Below The Beltway

Its been one year since the terror bombings that hit London’s subway and bus system and, now, Al-Jazeera has released a video which seems to indicate that those attacks were only the beginning of a wider plot:

The suicide bombings of London’s transit system a year ago were “only the beginning” of a series of attacks, one of the bombers warned in a video recorded sometime before the strike and broadcast today.

The video, apparently produced by the al-Qaeda terrorist network, was aired on the al-Jazeera Arabic television channel on the eve of the anniversary of the July 7, 2005, suicide attacks that killed 52 people — plus the four bombers — and wounded about 700 on three subway trains and a double-decker bus in central London. It provided new indications that al-Qaeda may have had a hand in the bombing plot, which some analysts have attributed to militant Muslim residents of Britain who were inspired by Osama bin Laden but acted essentially on their own.

Its been fairly widely accepted since last year that the London attacks were an al-Qaeda operation, and the release of this video seems to confirm that. Additionally, the video establishes that, while the terrorists may have been homegrown, they were trained in al-Qaeda camps:

Tanweer, who killed six people and himself aboard a London Underground train in the July 7 bombings, traveled to Pakistan in 2004 to attend a course in Islamic studies with Mohammad Sidique Khan, the alleged ringleader of the London bombers. Khan, 30, another British citizen of Pakistani origin, appeared in an al-Qaeda video that aired in September last year. Both videos included statements from Ayman al-Zawahiri, the No. 2 man in al-Qaeda. However, Zawahiri did not appear together with either bomber.

Most importantly, though, the video makes clear that the London attackes were only the beginning:

Addressing the British government in what the BBC said was a Yorkshire accent, Tanweer said in the video broadcast today, “What you have witnessed now is only the beginning of a string of attacks that will continue and become stronger until you pull your forces out of Afghanistan and Iraq, and until you stop your financial and military support to America and Israel.”

Tanweer also charged that Britain’s non-Muslims bear responsibility for terrorist actions against them because they voted for a government that “continues to oppress our mothers, children, brothers and sisters in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq and Chechnya

Of course, this isn’t the first indication we’ve received of such a plot:

In an al-Qaeda video broadcast last year on the fourth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a speaker believed to be Gadahn also warned of future attacks like those in London last year and Madrid in May 2004, when a series of coordinated bombings on commuter trains killed more than 190 people and wounded more than 2,000.

“Yesterday, London and Madrid,” the speaker, his face partially obscured by a turban, said in English. “Tomorrow, Los Angeles and Melbourne, God willing. At this time, don’t count on us demonstrating restraint or compassion.”

Well, I for one never really thought that these people were capable of either restraint or compassion.

Michelle Malkin rounds up coverage of the anniversary