Pieter Dorsman remembers the victim.

Buddhists are arming themselves in Thailand. Strategy Page;

July 22, 2005: The Islamic militants are trying to do some ethnic, and religious, cleansing in the Moslem south. The three southern provinces have a population of some 1.8 million, and only 360,000 of those are Buddhists (the religion of the majority of Thais, who are ethnically different from the Moslems, who are Malays). The terror campaign is having some success, as some ten percent of the southern Buddhists have left the south in the past six months. But many of the remaining Buddhists are arming and preparing to defend themselves, and stay in the south.�
[…]
July 14, 2005: In the southern provincial capital of Yala, five bombs went off, and a gun battle with Islamic terrorists left two policemen dead, and 17 civilians and three policemen wounded. One terrorists suspect was killed in the shoot out. One of the targets was a power station, which caused a local blackout. The other targets were a convenience store, a bank branch, a department store and a restaurant. The bombs went off at the same time, about 7 PM. In addition to the bombs, fires were set in some houses, a market and a factory. Earlier in the day, a bomb went off near a hospital, and two teachers were shot dead.��
The government is buying 24,439 assault rifles and machine guns, and seven helicopters, to equip troops fighting Islamic terrorism in the south.��
July 13, 2005: The Islamic terrorists war against education in the Moslem south is working. So far, about ten percent of the 10,000 teachers in the south have fled, and another 25 percent plan to leave. The Islamic terrorists see schools as the major obstacle to radicalizing the Moslem youth in the south.

Previous posts here, and here.

This is refreshing. The US Congressman, Tom Tancredo – who sparked controversy last week when he was quoted widely, and mostly out of context, as suggesting that an WMD attack by Islamists on the US could prompt a nuclear response towards Muslim holy sites – isn’t backing down from the shrill mavens of political correctness..

“Many critics of my statements have characterized them as ‘offensive,’ and indeed they may have offended some,” writes Tancredo in a guest commentary in the Denver Post. “But in this battle against fundamentalist Islam, I am hardly preoccupied with political correctness, or who may or may not be offended. Indeed, al-Qaida cares little if the Western world is ‘offended’ by televised images of hostages beheaded in Iraq, subway bombings in London, train attacks in Madrid, or Americans jumping to their death from the Twin Towers as they collapsed.”
Tancredo, who in recent months has been an outspoken critic of immigration policies allowing illegal aliens to stream across U.S. borders, says few can argue the current approach to the war on terror has deterred fundamentalists from killing Westerners, adding so-called moderate Muslims and leaders of Muslim countries have done little to crack down on extremists.
“That being the case, perhaps the civilized world must intensify its approach,” Tancredo says. “Does that mean the United States should be retargeting its entire missile arsenal on Mecca today? Does it mean we ought to be sending Stealth bombers on runs over Medina? Clearly not.
“But should we take any option or target off the table, regardless of the circumstances? Absolutely not, particularly if the mere discussion of an option or target may dissuade a fundamentalist Muslim extremist from strapping on a bomb-filled backpack, or if it might encourage ‘moderate’ Muslims to do a better job cracking down on extremism in their ranks.”

Of course, in Canada, the shrill maven in charge of national security takes a sophisticated, nuanced and culturally senstive approach – she listens, while the Imams do the tough talking. Globe & Mail;

