of Israeli experts on Islamic terrorism is worthy of an external link. Klonimus 20:52, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
I retained the links, but changed the subhead to Opinion, which is more accurate. --Dhartung | Talk 21:31, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Penises

Whom ever thought it was a great idea to replace this page with a series of penises (kudos for including both flaccid and erect!), you may have made me and a few others laugh, but honestly such a current and 'sensitive' article as this should be shown more respect.. please let wikipedia be a mature place for information ( I hope wiki-trolls read talk pages!) Adenosine | Talk 18:41, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

(Note: Pictures have been removed --Tokachu)

Contradiction on targeting of suicide bombing

This article says:

suicide bombings, a terrorist tactic normally used against heavily-secured targets or in high-security environments

whilst our article on suicide bombing says:

Suicide bombing usually (but not always) targets poorly-guarded, non-military facilities and personnel.

Even allowing for the 'normally' and 'not always', they can't both be right. --Heron 19:43, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Suicide bombing is a tool used by terrorists to attack anything they like or dislike. In Israel, India andthe rest of western world, suicide bombings have been used to attack soft targets (with the notable exception of the pentagon), in Iraq/Afghanistan, they have been used to attack military targets. Klonimus 20:17, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
I removed the speculative parts of that paragraph. It's not up for Wikipedia to say what tactics terrorists "normally" use. If there's a pertinent quote, we could include that. --Dhartung | Talk 20:30, 15 July 2005 (UTC)