Wednesday, July 27, 2005
  FOUR HELD

At just after 7 AM, the BBC reported:

Police investigating the failed London bomb attacks on 21 July have arrested four men in Birmingham under the Terrorism Act 2000.

It is thought one man held in the Hay Mills area could be of one of the four suspects in the bombings. A suspect package was found during his arrest.

Three other men were arrested in the Ward End area of Birmingham and are in custody in the West Midlands. . .

On BBC "Breakfast", one reporter was at the scene of the apparent London bomber arrest at just after 7:30. In one comment, he reported apparently by telephone that the raid was on an address in an "Asian area" that is "mostly Muslim".

Once the shock of that latter relevation had subsided, the whole thing struck us as very odd. Birmingham is, after all, the second largest city in England. Yet the BBC's national morning TV program was reduced for several minutes to covering this breaking story while using a map of Birmingham superimposed alongside a photo of that reporter as if he were reporting via satellite phone from, say, Kabul.

And there is also such a thing as BBC Birmingham. That local BBC channel thankfully keeps us up to date on post-July 7 jitters in Manhattan. However, they evidently couldn't get a camera crew to a Birmingham housing estate on short notice.

UPDATE: BBC TV is reporting that the bomber arrested and sent to London had a bomb strapped to himself, and was subdued in a bathroom by police using a taser stun gun. AOL UK's members' homepage displays this file photo of that device:


So, in this instance, it was possible to use this device, rather than to have to resort to shooting him in the head.

Let's see if we understand this. Members of a particular minority faith group are running around London, either blowing themselves and others up or aiming to blow themselves and others up because of . . . take your pick. However, it is actually that group which faces "intolerance"? And it is law enforcement that uses "excessive force", that "overreacts", and responds "disproportionately"? 

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