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Terrorists thankful for deflation

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    Terrorists thankful for deflation

    Costs of bomb making has fallen dramatically. Hence any nutter with a few quid can now wreak death and destruction. And the tree huggers want less police power? Does not compute.

    London bombs cost just hundreds

    From The Beeb Online

    By Michael Buchanan
    BBC News

    An investigation by the BBC World Service into the cost of the London bombings last July has revealed that they cost no more than a few hundred pounds to carry out.

    As soon as Scotland Yard established the identities of the four men responsible for the London bombings on 7 July, they began investigating the financing of the attacks.

    Officers now believe that Mohammad Sidique Khan, who worked as a teaching assistant, was the principal backer of the attacks and that he gave money to the other men to buy some of the materials.

    The attacks by four suicide bombers on three Tube trains and a bus killed 52 people and injured hundreds.

    Detectives also discovered that the men had prepared for their own deaths - they paid off some of their debts and at least one bomber is understood to have written a will.

    Further investigations allowed police to put a price on the cost of executing the attacks - no more than several hundred pounds.

    Loretta Napoleoni, an economist and expert on terrorist financing, told Dirty Money on the BBC World Service that the figure was part of a pattern.

    "If you look at 9/11, which cost only $500,000 to execute, and then you look at all the subsequent attacks that have taken place - going from Bali to Istanbul to Madrid to London - we actually see that the cost of the attacks is decreasing exponentially."

    Still, the figure now revealed for the cost of the London bombings is very low.

    The Madrid bombings - another attack on the transport infrastructure of a major European city - are estimated to have cost $10,000, approximately 10 times the cost of the London bombings.

    Within days of the attacks, Chancellor Gordon Brown went to Brussels for a meeting of EU finance ministers to urge them to cooperate more closely to stop the financing of terrorism.

    But the fact that London was bombed for such a cheap figure - and that the money was raised legitimately - highlights the problems that the authorities have in tackling terrorist financing.

    Douglas Greenburg, who studied the financing of attacks on New York and Washington as part of the 9/11 commission, told Dirty Money: "If you have someone who is working and depositing their pay cheques into the bank, and periodically withdrawing money and at night buying components for a bomb, constructing a bomb in their basement, what's the bank going to do about that?"
    Sola gratia

    Sola fide

    Soli Deo gloria

    #2
    Just wait... El Gordo will soon announce a tax on bomb making, charged on the perceived collateral damage of the bomb, and using a database to track whether of not your bomb is detonated by hand or mobile phone.
    Vieze Oude Man

    Comment


      #3
      Entropy

      Basic entropy - it's easier to create disorder than order.

      Comment


        #4
        I see LUL are doing their bit to discourage future tube attacks. Fares have gone up.
        His heart is in the right place - shame we can't say the same about his brain...

        Comment


          #5
          It isn't so much a case of us wanting less Police powers - more a case of not wanting them to have even more.

          Where would you draw the line with Police powers Chico ? Or is there no line the Police can step over in your mind ?

          Do you believe in the Police both pursuing and being granted absolute powers ?

          Comment


            #6
            Even God can't stop terrorism so how much power do the police need?

            Comment


              #7
              Was it wise to mention God in a Chico thread? Too late, either way...
              His heart is in the right place - shame we can't say the same about his brain...

              Comment


                #8
                Bob, absolute power - that rests with Parliament, the Prime Minister, EU etc etc. We should not take the viewpoint that the police are inherently evil and they must be stopped and all requests they make must be denied. On the contrary we must listen to all requests bearing in mind that the threat facing us has changed considerably and we need to react accordingly. We pay them to protect and let us not unduly make their work even harder by creating unnecessary obstacles.
                Sola gratia

                Sola fide

                Soli Deo gloria

                Comment


                  #9
                  Originally posted by Chico
                  Costs of bomb making has fallen dramatically. Hence any nutter with a few quid can now wreak death and destruction. And the tree huggers want less police power? Does not compute.
                  I don't get your point dude, bombs have always been fairly cheap to make. Fertiliser and HCL are common consumables in several industries. What has this to do with the police having more power?

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by insight14
                    I don't get your point dude, bombs have always been fairly cheap to make. Fertiliser and HCL are common consumables in several industries. What has this to do with the police having more power?
                    When you say bombs are fairly easy to make - do you not take into the account the potency or the explosive capacity of the bomb? Certainly if the materials that can cause significant damage are becoming cheaper to acquire then surely we would want the police to have the necessary powers to prevent such atrocities.
                    Sola gratia

                    Sola fide

                    Soli Deo gloria

                    Comment

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