Three Alleged London Bombers Visited Pakistan
In the biggest
terrorist attack since Madrid, London's transportation
system has recently been shattered by bombs. Three trains and one bus were bombed. Forty-nine lives were taken
and some 700 were injured. At first, responsibility for the bombings was claimed by a small group speaking for al-Qaeda, a terrorist group responsible for the 9-11 attacks on the United States. Today it is known that four bombers were involved whose relationship to Al-Quada is yet unclear.
One thing is certain, however, three of the alleged London bombers, Hasib Hussain, Shahzad Tanweer, and Sidique Khan, had visited Pakistan in the last year. Pakistani officials said that three of the four alleged bombers visited Pakistan. Tanweer allegedly stayed in a religious school in Pakistan. The bombers intentions are unclear, but England has been trying to find correlation between the visit and the recent bombings. Unclear also is the identity of the fourth bomber and his relationship to the other three and to Pakistan.
These three bombers, along with another, were caught on camera by train station security. They were carrying backpacks with bombs inside, blowing themselves and the train up.
While no one will be completely sure of the Terrorist’s intentions, British Prime Minister Tony Blair has not hesitated to begin what he calls a fight “against Islamic extremism”. Asking “law-abiding” and decent Muslims everywhere to rise up and collectively condemn the fundamentalism that is driving so many towards terror, Blair has already discretely cited fundamentalism as the main force behind the London bombings. While Muslim leaders everywhere rush to Blair’s Clarion calls, others are hesitant about mixing the political and the religious. In a time of dire need, there is no longer a choice, and perhaps the two realms have come crashing together as hatred begets more hatred and is borne into desctructive ideology on both sides of the battleground.