“If you try to cross the line I can’t guarantee what is going to happen. Our young people, we can’t control,” Aly Hindy, the head of Scarborough’s Salaheddin Islamic Centre, recalls telling the minister at the May meeting she held in Toronto with dozens of Muslim leaders.
The meeting was part of an effort by Ms. McLellan to reach out to Canadian Muslims amid complaints that the RCMP and Canadian Security Intelligence Service are engaging in racial profiling.
The minister and her officials have been meeting community leaders to explain they are not targeting Muslims generally, only individuals with possible terrorist links.
[…]
He made the point to the minister. Several people who attended shrugged off the imam’s remarks, but some Muslims and government agents later approached Mr. Hindy asking him to explain himself.
“The police came to me and said, ‘This is a kind of threat,’ and I said yes,” he said. “But it’s for the good of this country.
“And they said, ‘Do you know some of the names of those people you expect to cause some problems?’ And I said, ‘You just open the telephone directory.’ ”
While government investigators probing the woman’s complaint told Mr. Hindy they have not found evidence of wrongdoing, he isn’t giving the spy service the benefit of the doubt.
“We believe CSIS should stop terrorizing us,” he says in a flyer he is circulating to mosques. “CSIS is powerless. CSIS has no authority over you. If CSIS agents come to your door, do not open [it] for them.”
Toronto’s Coalition of Muslim Organizations arranged the meeting, and said about 100 Muslim leaders attended. While COMO president Adam Esse noted that, “some people, when they talk, they get a little heated,” he said the ministerial visit was “a sign of respect” and was worthwhile overall. “If you talk, you remove a lot of misconceptions, a lot of misunderstandings.”
A spokesman for Ms. McLellan agreed. “We feel it was constructive, positive,” Alex Swann said.
Even Mr. Hindy said that despite his differences with security agencies “the Deputy Prime Minister, she was very understanding.”

Group hug, everyone.

Newsweek on the latest terrorist attack in Egypt in a piece titled “It Can Happen Anywhere”;

At least 88 people died in that and two other coordinated blasts that night. Patel, who was back at the Movenpick pool sunning himself the next day, seems resigned to the new facts of global terror in the 21st century: “We can’t keep running away. It’s life.” Kashmira Patel, on the other hand, has nothing like her husband’s aplomb. “I’m frightened for everyone,” she says. “It can happen to anyone, anywhere.”
That seems to be the message that this latest wave of terrorists badly want to drive home. No one is safe.

Are they just figuring this out now? BBC November, 2002;

At least 15 people have died in a suicide bombing at an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, just as two missiles were fired at an Israeli holiday jet that had taken off from the city’s airport.
The missiles narrowly missed the Arkia airline plane – a Boeing 757 carrying 261 passengers – but a large part of the Paradise Hotel was reduced to rubble and the rest is a smouldering shell.
Kenyan police said three suicide bombers were killed, along with nine Kenyans and three Israelis, two of whom were children.
About 80 people, most of them Kenyans, were injured in the attack and many are being treated for burns.

Via Newsbeat1.

“Life’s just much too hard today,”
“I hear ev’ry martyr say
“The pursuit of paradise just seems a bore
“And if you take more of those, you will get an overdose
“No more running for the shelter of Mohammed’s little helper
“They just helped you on your way, through your busy dying day*
Related

Daily Mail;

Suicide bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan was given a guided tour of the House of Commons last year – raising the disturbing prospect that Parliament was on the hit list of targets.
Khan, 30, was a guest of Labour MP Jon Trickett, whose wife Sarah is head of a school where the bomber taught.
During the visit in July he also met International Development Minister Hilary Benn, whose constituency includes the school, and was shown areas of Parliament which are off-limits to unaccompanied members of the public.
During the visit in July he also met International Development Minister Hilary Benn, whose constituency includes the school, and was shown areas of Parliament which are off-limits to unaccompanied members of the public.

Via LGF
Also, over at Winds of Change, the Hatewatch Briefing;

This briefing will be looking hard at the dark places the mainstream media sometimes seem determined to look away from, to better understand our declared enemies on their own terms and without illusions. Our goal is to bring you some of the top jihadi rants, idiotarian seething, and old-school Jew-hatred from around the world, leaving you more informed, more aware, and pretty disgusted every month.

Zachary Shore is a fellow at the Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley. He argues that despite the German opposition to the war in Iraq, they are nonetheless, firmly in the sights of Islamists;

If interethnic tensions are potent in Italy and Denmark, they are worse in Germany. Most of Germany’s Muslims hail from Turkey’s less-developed hinterlands. Many do not speak German, live in predominantly Muslim neighborhoods and have limited social interactions with ethnic Germans.
Their unemployment and high-school dropout rates are above the already depressing national averages.
Most disturbing, some surveys find that the younger generation of Turkish Germans express surprising hostility toward Europe and the West. In one study, the sociologist Wilhelm Heitmeyer and his colleagues at the University of Bielefeld found that almost one-third of those polled agreed that Islam must become the state religion in every country.
Even though they live in Europe, 56 percent declared that they should not adapt too much to Western ways, but should live by Islam. More than a third insisted that if it serves the Islamic community, they are ready to use violence against nonbelievers. Almost 40 percent said that Zionism, the European Union and the United States threaten Islam.

