Further down Memory Lane

Another couple of items from my days with 'ATV Today' in the Midlands in the 1970s. First a report on the court appearance in August 1974 by 7 men charged in connection with IRA bombings. IRA bombs were nothing unusual in the West Midlands around that time. Let's hope Brexit doesn't lead to a revival

https://www.macearchive.org/films/atv-today-05081974-birmingham-bomb-explosions-arrests

Then from July 1977, a report on villages in Leicestershire persecuted by very heavy traffic, who were very keen to see the M69 motorway (pictured) built to siphon the juggernauts away from their streets.

https://www.macearchive.org/films/atv-today-08071977-m69-villages

Most ISIS victims are Muslims

Following yesterday’s murder of an 86 year old Roman Catholic priest in his church in Rouen in northern France, a reminder that most victims of ISIS terrorists are Muslims.

More than 40 people have been killed by a massive suicide truck bomb in the Kurdish-controlled city of Qamishli in north-east Syria near the border with Turkey. ISIS said it was behind the attack which happened near a security headquarters. The blast appears to have caused a gas tank to explode, adding to the destruction.

Kurds have been perhaps the most resolute opponents of ISIS, in spite of also finding themselves under attack from Turkey’s increasingly autocratic president, Recep Erdogan. As a result they have often been the victims of bombings by the Islamist terrorists.

Earlier this month, an ISIS suicide bomber on a motorbike killed 16 people among a crowd which had gathered to celebrate the end of Ramadan in the Kurdish-majority city of Hasakah in northeastern Syria.

Pakistan: fanatics for polio

There are only two countries in the world where polio is still endemic – Afghanistan and Pakistan. In Pakistan, Muslim extremists are helping it to go on killing and paralysing children by murdering vaccination workers.

In the latest attack this week, at least 15 people were killed by a suicide bomber at an inoculation centre at Quetta in Balochistan. It happened just as medics and the security staff who are needed to protect them had reported for duty before going out on their rounds. Another 20 people were injured.

There were more than 300 cases of polio in Pakistan in 2014, the highest number since 1999, following a series of attacks by extremists. Last year, energetic efforts by the security forces enabled the vaccine teams to penetrate what had previously been no-go areas, and the number of cases fell to 50.

The fanatics claim immunisation is a Western plot to sterilise Pakistani children. As a result of the latest bombing, the vaccination programme in Balochistan has been suspended. (See also my posts of 24 February, 3 March, and 10 December, 2014.)

Remember Paris, but don't forget Beirut, Nigeria, Mali, Egypt, Cameroon....

is not every week that English football supporters sing the Marseillaise when a French team is playing England, nor every week that British prime ministers and home secretaries break into French, but then it is not every week that 129 people are murdured in Paris by Muslim fanatics.

But that was only one of a spate of recent Islamist attacks across a number of countries. In Beirut, ISIS said it carried out two suicide bombings that killed 40 people. In Nigeria, more than 40 people died in bombings by Boko Haram, which killed more than 6,640 in 2014, making it the world’s deadliest terror organisation.

In Mali, 20 people perished in an attack on a hotel claimed by two Islamist groups, one affiliated to al-Qaeda, while ISIS claims it brought down the Russian airliner that crashed in Sinai on October 31 with the loss of 224 people.

Just today, suicide bombers, suspected to be from Boko Haram, claimed another four victims in Cameroon. It is not only the dead and injured of Paris that we need to remember.

Mumbai train bombers convicted

In India, 12 men have been convicted for their part in the co-ordinated bombings of Mumbai commuter trains in 2006 that killed 189 people and injured more than 800. One man was acquitted. Sentencing is due tomorrow.

The seven bombs went off during a 15 minute spell, and appeared to have targeted first class compartments as people were going home from jobs in the city’s financial district. Explosives were packed into pressure cookers, then put in bags.

Prosecutors said the attack was planned by Pakistan's intelligence agency ISI, and carried out by the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba with help from the Students' Islamic Movement of India, a banned Indian group. Pakistan has rejected the allegations.

Mumbai has been hit by a number of terrorist attacks. In 2013, bombs killed 257 people, and bombers also struck in 2003 and 2011, killing a total of 70, while in 2008, gunmen attacked a number of places in the city, killing 165.

Tokyo - 70 years on from one of history's deadliest air raids

Seventy years ago this week, Tokyo and other Japanese cities were laid waste in a series of devastating air raids. On the night of March 9 and 10, 1945, more than 300 bombers dropped incendiaries on the Japanese capital for over two hours.

