Just waiting to happen
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1523673,00.html
Peter Taylor
Friday July 8, 2005
The Guardian
I'd just finished recording the last programme in a new al-Qaida series
when the Olympic decision was announced. A colleague and I went down to
Trafalgar Square, and as we elbowed our way through the crowd I
remarked that it was a perfect target for a terrorist attack. I was out
by a day.
When I made my last al-Qaida series over a year ago, David Veness, then
head of Scotland Yard's specialist operations department, gave a
prophetic warning: "London is clearly one of the most vulnerable
locations. A danger remains there will be an attack. I fear it is
'when' within the United Kingdom. I think the 'if' is academic." The
following week Islamist extremists claiming to be "al-Qaida in Europe"
attacked rush-hour trains pulling into Madrid's Atocha station: 191
commuters were killed and hundreds more injured. As all remained quiet
over the following months on the UK front, a view developed that the
threat was a nightmare dreamed up by politicians - by implication, Bush
and Blair - to strengthen their grip on their electorates. The
alternative explanation - that the security and intelligence services
had perhaps been doing their job - was barely canvassed.
Al Qaeda
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.atheism/msg/8a2706b488e5e143
.
|