It puts “Aktion Kehraus” in perspective.
(Via commentor Stephen McAllister)

BBC;

Another bomb exploded in Yala on Friday, injuring four Shinawatra has been granted sweeping new powers to deal with attacks by suspected Muslim militants in the country’s south.
The new measures allow him to order the detention of suspects for seven days, censor newspapers and tap phones.
The Thai Cabinet agreed to issue the powerful decree after a series of co-ordinated attacks in the southern city of Yala on Thursday night.
More than 800 people have died in the southern unrest since January 2004.
The emergency powers, which Mr Thaksin was granted without judicial approval, replace the existing martial law.
As the cabinet meeting ended, another bomb went off behind a hospital where many of the injured from the previous night’s attacks were being treated.

Previous SDA posts on Islamic violence in Thailand here and here.
.
Via Bourque

[I’m well aware that I’m covering this topic rather heavily at the moment. There are over 50 dead Britons who are demanding we do. Deal with it.]
Belmont Club is following developments in the investigations in London.
In a preceeding post titled Two Points Of View;

“The feud is eternal.” Hence, the Jihad, unlike the war waged by the West, can never be surrendered. Only the West can surrender. But blogs like In a State of Flux, though guilty of Ledeen’s indictment of narrowness, are an important indicator that the feud is becoming symmetrical. Western citizens are still focused on the ‘larger issues’ but personal loss and anger are making the war less abstract. They want to find particular people who attacked them on specific occasions for the purpose of visiting upon them individual punishment. For many, the war is no longer business, it’s personal.
One route to victory, the ugly route, is to match the entropy within Islamic societies with a corresponding entropy within the West. The rising resentment against Islamic immigrants in Europe and the growing willingness in the West to see Islam and even Muslims as the enemy, are all early signs of the transformation of war into a corresponding blood feud. One of the constant themes of the Belmont Club is how this development is undesirable because it will, at the limit, result in the destruction of Islamic society and make us all murderers. The alternative route chosen by President Bush, but only half-heartedly pursued by mainstream politicians, is to decrease entropy within
the Islamic world by making those countries functional, modern and free so that the “blood feud” concept becomes as anachronistic in Riyadh as it is in Cleveland.

He sees a glimmer of hope in an Afghan village.
update – Austin Bay discusses post-bombing polls showing a hardening of British attitudes.

Over the past few weeks I’ve heard Canadian media sanitize this incident. According to some news outlets, Theo Van Gogh was murdered by an unnamed “deranged youth” who “pinned a note” to his chest..
They rarely mention that he used a knife.

Witnesses described how the man shot Van Gogh again from a distance of about half a metre. He then produced a large knife and cut Van Gogh’s throat before plunging the knife into his chest. He then took a smaller knife from a bag he was carrying and used it to pin a letter to Van Gogh’s body.

To place Bouyeri in the larger context of the Dutch experiment in multi-culturalism, this Chris Caldwell piece from The Weekly Standard in December 2004. (The second page seems to have gone offline – I’ve got a bit of it here);

Muslim immigrants had begun to scare people long before Pim Fortuyn, the charismatic populist, turned himself into the country’s most popular politician in the space of a few weeks in 2002, by arguing that the country was already overloaded with newcomers. (Fortuyn was assassinated by an animal-rights activist in May of that year.) Already in the 1990s, there were reports of American-style shootouts in schools, one involving two Turkish students in the town of Veghel. This past October, newspaper readers were riveted by the running saga of a quiet married couple who had been hounded out of the previously livable Amsterdam neighborhood of Diamantbuurt by gangs of Muslim youths. There were incidents of wild rejoicing across Holland in the wake of the September 11 attacks, notably in the eastern city of Ede. The weekly magazine Contrast took a poll showing that just under half the Muslims in the Netherlands were in “complete sympathy” with the September 11 attacks. At least some wish to turn to terrorism. In the wake of the van Gogh murder, Pakistani, Kurdish, and Moroccan terrorist cells were discovered. The Hague-based “Capital Network,” out of which van Gogh’s killer Mohammed Bouyeri came, had contact with terrorists who carried out bombings in Casablanca in 2003. Perhaps the most alarming revelation was that an Islamist mole was working as a translator in the AIVD, the national investigative service, and tipping off local radicals to impending operations.