This resulted in what was said to be the worst man-made fire in history. Many of Tokyo's citizens lived in tightly packed, flimsy wooden buildings, and for the loss of just 15 aircraft, the Americans were able to destroy more than a quarter of a million structures. 

Fires raged for four days, and the death toll may have been as high as 140,000 - a similar number to the Atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima, and nearly twice as many as the one on Nagasaki. Over the next few days, Nagoya, Osaka and Kobe all suffered similar fates to Tokyo.

While last month's 70th anniversary of the bombing of Dresden was marked across Europe, in Tokyo, there is little today to commemorate the devastating raid of 1945, apart from a memorial (pictured) and a charnel house in a park. For more, see A Disastrous History of the World. 

7/7 bombings memorial vandalised

While mourners and survivors prepared to mark today’s ninth anniversary of the London bus and tube bombings of 2005, vandals sprayed the 52 steel columns which commemorate the victims of the attack with slogans such as ‘4 innocent Muslims.’

Royal Parks staff cleaned off the graffiti before the event began. There is one column for each of the 52 who were killed by four Islamist suicide bombers a day after London won the contest to host the Olympic Games of 2012.

The then mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, described it as an attack on ordinary Londoners – ‘black and white, Muslim and Christian, Hindu and Jew, young and old’. And the names of the victims reinforced his message – Adams, Ciaccia, Gunoral, Ikeagwu, Islam, Rosenberg etc.

The radical imam, Anwar al-Awlaki, who was said to have inspired the bombers was killed by a US drone in Yemen in 2011.  

Iraq and madness

‘Put a sock in it!’ That was London Mayor Boris Johnson’s advice to Tony Blair after his latest attempt to justify the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Mr Johnson, who voted for the war, declared that Mr Blair ‘has finally gone mad’.

You can see why the mayor might take this view. Bush and Blair attacked the country as part of the ‘war on terror’. When they launched their invasion, there was plenty wrong with Iraq, but there was no terrorism to speak of. Now Prime Minister David Cameron rates the ISIS Islamic extremists of Iraq and Syria as the biggest terrorist danger to the UK.

One of the reasons why so many people in the UK opposed invading Iraq was that it would put us at risk of events like the 7.7 bombings of 2005. Now, what do you know? Mr Cameron is warning us that ISIS is planning attacks in the UK.

It is, of course, the Iraqi people themselves who are the main victims of terrorism, and I have blogged frequently about their suffering. Last month nearly 800 people were killed, and already this month, hundreds more have died.

Relief workers murdered

In Pakistan, a roadside bomb has killed two soldiers helping with relief work after last month’s earthquake in Balochistan. Three others were injured in the explosion near the town of Mashkay.

Up to 800 people were killed in the quake, with many more injured, and altogether 300,000 people are said to have been affected. No one has admitted carrying out the attack on the troops, but Baloch separatists have been fighting the army for years.

Rockets have been launched against army helicopters and members of the paramilitary Frontier Corps delivering relief.

The Pakistani army effectively controls large parts of the province - one of the country’s poorest - and insurgents accuse them of kidnapping and killing Baloch nationalists, charges the army denies.

Syria - lessons from Iraq?

As Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague itches to arm the rebels in Syria, a warning from Iraq that getting rid of a bad ruler does not solve all problems.  Yesterday, at least 66 people were killed in a dozen explosions targeting mainly Shia areas in Baghdad.

The United Nations says more than 700 people were killed in April, the worst monthly death toll in nearly five years.  So far this month more than 450 have died, raising fears that violence is heading back to the peaks seen in 2006 and 2007.

Many of the bombs were detonated in busy shopping areas and markets.  Last week, more than 70 people were killed in explosions at bus stations and markets in mainly Shia districts, while two weeks ago, 38 perished in an attack on a Sunni mosque.

Iraq’s Sunni minority has been complaining that the government, led by Shias, discriminates against them.

Iraq disaster goes on......and on

The disaster that Bush and Blair unleashed when they blundered into Iraq a decade ago shows no sign of abating.   Yesterday at least a dozen people, mainly Shia pilgrims, were killed in a series of bombings across the country.

No one has claimed responsibility, but Sunni militants, some of whom have links to al-Qaeda, have been blamed for much of the recent violence.   On Wednesday, more than 40 people were killed by bombs.

According to the authoritative independent Iraq Body Count monitoring group, last year 4,471 civilians were killed, an increase on 2011.   Every week on average, there are 18 bombings in the country.

