Planes, Trains and Buses (UPDATED ALL DAY)

I woke up thinking that it was the eleventh, for some reason.

Our friends in London get the Israeli treatment.

A series of bomb attacks on London's transport network has killed more than 30 people and injured about 350 others.

Three explosions on the Underground left 33 dead and an unknown number died in a blast on a double-decker bus.

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair promised the "most intense police and security service action to make sure we bring those responsible to justice."

An Islamist website has posted a statement - purportedly from al-Qaeda - claiming it was behind the attacks.

To the Islamist, all are targets, "infidel" and Muslim alike (there are plenty of Muslims in London, no doubt). From Sudan to Iraq, this is quite obvious. I submit that, in the War on Terror, there is no such thing as a “chickenhawk.”

God bless the UK.

UPDATE:

Blackfive:

I saw a woman passing out cups of tea at one disaster scene. An act so stoically English and so defiant at the same time...

Demosophist:

The mother country is being tested by the "Madrid strategy," and I'm reasonably confident that the response will be greater unity and moral clarity rather than less, reflecting yet another miscalculation by the Salafists who consistently underestimate the capacity of their infidel opposition for moral clarity in the face of totalitarian method. England is not new to this game, and has already won a struggle of this sort.

Tim Worstall:

You know, I’m not sure that these people have quite understood us. We’ve just spent 30 years being bombed by a bunch of terrorist nutters. Whatever your views on Irish nationalism, Eire, the rights of the IRA and so on, it is an inescapable truth that there were a series of bombings "on the mainland" and no, it didn’t spread "fear and panic from the north to the south."
No, not even when 21 people were killed in bombs in pubs, not even when thousands of bombs were dropped on London, death falling from the skies on a regular basis.

You’ve just not quite understood us, have you? Any politician who even so much as hinted at the idea that this would be a reason to leave Afghanistan or Iraq would be immediately howled down.

UPDATE:

Greyhawk:

Western Europe and Japan, by virtue of post-WWII rebuilding efforts, enjoy the finest, most advanced mass transit systems on the planet. Their vulnerability to terrorist attack has now been demonstrated repeatedly. From gas attacks in Japan to bombs in Spain and London, civilization's greatest enemies strike at symbols of it's strength that are demonstrably also it's weakness.

But that physical, tangible, and tactical weakness is not their true target. The weak point they aim for in such assaults is the perceived weakness in resolve of the people of the civilized world. In Spain the tactic appeared to get results; a government fell. [SNIP]

Is it time for London to fill it's cavernous subway tunnels with cement to ensure they are never attacked again? Is it time for the world to abandon mass transit as an unacceptably risky business altogether?

And what else should we surrender or abandon, to ensure we'll always be safe?

My answers are brief. "No" and "Nothing". The rest of the world will respond too, I'm sure.

London Mayor Ken Livingstone (even):

"I know that you personally do not fear to give your own life in exchange to taking others ... but I know you do fear you may fail in your long-term objective to destroy our free society ... in the days that follow, look at our airports, look at our seaports and look at our railway stations ... you will see that people from the rest of Britain, people from around the world, will arrive in London to become Londoners, to fulfill their dream and achieve their potential … whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail."

(Thanks to Silent Running, Tim Blair and Glenn Reynolds. The latter two have an abundance of links on this subject.)

UPDATE: Via Jeff Goldstein, we find this:

REPORT: One UK Homicide Bomber Was Recent GITMO Release

7 July 2005; 12:54 ET: Preliminary reports from a source inside the Pentagon indicate that one of the operatives involved in this morning's bombings in London was recently released from the prison at Guantanamo. DEVELOPING…

We await the commentary of those who call for the closure of Guanatanamo Bay.

UPDATE: Meant to be worse and maybe not all suicide bombers.

U.S. authorities tell ABC News that British police have recovered two unexploded bombs from the scene of the terror attacks in London.

In addition, British investigators say that parts of timing devices have been recovered from the blast scene that would have been used to detonate an explosive device. This could provide evidence that would help determine who was behind the attacks, sources told ABC News.

UPDATE: Defiant (I think we'll go with the unedited version):

[I]f this is a message to Tony Blair, we've got news for you. We don't much like our government ourselves, or what they do in our name. But, listen very clearly. We'll deal with that ourselves. We're London, and we've got our own way of doing things, and it doesn't involve tossing bombs around where innocent people are going about their lives.

And that's because we're better than you. Everyone is better than you. Our city works. We rather like it. And we're going to go about our lives. We're going to take care of the lives you ruined. And then we're going to work. And we're going down the pub.

So you can pack up your bombs, put them in your arseholes, and get the fuck out of our city.

(Thanks to Michael Totten)

UPDATE: Guess who is in London today.

Rudolph Giuliani, the former Mayor of New York so closely identified with his city's recovery after September 11 attacks, was in London this morning, just yards from Liverpool Street station when the bombs went off.

Mr Giuliani, who was given an honorary knighthood by the Queen in recognition of his leadership in 2001 said today's events strongly recalled the attacks on the World Trade Centre.

"They are a very eerie reminder of September 11. I was right near Liverpool [Street] station when the first bombing took place, so I could hear the sirens and then kept hearing reports of different bombings, in different parts of the city," he told Sky News television.