(update – a reader found the “missing” second page).
Quoted from Peaktalk, where there’s much more;

One of the absolute benefits of the Van Gogh trial is the fact that in Mohammed Bouyeri we have pure, unrefined jihadist material at our disposal like we have never had it before. The 9/11 hijackers perished together with their innocent victims, many hardcore al-Qaeda and Taliban members have been killed in Afghanistan, the al-Zarqawi division in Iraq is decimated regularly, a number of the Madrid bombers equally perished to the afterlife, and there�s no sign of the London attackers as of yet. What we have been able to incarcerate so far in my opinion is second-tier material, a number of the residents of Gitmo have started talking and some of them have even been released. Not so with Bouyeri, who is likely to remain behind bars forever, silently. And although he won�t say anything and refuses to co-operate, just by observing him we can paint a pretty scary picture, one that reminds us again of what we’re actually fighting.

Of course, Canadians can rest assured that our government is working very, very hard on our , while “gauging feedback from ethnic communities on dealings with border security officials”.

A flash presentation of Al Qaeda attacks since 1998 at Winds of Change;

There have been 30 major mass casualty attacks directed against the United States, Britain, France, Spain, Pakistan, Kenya, Tanzania, India, Iraq, Morocco, Yemen, Tunisia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and North Osetia. 14 of the 30 attacks were conducted prior to the invasion of Iraq, making claims of the occupation of Iraq as a casus belli for al Qaeda’s terrorism to be disingenuous at best. 4,895 people have been killed in these attacks, and 12,345 plus have been wounded. The majority of the countries attacked are Muslim countries. And although not stated, the vast majority of the victims of al Qaeda’s violence are Muslims.

H/t Instapundit

Charles Moore in the Telegraph.

What strikes one again and again about the reaction of the public authorities, of commentators, of the media, is the terrible lethargy about studying what it is we are up against. We are dealing with an extreme interpretation of one of the great religions of the world.
We flap around, looking for moderates and giving them knighthoods, making placatory noises, putting bits of Islam on to the multi-faith menu in schools, banishing Bibles from hospital beds, trying to criminalise the expression of “religious hatred”, blaming George Bush and Tony Blair. But if we do not know the way the faith in question works, its history, its quarrels, its laws and demands, we will not have the faintest chance of distinguishing the true moderate from the fellow-traveller or of bearing down on the fanaticism.
If you look at the Koran, you will find many glorifications of violence. In Sura No 8, for example, God is quoted as saying: “I shall cast terror into the hearts of the infidels. Strike off their heads, strike off the very tips of their fingers!” This punishment comes to them for having “defied God and His apostle”. It seems reasonable to ask Muslims what this sort of remark means in the modern world.
[…]
I have asked, for example, if the Muslim Council of Britain, the mainstream umbrella organisation in this country, will condemn the killing of British troops in Iraq. They will not do so in absolute terms. They prefer instead to condemn the war itself, which is by no means the same thing.
Take a case from the dramas on Thursday. One heartening tableau was of the Bishop of Stepney, Stephen Oliver, appearing with Mohammed Abdul Bari from the East London Mosque, both condemning the attacks. But if you look up Mohammed Abdul Bari, you find that he welcomed to the opening of the London Muslim Centre Sheikh Abdul Rahman al Sudais, the Saudi-government-appointed imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca.
In Mecca two years ago, al Sudais described Jews as “scum of the earth”, “rats of the world” and “monkeys and pigs who should be annihilated”. Yet, criticise al Sudais, and Mohammed Abdul Bari leaps furiously to his defence.
As I write, I have beside me an article that appeared during our recent election campaign in Muslim Weekly. By Sheikh Dr Abdalqadir as-Sufi, it calls for the replacement of British parliamentary democracy with “a new civilisation based on the worship of Allah”, attacks the Conservatives for being “in the hands of an illegal Jewish immigrant from Romania” and speaks of the “near-demented judaic banking elite”.
These views are expressed by an educated Muslim in a Muslim publication. Are these Muslim views, non-Muslim views, anti-Muslim views?