Relations between Sunnis and Shias appear to get worse by the day.  Under Saddam Hussein, the Sunnis ruled the roost.     Since the invasion, they feel they have been marginalised and they have begun staging strikes and sit-ins.

* http://lagotafria.blogspot.com.es/  2nd blog on this page discusses my Historia Mundial de los desastres

Iraq - what a mess we left behind us

Just days after former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan castigated Tony Blair for failing to prevent the Iraq War, another dreadful reminder of its disastrous consequences, as a series of explosions ripped through the country, killing at least 9 people.

Worst hit was the town of Taji, 12 miles north of Baghdad, where 8 people died and more than 20 were injured by 3 car bombs.   According to some reports, the bombs were placed near Shia Muslim homes in the mainly Sunni town.

On September 9, at least 58 people were killed in a wave of attacks in 10 cities.   Then the bloodiest were in Amara, 185 miles south of Baghdad, where two car bombs exploded outside a Shia shrine and market place.

Just over a week later, at least 7 people lost their lives in a suicide car bomb near the heavily guarded International Zone in Baghdad, while June saw the deadliest day since American troops withdrew, with 84 people killed and nearly 300 injured.

Continuing disaster in Iraq - 9th anniversary bombings

As the US and UK governments gear up for their next Middle Eastern war - most favoured venue, Iran – a reminder of the continuing bloody disaster we unleashed on Iraq.   On the 9^th anniversary of the invasion, at least 30 people have been killed in a series of bombings in the country.

Two car bombs in the mainly Shia city of Karbala are said to have killed at least 13 people, while another in the northern city of Kirkuk caused the deaths of at least seven.   A pregnant woman died in Fallujah.

Bombings are now part of the daily pattern of life in Iraq.    In January, a suicide bomber killed 53 people in an attack on Shi’ite pilgrims in Basra in the south.   Then a few days later another suicide bomber killed 31 mourners at a Shi’ite funeral in Baghdad.

Nearly 5,000 soldiers in the invading armies were killed, but we have no real idea of the number of Iraqi civilians who have paid with their lives.    Few now contest that it is well over 100,000, but we will probably never know the true number because, as Nikita Khrushchev said of the authorities’ indifference to those who died in the great Soviet famine of 1932-3: ‘no one was counting.’

Bethnal Green tube station disaster - a memorial at last

Sixty-nine years after the event, work has finally begun on a permanent memorial to the 173 people who died in one of London’s deadliest single disasters of World War Two.   

On March 3, 1943, the BBC reported a 300 bomber raid on Berlin, and Londoners braced themselves for retaliation.   As sirens sounded, people headed for the shelters.   Then 500 yards from Bethnal Green tube station, a new battery of anti-aircraft rocket launchers opened up.

There was a rush for the steps leading down to the station, and close to the bottom, a woman stumbled.     Others fell over her, and a deadly crush began.    Altogether 173 people were suffocated or crushed to death, including 62 children.    In fact, no bombs fell on the East End of London that night.

Survivors and relatives of victims attended a ceremony to mark the beginning of work on the memorial, which is expected to take 3 months.

Bali bombings - latest suspect on trial

A 45 year old Javanese man has gone on trial in Jakarta for allegedly helping to make the bombs that killed more than 200 people in two night clubs in Bali in 2002.    Umar Patek was captured in the same town in Pakistan where the Americans tracked down Osama bin Laden.

He is also charged with involvement in a series of bombings in churches in Jakarta that killed 18 people.   If convicted, he could face the death penalty.

The prosecution claim Patek was recruited for the attack by Imam Samudra and Abdul Matin, better known as Dulmatin.   Samudra was executed in 2008, along with Ali Ghufron and Amrozi Nurhasyim, dubbed the ‘smiling assassin’ because of his demeanour at his trial, while Dulmatin was killed in a police ambush in 2010.   

It is alleged that Patek spent three weeks mixing the explosives in a rented house in Bali’s capital, Denpasar, then helped another bombmaker, Dr Azahari bin Husin, to assemble a huge van-bomb.    Husin was killed by Indonesian police in 2005.

Unlucky church

I was in Hamburg recently, and managed to pop into the wonderfully light and airy St Michael’s Church.  The inside reminded me a bit of St Martin-in-the-fields in London.    Originally constructed in 1647, it was destroyed by fire 103 years later after being struck by lightning.

It was rebuilt, but in 1906 it was burned down again, this time while building work was going on.  Then it was severely damaged by Allied bombing during World War Two.  

