COP21 Terrorism Update #5.

On Saturday (5/12/15) three people were non-fatally stabbed at the Leytonstone underground rail/metro station in east London, UK. Normally this is the sort of thing that barely scrapes its way onto the local news.

However on this occasion the attacker and his victims were not know to each other and the attack was heard to shout; "This is for Syria" whilst randomly stabbing at passers-by. As a result the police almost immediately began investigating it as a potential act of terrorism.

This is pretty standard practice. It is perfectly normal for the police to investigate an incident as the worst type of crime that it can be. If the evidence then indicates that it was in fact a lesser type of crime or even no crime at all they will then scale their investigation back accordingly.

What was so alarming about Wednesday's (2/12/15) attack in San Benardino, US is that the US authorities did the opposite.

US President Obama seemed to immediately determine that the incident was gun violence that would further his gun control agenda rather then terrorism which would embarrass his pro-terrorist agenda. As a result the investigation was conducted almost to exclude any evidence of terrorism.

The reason why I've waited until now to comment on the events in Leytonstone is that they seem to me to be the actions of a self-radicalised lone-wolf rather then part of a larger conspiracy and certainly not something that has been prepared for the COP21.

Also on Wednesday (2/12/14) the UK Parliament was debating and voting on a motion to join air-strikes against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Syria as well as Iraq.

Although I saw a massive disconnect between the debate and the war that's going on in Iraq and Syria this was an event that seemed to grip the entire nation. For example the whole debate was carried live not only on the BBC Parliament channel but also both of the domestic news channels.

As it result it seemed that absolutely everyone had to have an opinion - no matter how uninformed.

While distinctly thin on facts the debate was really poisoned by two main groups; The supporters of the Labour Party and the Scottish National Party (SNP) and supporters of the "Stop the War Coalition (STWC)" protest group. There is obviously a degree of over-lap between the three groups.

In 2003 Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair led the UK into the war in Iraq. This caused a split within the Labour Party and has proved a great recruiting tool for both the hard-left wing of the party and the SNP. As a result rather then engaging in the debate over air-strikes in Syria these factions used it as a re-run of the 2003 Iraq war protests in an effort to boost their membership.

The STWC was formed during the 2003 Iraq war protest. However since then it has rather lost its way - particularly through its links to the Palestinian nationalist cause. STWC now border on being a Sunni-extremist organisation that supported both the 2011 Libya war and up until now has supported the Syria war. Therefore they are extremely angry that the UK seems to be moving away from supporting Sunni extremism.

Although no party came out of the debate looking good the actions of the three above mentioned groups did create a pretty nasty atmosphere. For example MP's who did support action against ISIL were subjected to death threats and things like gory pictures of dead babies being emailed to them.

While this didn't fit in with what is normally considered acceptable Parliamentary behaviour it was pretty accepted that for the most part this was simply idiots talking trash on the Internet rather then genuine threats. It did though cause the security services a degree of concern.

One of the most stupid things to come out of the debate was that claim that taking action against ISIL is Syria would increase the threat to the UK of ISIL attack. The UK is already coming under almost constant attack from ISIL. However up until now those attacks have been small and in the form of self-radicalised lone-wolves. The threat though is evolving and becoming more serious.

Therefore military action against ISIL is not going to increase a threat that is pretty much already at its maximum level. Instead effective military action is actually the only way to reduce that threat.

The concern was that the sound and fury of the all consuming Parliamentary debate would push one of these lone-wolves over the edge and into action. For example since the debate a number of - particularly Labour - MP's who voted from military action have been placed under police protection.

If such a lone-wolf attack was going to take place it was always likely to take place in an area like the Leytonstone/Mile End area of London.

This area has long been the place where the immigrants go. In the first half of the 20th century it was actually full of European and Russian Jews. They largely moved out to be replaced by the Irish. In turn the Irish were largely replaced by Afro-Caribbeans who were then replaced by Muslims and Hindus from Pakistan and India.

More recently due to the link with Islam the area has attracted a lot of East-Africans from countries like Somalia and Ethiopia amongst a fair few Yemenis.

Obviously not all the people who arrived have gone onto leave and there's always been a large indigenous white, British population.

I think what really sums up the area is that while this attacker - whose been confirmed as a Somali - was waving his knife about trying to terrorise people over Syria other Muslims in the crowd started getting in his face and lecturing about how his wasn't a proper Muslim.

This coined the phrase; "You Ain't No Muslim Bruv" which trended on the Internet for most of yesterday.

At around 13:40 on 7/12/15 (UK date) I'll be back to add much more to this later. However I must confess that 8 days in I'm starting to feel the effects now.