Meanwhile, the BBC is sanitizing its reporting.

Victor Davis Hanson sketches an outline of what to expect in the months ahead: more of the same.

The jihadists expect that Westerners will slink out of the Middle East, allowing fascist fundamentalists to gain control of half the world’s oil and thus buy enough weapons to blackmail their way back to the caliphate.
Destroying Israel, killing Christians in Africa, running Westerners out of the Middle East, Pakistan, Indonesia, or Bali, all that is mere relish. In Europe, the goal for the unhinged is the creation of another al Andalus; for the more calculating it is enough intimidation and terror to carve out zones of Muslim sanctuary, where millions can live parasite-like, within the largess of Western society, but without its bothersome liberal agenda of freedom and equality, in hopes of implanting the universal law of sharia.
So here we are. Even though the killers profess revenge equally for Afghanistan (the so- called �right� war), they expect Westerners to scream “Iraq.”
Even though such bombings are predicated on infiltration, careful stealthy reconnaissance, and long sojourns within London, expect cries of anguish and worrying about the stereotyping of Middle Eastern males.
Look for the same scripted crocodile tears and “concern” from the Middle East’s illegitimate leaders, even as much of the Islamic Street takes a secret delight in the daring of the jihadists, and the governments sense relief that the target was Westerners and not themselves.
Anticipate Western leaders condemning the terrorists in the same breadth as they call for “eliminating poverty” and “bringing them to justice – as if the jihadists and their patrons are mere wayward and impoverished felons.
In the short term, Bush and Blair will appear as islands in the storm amid an angry and anguished public. But as 7/7 fades, as did 9/11, expect them to become even more unpopular, as the voices of appeasement assure us that if they just go away, maybe so will the terrorists.
It is our task, each of us according to our station, to speak the truth to all these falsehoods, and remember that we did not inherit a wonderful civilization just to lose it to the Dark Ages.

A leaked Whitehall report has revealed that Al Qaeda is exploiting the “poor and disenfranchised” in its recruiting efforts;

AL-QAEDA is secretly recruiting affluent, middle- class Muslims in British universities and colleges to carry out terrorist attacks in this country, leaked Whitehall documents reveal.
A network of “extremist recruiters” is circulating on campuses targeting people with “technical and professional qualifications”, particularly engineering and IT degrees.
Yesterday it emerged that last week’s London bombings were a sophisticated attack with all the devices detonating on the Underground within 50 seconds of each other. The police believe those behind the outrage may be home-grown British terrorists with no criminal backgrounds and possessing technical expertise.
A joint Home Office and Foreign Office dossier ” Young Muslims and Extremism ” prepared for the prime minister last year, said Britain might now be harbouring thousands of Al-Qaeda sympathisers.

Via Newsbeat1

From the comments section of this post;

Born in ’66 and living in Vancouver. Probably the only person I know in my age group around these leftist parts that supports an aggressive war on terrorism, here and abroad. Of course, the Liberals will never do anything so aggressive, however, I clandestinely support George W. at work and more openly at home… Nevertheless, my Muslim supervisor was laughing yesterday about the bombings in London…. I was so upset I called in sick today… I can’t believe how many terrorist supporters openly wear their pro-terrorist affiliations here in Vancouver… Funny though, him and all his Muslim friends all contribute huge amounts to the Liberals….

Charmaine Yoest was in London on the day of the bombings. What she found was just as disturbing.

I decided I needed to expand my demographic sample and started looking for the quintessential English gentleman businessman.
Spied him talking on the phone near the barricade and moved in. Warily, he agreed to talk.
No, he wasn’t surprised. “It’s been due to happen. Sooner or later.” He got the talking points, too.
Bu then he pointed out something very interesting that I had noticed only on a subconscious level. “This is the heart of Little Beirut” he said. We were indeed surrounded by people, like the young men, who appeared to be Arab. A strange and exceptionally cold-blooded choice of targets for Al Quaida, even by terrorist standards.
Finally, I asked him the Tony Blair question. He looked at me puzzled: “How can you blame Tony Blair?”
I told him he was the only one all day I’d found who didn’t.
He frowned. “Interesting,” he said. And walked off.

update – D.J.McGuire responds.

