Liverpool bomb incident 14/11/21

[Athos]

Aye, but the 'ra consistently built up their offensive capability over time, going from nuisance attacks against the likes of the Co-op (if that BICO pamphlet I read once was for real) to taking out whole city centres.

It's over twenty years since 9/11 - how's the Jihadi learning curve compare to the republican army?

You're not really comparing like-for-like. Although the PIRA's ASU structure tried to implement firewalls to limit the impact of infiltration, it was still essentially a conventional army in terms of command and control. That's very different from much of Islamist terrorism, which, whilst inspired by a relatively unified ideology is much more diffuse in terms of operational activity. There appears to be very little control from the centre, which is both a strength and a weakness.

 

[Idris2002]

You're not really comparing like-for-like. Although the PIRA's ASU structure tried to implement firewalls to limit the impact of infiltration, it was still essentially a conventional army in terms of command and control. That's very different from much of Islamist terrorism, which, whilst inspired by a relatively unified ideology is much more diffuse in terms of operational activity. There appears to be very little control from the centre, which is both a strength and a weakness.

That's my point! Or sort of, anyway. . . PIRA reorganized on a cell structure basis in the mid-1970s, if memory serves. There would still have been a strict hierarchy linking those cells to the army council at the top, but being run as a network of cells implies differences in terms of command and control, making it not the same as a conventional army. . . the Beard's Barmy Army is under much less control from the centre, but there's still an organization there. And the centre or centres have been able to transmit operational lessons and information in addition to ensuring ideological uniformity. Remember ISIS's "how to build a bomb in your mum's kitchen" article?

And yet, in spite of that capacity at the centre we don't see the kind of refinement of technique that the 'ra was able to achieve.

 

[AmateurAgitator]

I wonder how the tax driver is? Bloody shaken up I bet. What a thing to go through.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Trouble with the suicide bombing strategy is that your most competent actors leave the stage first, leaving just the dross behind. We have been very lucky with the utter shitness of many; shoe-bomber, underpants bomber, the liquid on aircraft cunts, the list goes on and on. But then Manchester arena.

 

[Athos]

That's my point! Or sort of, anyway. . . PIRA reorganized on a cell structure basis in the mid-1970s, if memory serves. There would still have been a strict hierarchy linking those cells to the army council at the top, but being run as a network of cells implies differences in terms of command and control, making it not the same as a conventional army. . . the Beard's Barmy Army is under much less control from the centre, but there's still an organization there. And the centre or centres have been able to transmit operational lessons and information in addition to ensuring ideological uniformity. Remember ISIS's "how to build a bomb in your mum's kitchen" article?

And yet, in spite of that capacity at the centre we don't see the kind of refinement of technique that the 'ra was able to achieve.

I don't think we're miles apart. Though I suspect there's less organisation than you think. That a lot of people who commit such acts have nothing to do with any central authority beyond exposure to its propaganda; no meaningful training, allocation of personnel, provision of materiel, or logistics support. Whilst PIRA leadership realised the value of its limited human resource, the Islamist model is more about a massive pool of low value human assets to be burnt cheaply.

 

[NoXion]

They also understand the concept of cumulative effect - that 10 attacks/plots, with only one or two working, is still 10 attacks/plots for the enemy to deal with.

These guys are happy to be chaff, because as any WWII bomber pilot will tell you, chaff fucks up the enemy.

These fuckers have been attacking the country I live in for two decades now. I dunno about anyone else, but I'm well past the point where this kind of crap is shocking to me any more. I also think you're underestimating a how cumulative series of duff attempts at terrorising us has taken at least some of the sting out of it. It's hard to project an image of being big scary jihadis when your holy warriors keep looking like fucking fools.

I refuse to be intimidated by these dickheads.

 

[Idris2002]

I don't think we're miles apart. Though I suspect there's less organisation than you think. That a lot of people who commit such acts have nothing to do with any central authority beyond exposure to its propaganda; no meaningful training, allocation of personnel, provision of materiel, or logistics support. Whilst PIRA leadership realised the value of its limited human resource, the Islamist model is more about a massive pool of low value human assets to be burnt cheaply.

Years ago I read a thing about competitive suicide bombing in Lebanon - the competition being between Hizbollah and AMAL for the loyalty of the Shi'ite communities. Because of the taboo on suicide in Islam, they could only use socially marginal people as bomb fodder (e.g. orphans, etc.), and once the well ran dry on that front it was back to shooting each other.

 

[Idris2002]

Trouble with the suicide bombing strategy is that your most competent actors leave the stage first, leaving just the dross behind. We have been very lucky with the utter shitness of many; shoe-bomber, underpants bomber, the liquid on aircraft cunts, the list goes on and on. But then Manchester arena.

MI6anchester arena?

