Update: The bus driver's story.
British officials have now confirmed that the death toll in the terrorist bombings yesterday as at or above 50 (the toll from the bus attack, as expected, is up from 2, and currently at 13). Officials had seemed to be under-reporting the toll all day yesterday. And the Australian news services and AFP wire (which have provided the best info so far) are saying the bus bombing could either have been a suicide bomber, or a fourth "timer" type bomb that went off prematurely as it was being carried to the intended target location. The British authorities are being extremely cautious it seems, since if the bus was blown by a suicide bomber, it would be the first such attack ever in Britain, and a precedent they certainly want no part of. Another view of the bus:
Also, angry, shocked Britons are starting to ask the inevitable question of whether Tony Blair's insistence on following George Bush into Iraq is to blame for the attacks. George Galloway started it yesterday, but it's also a question being asked by individual Brits, although I spoke with my mother-in-law in London this morning (she spent about an hour walking home yesterday because her bus line passes through the heart of the city where the bombings took place), and she expressed what I think is a strong counterveiling view: that terrorists are terrorists. they do what they do because they're terrorists, not because of Tony Blair or Iraq. Previous posts: |