Via Newsbeat1 (where there is much more) , this item in the NYPost by Amir Taheri;

“The London attack was not the work only of the few individuals who carried it out. It was the bitter fruit of a faith that has been hijacked by a minority of extremists while the majority of its adepts watch with a mixture of awe and ill-concealed pride. The real fight against this enemy of humanity will start only when the so-called “silent majority” in Islam speaks out against these murderers and those who brainwash, train, finance and deploy them.”

Ron Laffin is blunt.

“Wait for it. You’ll hear it any minute now. Wafting over the airwaves, staring back at us from our newspapers, inundating our perceptions. Plaintive cries for tolerance and understanding. Chastising looks and comments from our political leaders as they beg us not to blame the entire Muslim community for these loathsome sub-human acts of depravity perpetrated against the British people. If you listen closely you will almost be able to hear the sound of the air moving as our politicians spin around, turning their backs on the victims of Thursday’s terrorist atrocities in Britain and forming a tight circle of protection around our Muslim communities.
It happens every time an attack occurs. The victims become a subtext and those who share the aggressors’ religion become the main focus. Is it just me, or does anyone else feel like screaming: “I am not the racist. I do not hate Muslims. I do not desire the death of anyone. Do not plead with me to be tolerant. Because in doing so, you are assuming that I am not tolerant. I deserve more credit than that.”

Just after I left high school, a new RCMP officer was assigned to my home town. As is the nature of the RCMP in small rural communities in Western Canada, he was soon introducing himself through the school and community events. In an community that more typically endured rotations of newly graduated rookies, this particular officer came with unusual credentials – he had been an undercover officer with the “drug squad”. His tales inspired shock and awe among the youth of an “naive”small town.
Adding to his mystique, he was a runner. (Adults in rural Saskatchewan seldom run unless they’re making for a fence with a large animal in pursuit.) His trim, toned silhouette could be spotted jogging in the early mornings and evenings along a grid road leading south of town.
Which meant he trotted past the local drug dealer’s farmyard four times a day – a fact that amused half the residents of the community. That particular RCMP “undercover drug squad” officer served his entire posting in a white, English speaking, Christian small town that embraced him – and not a single person clued him in.
I recount this little tale to illustrate the problems that law enforcement is facing when trying to ferret out potential terrorists in the “moderate” Muslim community. The community – if it is like any other community on earth – has a pretty good idea where the bad apples are, but they choose to remain silent.
That’s why there is discontent, even rage, at the muted responses of “moderate” Muslim spokespersons to attacks on innocents. We know better. Public “condemnation” is not enough – not when there are buses exploding in the streets of London. It’s not enough when there are people who seek weapons that can take the lives of thousands in a single event.
Until moderate Muslims begin to participate in the cleansing of their own community, until they are ready to face that “Ill-concealed pride” for the evil that it represents, until they are willing to pick up their telephones and pens to contact authorities about those individuals whose doorsteps they pass each day, the killing will continue – and if history teaches us anything, it teaches us that the silent enablers will end up paying the highest price of all.

MIchelle Malkin has been working overtime on London bombing linkage and commentary. Or just go to the main page and keep scrolling.
Also, via this link rich post at Protein Wisdom, a quote from Cliff May at the Corner;

On the BBC today one British official was quite puzzled that the terrorists would strike during the G8, a time when world leaders were addressing “poverty, inequality and injustice.”
That presupposes that the terrorists care about “poverty, inequality and injustice.” How stupid do you have to be to believe that someone who takes money from a Saudi billionaire to buy bombs cares about “poverty and inequality”? How ignorant do you have to be to believe that to Radical Islamists “justice” means anything other than infidels choking on their own blood, their civilization burning and a glorious, renewed caliphate arising from the ashes?

That’s the problem in a nutshell – there are a lot of stupid people in Canada who believe just that. The most serious aspect is that we’ve managed to elect a whole bloody government full of them.
Also – a preliminary report from a “source inside the Pentagon” that one of the bombers was a recent Gitmo release.
Finally – observations about the relative weakness of the attack from the decidedly unstupid Wretchard.

