Jackson Free Press

Four blasts rocked the London subway and tore open a packed double-decker bus during the morning rush hour Thursday, sending bloodied victims fleeing in the worst attack on London since World War II. At least 40 people were killed, U.S. officials said, and more than 360 wounded in the terror attacks.

A clearly shaken Prime Minister Tony Blair called the attacks "barbaric" and said they were designed to coincide with the G-8 summit opening in Gleneagles, Scotland. They also came a day after London won the bid to host the 2012 Olympics. A group calling itself "The Secret Organization of al-Qaida in Europe" claimed responsibility.

The explosions hit three subway stations and a double-decker bus in rapid succession beginning at 8:51 a.m. (3:51 a.m. EDT) and ended about 40 minutes later when a blast ripped the top off a bus. Implementing an emergency plan, authorities immediately shut down the subway and bus lines that log 8.4 million passenger trips every weekday.

Previous Comments

ID

87419

Comment

I truly hope Americans pay as much attention to this as the rest of the world did when we hit by terrorists. This is a huge story, and raises serious questions about our "war on terrorism" in Iraq. Al Quaeda is claiming responsibility so farócould this possibly mean that perhaps we should re-focus on energies on finding Osama bin Laden and figure out a way out of that ridiculous quandary the dumbass neo-cons got us into in Iraq? I know Bush likes to say we now have the terrorist cornered in Iraq (being that we opened a place for them to flood into), but obviously we don't. Our resources are strapped due to his war, that he lied to us to get us into, and we are losing more soldiers every day who could be helping in the real war against terrorism that Mr. Bush put on the backburner in order to test the neo-con's "shock and awe" theory. We can't bring back our loved ones, but we can seriously consider what the country is doing on our behalf.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-07-07T12:20:22-06:00

ID

87420

Comment

I agree. I was at Auburn University during the first Gulf War. AU had the largest ROTC program in the nation then. I had many older military in my engineering classes who had actively served all over the world. They spoke of how the war then is changing the way we execute our military operations. And I think we are seeing that now, too. Invading one country and declaring that terrorists are on the run is not the answer. We've got to be more creative and cooperative with other countries. Also in the news today, I see that Al Quaida is claiming that they have killed Egypt's top envoy to Iraq. We've got to quit trying to be the arrogant leader and foster a global sense of teamwork. I feel like these other countries realize what is at stake, but our leaders' arrogance is hindering progress.

Author

Steph

Date

2005-07-07T12:48:51-06:00