1. Londonistan delenda est - For those who are unaware, London hosts a wide array of al-Qaeda operatives and front organizations, the most prominent being that headed up by Sheikh Abu Hamza al-Masri (whose trial began today) and Saad al-Faqih of the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia (MIRA). The vast majority of these individuals live and operate in Britain by exploiting the nation's tolerance for political refugees and abusing its asylum laws. I honestly would not be surprised if this was an entirely homegrown operation as al-Qaeda has more than enough infrastructure based in the London metropolitan area to mount an attack of this scale. These front organizations must be closed down and their members arrested or deported to their countries of origin, death penalty or no. The luxury of assuming that these unsavory characters will never take part in terrorist operations on British soil for fear of harming their infrastructure is now one that the UK can no longer afford.

2. The Issue of Iraq - Thankfully, most of the shriller voices among the British anti-war community (the utterly repulsive Galloway aside) seem to have refrained thus far from exploiting this tragedy for political gain. That may change in the coming days and weeks as more comes out about the nature of the attackers becomes known. My gut instinct is that the attackers were likely party of the North African GIA/GSPC/Salafi Jihad subsection of the al-Qaeda that has long sought to carry out attacks in continental Europe, but it is also entirely possible that the attackers were part of the "bleed back" from Iraq that the CIA and other counterterrorism authorities have been so concerned about. Those calling for withdrawl from Iraq (and in so doing inadvertently echoing the same themes of the Nur al-Iman communique that claimed responsibility for the attacks) need to consder that to carry out such a policy would only serve to place the country in control of the same monsters who carried out today's attacks.

3. The Al-Qaeda communique - Evan Kohlmann over at the Counterterrorism blog that the communique posted on al-Qalaa may be a hoax, whereas Michael Scheuer has been floating around the radio and terriblevision today and saying it's genuine. I don't have an opinion on this one way or another as typical al-Qaeda prose far more resembles far more Dr. Doom or Cobra Commander than anyone else, but either way I doubt it really matters. Go through the very short list of suspects of who would want to harm London and I think the perpetrators become quite clear.

4. Rationale for Attack - Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri have repeatedly singled out the UK along with a number of other states as being amongst Those Who Must Die. That order to strike has never been revoked and should be presumed to remain standing until further notice. The occurence of the G8 summit in the UK at the same time, like the announcement that London would host the next Olympics, was simply a fortunate convergence from the perspective of the attackers.

5. British reaction vs. Spanish reaction - A lot of the commentary seems to be focusing on this but I think it's overplayed given that the two events don't really parallel one another since there is no election in Britain and I find it hard to believe that the Labour Party is going to pick now of all times to sack Blair in favor of Gordon Brown. Moreover, one of Aznar's major PR mistakes in the wake of the 3/11 attacks was playing up a possible ETA connection out of both sincere belief as well as a desire to highlight his own record against the Basques. Blair hasn't tried to blame this on the IRA or one of its splinters, so the impetus for his opponents to claim that he was lying or engaged in a cover-up for political purposes would be far more difficult to pull off.

6. This may not be the end of it - I've remarked before to Joe and Bill in conversation that al-Qaeda's threat cycle has long since expired if one accepts that the last major attacks were either 3/11 or Beslan. While I'm certain the need for a constant stream of suicide bombers for Zarqawi in Iraq ties down their capabilities somewhat, the organization (and dare I say it, it's Iran-based leadership) have had more than enough time to give the green light to other major attacks. This guys over at the Counterterrorism blog seem to think that this the beginning of a summer offensive and I readily agree. I am also beginning to wonder, given how these attacks tend to come at us in waves, whether or not the Lashkar-e-Taiba raid on the Ram Temple in Ayodhya shouldn't be viewed within this context given the relative lack of major attacks by Pakistani jihadis inside India and the flashpoint nature of Ayodhya to begin with.

Also, as the first of two final pieces of snark, maybe the BBC wants to re-air "The Power of Nightmares" so they can explain to the population of London that there's no terrorist threat in the wake of this tragedy? And then we have George Galloway, who seems to be auditioning to play the role of Marshal Petain for bin Laden in the event that the West loses this war. Both, I think, have been exposed by these events for the utter fools that they are.