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| Terror Networks & Islam |
| Experts see connection between 7/7, Bali bombings |
| 2005-10-04 |
| The common traveler's backpack carrying small bombs may now be among the leading threats to world security, experts said on Monday, drawing a link between this weekend's bombings in Bali to those in London in July. Militants from the United States to Europe and Southeast Asia have used car and truck bombs and even planes to make dramatic statements. But now small, easily made bombs like those used in London appear to be the new trend. The al Qaeda-linked group at the heart of an Indonesian probe into the three bombs that tore through restaurants packed with Saturday evening diners and killed 22 people likely drew inspiration from the London attack in July, the experts said. "It shows a shift to small, London-style suicide bombers (like those) in Indonesia from large truck bombs," said Zachary Abuza, an expert on Islamic militancy in Southeast Asia at Boston's Simmons College. U.S. authorities warned people of threats posed by small, home-made bombs after the July 7 attack in London's transit system that killed 56 people, putting New York on its highest level of alert since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But much of that security has been rolled back. Police have dismantled checkpoints, scaled back subway patrols and pulled bomb-sniffing dogs off New York commuter trains. Security experts such as Arnold Howitt of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government said a Bali-style attack involving hard-to-detect bombs would be remarkably easy in the United States. Bomb-making materials are easy to find and security loopholes in restaurants and trains are plentiful. But he said one element appears missing: suicide bombers. "The limiting factor in the United States is that the most effective way of carrying out this kind of attack is through suicide bombers and we don't seem to have a supply of indigenous suicide bombers," he said. Abuza said the simplicity of stuffing bombs into backpacks likely influenced the Bali bombers. Chilling video footage released in Bali late on Sunday showed a man entering a restaurant, followed almost instantly by an explosion. "The shift from large truck bombs to people with a small 5 kg (11 lb) bomb on their back is very significant. To me it says a lot about the resources that they have or don't have. The truck bombs were very expensive operations," said Abuza. He said the simplicity made it easier to launch attacks. "I think we're going to see a lot more of this," he added. Initial investigations into Saturday's attack -- the second on Bali since a series of blasts on Oct. 12, 2002, killed 202 people -- are focused on Jemaah Islamiah, a network linked to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda, which has been blamed for past bombings in the world's most populous Muslim nation. Australian police involved in the probe said the style of bombs and materials used appeared new to the region. An Indonesian official said they included TNT and ball bearings. "They are reverting to more simplified weapons usage because they can't mount the big one but they want to stay in the game," said retired U.S. Brigadier General Russell Howard, a counter-terrorism expert at Tufts University, who believes Jemaah Islamiah's resources are shrinking. "It is an admission that they are not as strong as they were. But the simpler form of warfare is easier to prosecute and more difficult to detect," he said. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #2 Just a matter of technology. Remember the movie Total Recall? Couple the anti-IED technology devices that are evolving in Iraq that set off explosives from a distance along with a restricted passage security system like the one in the movie and you can have a system to let the bomber kill himself where you want to. |
| Posted by: Ebbeagum Spainter8781 2005-10-04 09:12 |
| #1 losers. Anyone can become a human bomb and kill people. BFD. Doing so only makes you a dead loser. Sooner or later we will get technology to defeat these suicidal loser freaks. |
| Posted by: 2b 2005-10-04 06:26 |