In July 1943, Hamburg was hit by what was then the most devastating raid of the war.   The RAF started a firestorm which reduced eight square miles of the city to blackened ruins.   About 42,000 people were killed, and Hitler’s minister for war production, Albert Speer, told the Fuehrer that if another three or four cities were bombed like that, it would mean ‘the end of the war’.

* Here’s a new review of my book Disaster!  ‘as much fun as any horror film’ – I take that as a compliment.

http://www.readprint.com/work-105455/Disaster-A-History-of-Earthquakes-Floods-Plagues-and-Other-Catastrophes-John-Withington

And this is me on the tv in the 1970’s:-

http://www.macearchive.org/archive.html?Title=23745

Target Mumbai

Mumbai was always regarded as a diverse, tolerant city.   Maybe that is why it has been targeted so often by terrorists.    In Wednesday’s attack, three bombs went off, thought to have been activated by timers, and 18 people were killed.

In 2008, a group of ten Muslim gunmen murdered 165 people in attacks on hotels, a station, and other places frequented by foreigners.   Back in March 1993, more than a dozen bombs made from plastic explosives and detonated by timers killed at least 257 people, while the terrorists also threw grenades at Mumbai airport.

Ten years later, bombings killed another 50 people, while in July 2006, seven bombs were set off on rush-hour trains during a period of 11 minutes, claiming 209 lives.   Police blamed an outlawed Indian Muslim organisation, Lashkar-e-Toiba (‘Soldiers of the Pure’), but said the outrage had been planned by Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI.

A trial of 13 people accused of involvement is still wending its way through the Indian justice system, with judgment now expected before the end of the year.

Chechen warlord claims Moscow bomb

A Chechen warlord, Doku Umarov, has said that he ordered the suicide bombing of Moscow’s Domodedovo airport last month which killed 36 people. He said the attacks would continue until Russia left the Caucasus.

Russian investigators say the bomber was a 20 year old man from the North Caucasus. Umarov, who was a minister in the Chechen separatist government of the 1990’s, also claimed responsibility for an explosion on the Moscow Metro in March of last year in which 39 people died.

The two wars that the Chechens fought with Moscow to try to secure their independence resulted in their capital Grozny being turned into what the United Nations described as ‘the most destroyed city on the planet’. The first caused the deaths of up to 100,000 people – mainly Chechen civilians.

The Chechens have since mounted a number of terrorist attacks. One resulted in the deaths of 120 people in a Moscow theatre in 2002, while the seizing of a school in North Ossetia in 2004 cost the lives of 330, including 150 children. (See also my blog of April 16, 2009.)

*This is the latest review of my book A Disastrous History of the World.

http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/leisure/books/8807420.A_Disastrous_History_of_the_World_by_John_Withington__Piatkus_paperback____9_99_/

Lockerbie + 22 - the tangled web

On the 22^nd anniversary of Britain’s worst ever terrorist outrage – the Lockerbie bombing – the only man ever convicted of it, the Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, is said to be in a coma and close to death.

Later today, a US senator is due to unveil the results of his own personal inquiry into Megrahi’s compassionate release last year. What the authorities on both sides of the Atlantic seem desperate to prevent, though, is any inquiry into who really planted the bomb that blew up the Pan-Am jumbo.

Megrahi was released only after he agreed to drop his appeal against conviction, and ten days ago it was revealed that an 800 page dossier compiled by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, examining the flaws in the case against him, is to be kept under lock and key. The commission had identified at least six grounds for thinking Megrahi may have been wrongly convicted. The UK government has also rejected requests for a full public inquiry.

Dr Jim Swire, who daughter was one of the 270 victims of the bombing, believes Megrahi was released in order to prevent an appeal that the authorities might have found ‘very embarrassing’. Now two of the Libyan’s children say they are preparing to sue the powers-that-be in Scotland for wrongfully imprisoning their father. Will that lead to the issues finally being properly examined? Or will the authorities just pay up so they can maintain the silence? Come on Wikileaks!

Mumbai appeal

The only surviving gunman from the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai has begun his appeal against the death sentence. 23 year old Mohammad Ajmal Amir Qasab, a Pakistani national, was one of ten assailants who caused the deaths of more than 170 people.

Qasab and an accomplice carried out the attack on the city’s main railway station, killing 52 people. In May, he was found guilty of mass murder and waging war against India.

For security reasons, the convicted man is appearing via video link from his prison. Reporters in the courtroom say he smiled frequently as he looked into the camera. The hearing is expected to last three months.

(See also my blogs of July 23 and Nov 26, 2009.)