 

[BassJunkie]

These fuckers have been attacking the country I live in for two decades now. I dunno about anyone else, but I'm well past the point where this kind of crap is shocking to me any more. I also think you're underestimating a how cumulative series of duff attempts at terrorising us has taken at least some of the sting out of it. It's hard to project an image of being big scary jihadis when your holy warriors keep looking like fucking fools.

I refuse to be intimidated by these dickheads.

This is how I feel. I make a conscious decision to not be terrorised, else they've won. Fuck 'em. I've got more chance of winning the lottery than being killed in a terrorist attack. I give it no thought.

In 2019 1752 people died in Road Traffic Accidents in the UK. Almost 5 a day. It would be much more rational for me to feel terrified every time I get into the car/drive my family/walk my children close to a road.

 

[Pickman's model]

These fuckers have been attacking the country I live in for two decades now. I dunno about anyone else, but I'm well past the point where this kind of crap is shocking to me any more. I also think you're underestimating a how cumulative series of duff attempts at terrorising us has taken at least some of the sting out of it. It's hard to project an image of being big scary jihadis when your holy warriors keep looking like fucking fools.

I refuse to be intimidated by these dickheads.

I'm not sure you or I are their target audience. But time and again the state look like muppets, 'we knew about him but reckoned he wasn't a threat' or London bridge man wheeled out as an example of success. Who are the fools? I imagine that part of the message is 'these people are fools, they can be easily outwitted'. Also the attacks pin-pricks tho they may be can be carried out by pretty much anyone. Get a car. Hijack a van. Stab people. Make a basic ied. There's something of the leaderless resistance about the way they operate, and if they strung together two or three attacks in quick succession it would be interesting to see where that momentum led.

 

[xenon]

Some odd details surfacing, if they're accurate. The old man who lived with him for eight months says that he'd been arrested for possession of a 'large knife' in 2014, and had then been sectioned & hospitalised for several months.
He was trying to get to the cathedral which is where he was baptized in 2017 apparently. And it seems he was really into formula one and put pineapple on pizza.
View attachment 297008

Obviously a total rwrongun...

 

[Magnus McGinty]

The IRA had clear objectives. Breivik and the Unabomber published manifestos. These fucks state fuck all. Is it just lashing out at the imperialist infidels and… fuck all else?

 

[kebabking]

'm not sure you or I are their target audience. But time and again the state look like muppets, 'we knew about him but reckoned he wasn't a threat' or London bridge man wheeled out as an example of success. Who are the fools? I imagine that part of the message is 'these people are fools, they can be easily outwitted'. Also the attacks pin-pricks tho they may be can be carried out by pretty much anyone. Get a car. Hijack a van. Stab people. Make a basic ied. There's something of the leaderless resistance about the way they operate, and if they strung together two or three attacks in quick succession it would be interesting to see where that momentum led.

I think it had some impact on the 2017 election - probably a bit both ways, with some thinking the spate of attacks in the run up to that election that the government had obviously lost control, and others wondering whether a Corbyn/Abbott/McDonnell government would be up to it.

I don't doubt that an effect could be achieved, particularly if there was a wider sense of the government having taken its eyes off other balls as well...

 

[NoXion]

I'm not sure you or I are their target audience. But time and again the state look like muppets, 'we knew about him but reckoned he wasn't a threat' or London bridge man wheeled out as an example of success. Who are the fools? I imagine that part of the message is 'these people are fools, they can be easily outwitted'. Also the attacks pin-pricks tho they may be can be carried out by pretty much anyone. Get a car. Hijack a van. Stab people. Make a basic ied. There's something of the leaderless resistance about the way they operate, and if they strung together two or three attacks in quick succession it would be interesting to see where that momentum led.

I'm a civilian, a soft target. That makes me the "audience" of terrorism by definition.

If the state is also incompetent, then that just makes the terrorists look like even more of a bunch of bumbling morons.

Sure, it's easy to grab a knife or a car and start attacking people. But what does that actually achieve, beyond the immediate injuries and loss of life which are a drop in the statistical bucket? The government won't negotiate with terrorists. The general public is, I think, becoming more jaded about this kind of thing, and I also think people have become less fearful and more willing to intervene when this of shit occurs, as in the London bridge attack.

When a movement has nothing to offer anyone but destruction, violence and a miserable and lonely death surrounded by laughing adversaries, then I don't think that such a movement has anything to offer anyone who isn't one of a small minority of broken individuals willing to lash out.

 

[gosub]

Years ago I read a thing about competitive suicide bombing in Lebanon - the competition being between Hizbollah and AMAL for the loyalty of the Shi'ite communities. Because of the taboo on suicide in Islam, they could only use socially marginal people as bomb fodder (e.g. orphans, etc.), and once the well ran dry on that front it was back to shooting each other.

Beruit is in for a tough winter.

