Terror comes to Scotland

10.23pm: Most thought it wouldn't happen here. The grim reality of today's events have left most people I've been speaking to extremely depressed. For me though, it's more about anger.

I am seething. From my information from the police, this, along with the incidents in London are serious events. Let's not have any conspiratorialising.

Any thought that there is any rhyme or reason to this kind of terrorism must vanish. Here we are at the beginning of a new chapter. We have a new prime minister in the first days of his new job after any dealings with the last one became just impossible. And what do these characters put at the forefront of his agenda straight away?

Nobody has benefitted from any of this carnage, whether it's 9/11, 7/7, the cause of good decent humanity has been set back years. It's not going to win any hearts, change any minds. If it's about advancing Muslim causes, I can't think of how anything has been advanced - quite the opposite.

No doubt there will be more comment in the days ahead. Will be interesting to know whether the perpetrators were Scottish. Have never come across a peep of the pro-Al-Qaeda, Al-Muhajiroun, Al-Ghuraaba stuff here the way you do in London. Either way, I'm shocked at the target.

Already we're seeing analysts on the news questioning our civil liberties arrangements vis a vis security. What can we do, stop people driving? Actually if we step back for a moment, a few years ago jumbo jets were the weapons of choice, not jeeps or luxury saloon cars. Last year we were told that terrorists could whip up potions causing "mass murder on an unimaginable scale". Now we're seeing these lunatics pour petrol over themselves.

Saying that the methods appear crude now, shouldn't make us complacent. All we can say is thank God no one has been hurt, and pray that no one does.

Comments

[Fraser]

Perhaps now you'll rethink your support for Hamas and other terrorist scum. They could have done exactly the same thing to an airport full of innocent folk in Israel - in fact, they've done worse.

[Alan Clayton]

Your evaluation of the situation is a tad naive to say the least.

[George Carty]

Nobody has benefitted from any of this carnage, whether it's 9/11, 7/7, the cause of good decent humanity has been set back years. It's not going to win any hearts, change any minds. If it's about advancing Muslim causes, I can't think of how anything has been advanced - quite the opposite.

I think you need to read Terrorist Strategy 101. If the West ended its imperialism in the Middle East and oppression of Muslims, where would that leave al-Qaeda and its extremist "cause"?

On the contrary – al-Qaeda wants the West to become more anti-Islam in order to drive Muslims into a corner, such that they feel they have no choice but to back al-Qaeda. The same explanation can be applied not just to violent terrorists, but also to the al-Ghurabaa marchers in London, with their bloodthirsty slogans.

I also wonder if some Islamophobes also had similar motivations in their support for the Iraq war. Perhaps they actually want a large-scale Muslim terrorist campaign in Europe, believing that it is the only way to erode Europe's moral qualms about ethnically cleansing its own Muslim population (which believers in the "Eurabia" threat believe Europe must do).

[Mr Eugenides]

Quite right.

It does have a different effect when it's somewhere so close to home, doesn't it? Makes it more immediate.

The main thing is that no-one in politics overreacts. Early indications are that no-one has. But if this had succeeded, or the next one does, there will be another round of calls for greater powers for the police and security services, 90-day detention, and so on - and it will be harder to resist.

[Janos]

You're right about it being set back. I understand that a lot of muslims are angry about the war, but I don't understand how a few of them can complain about the damage to human lives it causes when they then commit crimes themselves.

[Karima Hamdan]

Assalamualaikum Br Osama
Alhamdulilah no one was hurt but I agree with you - it makes me really angry to think that a Muslim could carry this out in the name of Islam.
Have a look at a few new articles on ummahpulse.co.uk that respond to the events over the weekend.
http://ummahpulse.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=141&Itemid=37
http://ummahpulse.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=140&Itemid=37
Wassalam
Sr Karima

[interested by stander]

I think the proposition

Muslim= Al queda = terrorist is ludicrous, if prevelant in the minds of many.

Early information suggests the perpetrators are not from Scotland so the notion we have a fifth column in our midst is dangerous and deeply misleading. As to the idea that these attacks stand uncondemned by Muslims , every time I hear of them or read about them there is almost always some Muslim spokesperson condemning them unreservedly.

[hansard]

If the people targetted had all been Jews would osama be so angry?

[Ted]

International terrorism comes to Glasgow and Glasgow kicks its head in.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=M_mTpr7iDT4&mode=related&search=

Surely now, Al-Qa'eda, after this humiliating defeat in Scotland, is on the verge of collapse.

[bellgrovebelle]

You're doing great on the news... keep up the good work!

[junglecitizen]

Janos:

"I don't understand how a few of them can complain about the damage to human lives it [the war] causes when they then commit crimes themselves."

Because Muslims do not have a collective hive-brain.

Hardline Islamic extremists in some places also appear to have great difficulty understanding how Danes can complain about having their flag publicly burnt and country boycotted, when it was them (the Danes) that went on printing the cartoons.

The assumption that other 'tribes' (for want of a better word) have a collective hive-brain that decides what each person does seems, unfortunately, to be almost a built-in part of the human condition. You can find it in pretty much every country on earth...

[Scotswoman]

Watched Newsnight last night and thought you handled the interview really well.

Some Scots will, as you said, will respond negatively to these events, but there will be many more who understand that this was not an attack by the Muslim Community.

This was an an attack on Scots, all Scots, by extremist criminals.

The UK should get out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Never should have gone in.

I hope the Demo on Saturday is well attended.

[Chris Halliday]

I just hope that this doesn't create more division betweem British Muslims and the rest of the population. Things are bad enough without folks using these events as justification for their racist abuse. If we let violence polarise us, we simply hand victory to our attackers.