This CBC news item from today is a perfect example of why Canadians continue to be misinformed on the nature of Islamic terrorism. Whether it’s incompetence or a deliberate attempt to place blame for the Madrid train bombings on the Bush administration, I’ll leave to the reader to judge;

The deputy prime minister said there’s no way of guaranteeing bombers won’t strike here, given that Canada made it onto a list of al-Qaeda targets for sending troops to Afghanistan to support the U.S.-led mission against that country’s former government after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks against the United States.
The other countries on the al-Qaeda list released in November 2002 were Great Britain, France, Italy, Germany and Australia.
Spain later became a target because it sent troops to Iraq when U.S. President George W. Bush’s administration decided to invade and topple Saddam Hussein’s government.
Suicide bombings later confirmed to be the work of al-Qaeda militants killed 191 train commuters in and around the Spanish capital of Madrid in March 2004.

Emphasis mine.
As I noted in this SDA post of nearly a year ago, the New Yorker had reported ;

“One of the most sobering pieces of information to come out of the investigation of the March 11th bombings is that the planning for the attacks may have begun nearly a year before 9/11. In October, 2000, several of the suspects met in Istanbul with Amer Azizi, who had taken the nom de guerre Othman Al Andalusi-Othman of Al Andalus. Azizi later gave the conspirators permission to act in the name of Al Qaeda, although it is unclear whether he authorized money or other assistance- or, indeed, whether Al Qaeda had much support to offer. In June, Italian police released a surveillance tape of one of the alleged planners of the train bombings, an Egyptian housepainter named Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed, who said that the operation ‘took me two and a half years.’ Ahmed had served as an explosives expert in the Egyptian Army. It appears that some kind of attack would have happened even if Spain had not joined the Coalition- or if the invasion of Iraq had never occurred.”

This was one of the major news stories to occur that year. Now, if a gawdamned nobody artist in Saskatchewan knows this, why doesn’t the CBC?
update – a reader has provided a fresh url to the New Yorker piece.

A good time to revisit this essay by Bill Whittle – particularly for those who have found their way to the blogosphere only recently, perhaps through searches for information on the London bomb attacks.

If someone is coming toward me in an alley, knife drawn, I do not give a damn why their socio-economic status may have had an influence in coloring their worldview regarding income redistribution. To take such a position rather than preparing to defend yourself is suicide, and we will come back to this later because it is a key to understanding what is going on out there.
Radical Islam is a religious cult based on constant, never-ending warfare. I personally am aware of no other religious tracts that are as filled with page after page of conquest, strategy and military jargon. Islam rose to prominence under the sword, and the Prophet was, above all else, a military commander determined to spread his faith by conquest and enslavement. Islam has rules for when prisoners should be released, ransomed, sold into slavery or have their throats cut. As a matter of fact, Islam has rules for everything. What to eat, how to wash, where and when and in which direction to pray. Islam has rules for the treatment of animals and the treatment of women. There is no part of daily life that is not specifically addressed, sanctioned or outlawed by Islam.
And contrary to post 9/11 spin, the most accurate translation of Islam is not “peace.” Prior to 9/11, the nearly universally accepted translation of the concept of Islam was “submission.”

I don’t care if you don’t like what he has to say. I don’t care if it makes your PC antennae swivel in indignation and alarm. If your first reaction is to respond with the insipid “hatemonger!” epithet, then you need to grow up. We all need to grow up. And most importantly, the national media that has been virtually ignoring the growing bodycounts of radical Islam worldwide in favour of wall-to-wall coverage of garden variety psychopaths and the quirkiness of the Hollywood actors needs to grow up.

First, Islam philosophically divides the world into two camps – this is Islam'[s definitions, not mine — Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb. Dar al-Islam is the House of Submission. Dar Al-Harb is not the House of Infidels. It is the House of War.

I was going to do a link roundup on the London bombings, but checking Instapundit this morning, there’s no way I can do better than Glenn’s collection.
Useful analysis at Winds of Change, where there seems to be little doubt that this is a textbook Islamic attack.