 

[Athos]

When a movement has nothing to offer anyone but destruction, violence and a miserable and lonely death surrounded by laughing adversaries, then I don't think that such a movement has anything to offer anyone who isn't one of a small minority of broken individuals willing to lash out.

The trouble is that their perception of what's offered is quite different - glory and paradise.

 

[gosub]

The trouble is that their perception of what's offered is quite different - glory and paradise.

Well on this occasion of trying to blow up an NHS maternity hospital, God wasn't willing. (seriously wtf, that's sort of like blowing up a mosque in Mecca) . or rather fair amout of justice in the outcome. I am in agreement with the suicide bombers on one thing....if you've the point where doing this sort of shit feels a legitiamate path,, porbably best if you did fuck off out of life.

 

[Pickman's model]

I'm a civilian, a soft target. That makes me the "audience" of terrorism by definition.

If the state is also incompetent, then that just makes the terrorists look like even more of a bunch of bumbling morons.

Sure, it's easy to grab a knife or a car and start attacking people. But what does that actually achieve, beyond the immediate injuries and loss of life which are a drop in the statistical bucket? The government won't negotiate with terrorists. The general public is, I think, becoming more jaded about this kind of thing, and I also think people have become less fearful and more willing to intervene when this of shit occurs, as in the London bridge attack.

When a movement has nothing to offer anyone but destruction, violence and a miserable and lonely death surrounded by laughing adversaries, then I don't think that such a movement has anything to offer anyone who isn't one of a small minority of broken individuals willing to lash out.

You don't have to look far to see the government has a history of negotiating with terrorists, have you really never heard of the covenant of security successive UK governments entered into with jihadis? Let alone Ireland and Palestine. And of course it's not just our government, the French and Americans have done it too Can we please lay this canard to rest? It makes you look gullible.

 

[LDC]

Trouble with the suicide bombing strategy is that your most competent actors leave the stage first, leaving just the dross behind. We have been very lucky with the utter shitness of many; shoe-bomber, underpants bomber, the liquid on aircraft cunts, the list goes on and on. But then Manchester arena.

In a similar way, a good number of the most motivated and competent traveled to Syria and other places and ended up dead there.

 

[Athos]

You don't have to look far to see the government has a history of negotiating with terrorists, have you really never heard of the covenant of security successive UK governments entered into with jihadis? Let alone Ireland and Palestine. And of course it's not just our government, the French and Americans have done it too Can we please lay this canard to rest? It makes you look gullible.

Of course they do. But it's hard to see that happening in the case of Islamists, given the nature of their ultimate aim.

 

[LDC]

Well on this occasion of trying to blow up an NHS maternity hospital...

It's still unclear if that was the intended target isn't it?

 

[two sheds]

He’s been described as a failed asylum seeker. If that’s the case, why wasn’t he deported?

Political correctness gone mad - the EU wouldn't let us


... oh wait

 

[gosub]

It's still unclear if that was the intended target isn't it?

The fact that it is unclear, is partally because it has happened before.( Maternity hospital , though not an NHS one) Depressing

 

[NoXion]

You don't have to look far to see the government has a history of negotiating with terrorists, have you really never heard of the covenant of security successive UK governments entered into with jihadis? Let alone Ireland and Palestine. And of course it's not just our government, the French and Americans have done it too Can we please lay this canard to rest? It makes you look gullible.

I don't see the government opening negotiations with leaderless, directionless, gormless losers who simply blow shit up while having no aims and presenting no demands.

 

[Athos]

It's still unclear if that was the intended target isn't it?

The latest reports suggest that was the destination given to the taxi driver.

 

[Pickman's model]

Of course they do. But it's hard to see that happening in the case of Islamists, given the nature of their ultimate aim.

I refer you back to the covenant of security

 

[Pickman's model]

I don't see the government opening negotiations with leaderless, directionless, gormless losers who simply blow shit up while having no aims and presenting no demands.

There are none so blind as those that will not see. I've given you an example of not only a negotiation but an agreement entered into without ever a bomb going off or a person being stabbed.

 

[NoXion]

There are none so blind as those that will not see. I've given you an example of not only a negotiation but an agreement entered into without ever a bomb going off or a person being stabbed.

So who are the government going to negotiate with following this attack? The perp is wormshit and he didn't have the manners to leave a contact number.

 

[Athos]

I refer you back to the covenant of security

Which, if it ever existed, isn't the same as negotiating a settlement with with Islamist terrorists.

 

[Pickman's model]

So who are the government going to negotiate with following this attack? The perp is wormshit and he didn't have the manners to leave a contact number.

That's an uncharacteristically poor post with a straw man. I said the government do negotiate with terrorists - see eg Gerry Adams et al flown to London in 1972. I didn't say or imply they always negotiate with terrorists - they never negotiate with them until they do.