A Hunch

I've been trying to hold off on discussing the London bombing, until the initial shock of the incident had passed, and a cooler logic could prevail. I've been pouring over the media accounts of the incident, and this so far is what has come up.

The London Bombings involved:

• timed explosives
• explosive devises under 10lbs.
• was claimed by the Secret Organization of al Qaeda's Jihad in Europe

Now, whether or not the bomb's are al Qaeda's has been narrowed down to one remaining clue. The bomb residue. If it was RDX (a type of explosive), then the fingerprint matches al Qaeda. If it was Semtex, then the path veers away from al Qaeda, and instead points at a domestic source, possibly the IRA.

Now, compare this to the Madrid Bombings, something also pinned to an al Qaeda cell.

The Madrid Bombings involved:

• remote explosives, set off with cell-phones
• indeterminate amounts of explosives
• was never claimed by a serious cell within al Qaeda

Interesting, indeed. I'm no expert on al Qaeda, but I've always been under the impression that all operatives in a cell were trained the same, to produce a "signature" that could be traced to back, like a message calling card. I could be way off on this, but the differences between all of the attacks have got my mind wondering.

Maybe something else is going on behind the scenes here, and the insidious danger is being covered by the obvious and convenient one.

What I would give to get the other side of this story.

edit: My friend Ravuya, has informed me that timed explosives are anachronistic, and nobody uses timed devices any more (proved to be too unreliable, etc). It's his speculation that the attacks might have been carried out by a cell which was formerly part of the al Qaeda body, but was severed from the main body by anti-terror measures, and became disgruntled with (I'm assuming) the lack of progress on the Iraq front against the Coalition.

Sound reasoning from Rav. Let's see where this rabbit hole goes.