outside one of London’s most popular night clubs early this morning is naturally the story of the day, and media reports are saturated with mostly similar summaries of what is known at this point about the incident. The Associated Press, not surprisingly, reported earlier that there was no known link to terrorism, while more responsible news outlets obtained information connecting the construction and materials used in the foiled bomb to a known al Qaeda bomb maker. Conflicting media reports are not unusual in the early stages of a significant terrorist plot investigation, and rather than dwell on media inconsistencies I offer a few observations on this morning’s bomb discovery.1. Those who have read the author’s bio here know that I work directly in this field, and without getting into any details of how, if there had been any prior warning or indications of a potential bombing in London today I would have known about them. The silence, in this case, was truly deafening. Ordinarily prior to terrorist attacks, even of small magnitude, “chatter” increases and analysts in my line of work warn of the change in activity levels. That did not happen in this case. Whether through evolving terrorist strategies, exposed government surveillance techniques, or a combination of the two (the most likely), the cell that planned, constructed, and attempted to deliver and detonate today’s bomb kept a sophisticated silence. They may yet be identified and arrested through Britain’s effective metropolitan closed circuit TV camera systems standing guard on nearly every street corner, but the key point to this attempted bombing is that there were no warning signs. America and her allies have improved communication and information sharing between intelligence and law enforcement agencies somewhat since 9/11, but if the enemy provides no pre-operation signs of activity, information sharing is a moot point.
2. As one of my favorite fellow bloggers pointed out today at his site In From the Cold, perhaps the only reason hundreds of night club patrons in London are still alive today is because an ambulance crew responding to a call in the area noticed something unusual about the car containing the bomb, and notified the police. We should never underestimate our “gut instincts.” Every day, we see unusual behavior or something that just seems amiss, and we have to make judgments regarding the nature of what we have seen and evaluate whether it warrants alerting authorities. In this case, the ambulance crew was en route to render emergency assistance to someone and could have ignored the silver Mercedes parked sloppily on the curb. No one would have thought less of the crew had they proceeded on to perform their duty. However, by taking the time to make that one radio call to the police, hundreds of lives were likely spared. They did not know that at the time, they simply followed their “street smarts” or if you prefer, “intuition.”
If you see something or someone that just doesn’t look right, follow your instincts, trust them, and make that call to the authorities. If it turns out to be nothing, you can chuckle about it later. If it turns out to be a bomb made of gasoline, propane, and nails intended to maximize casualties, and you chose not to make the call for fear of embarrassment, you will be devastated by your inaction. Police, firemen, and EMTs are not the only first responders when it comes to public safety. More often than not, ordinary citizens will be first to witness something unusual or come across someone in need of assistance. As the Boy Scout motto urges, “Be Prepared!”
3. As we move closer to our July 4th festivities, we should keep in mind the events in London today. Large gatherings of reveling westerners are a particularly attractive target for radical Islamic terrorists. Our celebrations are representative to them of our decadence, and parades, concerts, and fireworks extravaganzas offer a banquet full of tasty terror choices. Extensive camera surveillance systems are not yet the norm in America as they are in Britain, and so we must rely on our intelligence agencies to provide us advance warning. Advance warning, however, does not always come, as today’s events proved yet again. Three hundred million Americans are the best anti-terror tool available to us today. They possess six hundred million eyes and six hundred million ears looking out for or listening to each other and not ignoring that object, vehicle, conversation, or person who seems out of place or suspicious.
If “to err is human,” then “to err on the side of caution” should be our duty.
Diagram map of London courtesy of BBC
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London Car Bomb, Piccadilly, Haymarket Bomb, Tiger Tiger Nightclub, IED, Scotland Yard, Counterterrorism
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