Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
So says the Daily Mail, citing an Islamic extremist website.
Al-Hazeen wrote: "Is Britain longing for Al Qaeda's bombings? We, and the whole world has seen what Britain has done ... their intention to honour Salman Rushdie who insulted and slandered Islam."This 'honouring' came at a crucial time, a time when the whole nation is reeling from the Crusaders attacks on all Muslim lands.
"The British capital has witnessed blessed operations that shook it to its foundations.
I can't be the only one who has a strong visceral reaction to seeing the attempt to kill hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people with a car bomb described as "blessed." You just can't get much more twisted than that.
Comments
From CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/07/01/london.alert/index.html
My first thought was that this was done to mark the anniversary, much like OK City happened a year after Waco.
But it really doesn't matter what the actual reasons were behind this round of terrorism. Even if Rushdie wasn't knighted, these terrorists, in their sick heads, can always find a reason to try to kill people.
Let there be no doubt about it. Religion can (and often does) lead to sick thinking and destructive activities.
Posted by: doctorgoo | July 1, 2007 10:07 AM
Speaking as a Londoner, I don't feel like the city has been shook to it's foundations. Indeed, things are pretty much as normal. So, Al-Hazeen is basically talking utter shite. No surprise there then.
Posted by: SteveF | July 1, 2007 10:25 AM
Actually the daily mail is itself an extremist newspaper and website of a slightly different flavor. Think Fox news, published as a tabloid. That said, it is clear that the UK is a bit of an easy target for Islamic extremists and it wouldnt be too much of a surprise that the Salman Rushdie knighthood is tagged onto the list of grievances that sent these men off to join their 72 virgins in paradise (only to end up themselves as the prison wife of big Joe from cell 34).
Posted by: MartinC | July 1, 2007 11:18 AM
I felt it was probably some attempt to show the new P.M. that the Isalmic nutcases were not going to go away, but i could see it as a reaction to Salman Rushdie having such a hot wife.... I mean being Knighted.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | July 1, 2007 11:24 AM
Strange, I hadn't seen anyone in the UK mention Rushdie in connection with this, instead it's being assumed that the bombers wanted to spoil Gordon's big day (yes, we have a new PM, in case the rest of the world missed it). And given the risible damp squib they turned out be, 'blessed operations that shook [London] to its foundations' is the song of another lunatic taking refuge in la-la land. Dozens of arrests, more forensic evidence than the police can poke a stick at and the only casualty a bomber who almost burnt to death. Nice going, guys.
Posted by: Jonathan Vause | July 1, 2007 11:29 AM
Even more surprising when the virgins turn out to be raisins.
Posted by: MAJeff | July 1, 2007 4:12 PM
As my namesake alluded to, the 'Daily Nazi,' as it's often known, would jump on any pretext, no matter how flimsy, to blame everything and anything on the boogeyman du jour. Reliablity is not what it is best known for.
Posted by: MartinM | July 1, 2007 4:22 PM
blessed operations that shook it to its foundations.
How delusional do you have to be to come up with this?
Two car bombs that failed to go off.
One mad suicide driver ramming Glasgow Airport with (at last I read) six nonfatal casualties including the two terrorists and some property damage.
This is pap; propaganda for the Islamic converted, written in "Islamist-speak" to convince poor, manipulated Muslims somewhere (anywhere) that these lunatics are actually achieving something. Or perhaps to convince themselves.
To shake London to its foundations, you have to do something like what the Germans did in the first part of the Second World War, night after night. The reaction to that, of course, was a campaign of retaliation that laid waste to most of Germany's major cities.
There are still people living in London today who are accustomed to nightly aerial bombardment. There are even more who are accustomed to repeated terrorist bomb attacks on civilians thanks to the IRA.
Two failed attacks and a damp squib? Hardly foundation-rocking.
And as for this:
the Crusaders attacks on all Muslim lands
This isn't even an agenda - it's just an excuse to commit mayhem.
Posted by: Justin Moretti | July 1, 2007 10:21 PM
People I know working about two minutes walk away from Haymarket didn't even know about the incident on Friday morning until they got into work and turned the internet on.
As for causing panic, the person I know who is most worried about travelling to London lives 200 miles away and hardly ever goes there. Everyone else is shrugging their shoulders and getting on with live exactly as normal.
Posted by: mah9 | July 2, 2007 6:19 AM
People I know working about two minutes walk away from Haymarket didn't even know about the incident on Friday morning until they got into work and turned the internet on.
As for causing panic, the person I know who is most worried about travelling to London lives 200 miles away and hardly ever goes there. Everyone else is shrugging their shoulders and getting on with live exactly as normal.
Posted by: mah9 | July 2, 2007 6:20 AM
Maybe I'm missing something, but I wouldn't call operations that completely failed to do anything but get their operators arrested / badly burned "blessed" by most definitions of the word. In fact, if that's how your "blessed" operations are going to go, you may want to consider the possibility that God hates you.
Posted by: Troublesome Frog | July 2, 2007 2:17 PM