Iran tourism truck prompts a UK special forces reaction

originally posted by: Shiloh7
a reply to: haman10wind your neck in

Sir / Ma'am , i was being sarcastic in my opening post .

thanks for your kind post about Iranians , it means a lot .

a reply to: Swills

haman was being sarcastic...and is Iranian himself...

edit: sorry saw he already replied.

OP doesn't seem to understand an area like that would be crawling with security service agents working in many of the surrounding buildings... The intelligence community aren't just going to let a van like that sit literally on their doorstep... They're far too proud and / or paranoid.

a reply to: haman10

No probe, sorry I took some time writing my reply so missed the general realisation you jested. I think its time Iran got some decent press for its achievements especially considering the length of time sanctions were imposed on it.

a reply to: SlowNail

Yeah, I got that. I was more referring to the story. I don't understand why it's a story, or why it got the reaction it did.

The title is very misleading - Special Forces? Hardly - A sniffer dog, some Police and a fire engine attended...

And this is hardly an over-reaction either. A large vehicle is parked where it shouldn't be in a high traffic area popular with tourists. On top of that, it has an odd slogan painted on the side. With the current threat level and danger posed by Islamic radicals, investigating the vehicle is a matter of course.

Once it was deemed to pose no threat, everyone stood down.

You'd all be whining and bitching if this had turned out to be a truck bomb of some kind - or worse, many would be screaming "false flag" and blaming the security services for it one way or the other.

a reply to: Swills

Do you think actual terrorists would have such things painted on their vehicles?

That happens all the time doesn't it...terrorist always draw attention to their intended acts, they are just self publiising attention whores. Them and their slogans, they make me sick.

(sarcasm)

a reply to: MysterX

The IRA spent 30 years drawing attention to their acts, going so far as to call in warnings telling the security services exactly where the bombs were and how long they had to get people out.

And these Islamic lot are very clued up on PR - they have an extensive online presence advertising their acts and calling for more.

originally posted by: stumason
a reply to: MysterX

The IRA spent 30 years drawing attention to their acts, going so far as to call in warnings telling the security services exactly where the bombs were and how long they had to get people out.

And these Islamic lot are very clued up on PR - they have an extensive online presence advertising their acts and calling for more.

...only the driver / owner of this vehicle is not Islamic, so not from that "lot" at all.

Given that the vehicle must have arrived through the border, you'd think the vehicle would have been flagged up and the driver's background checked when he arrived in the country. So, a cursory check of immigration records would have showed who the driver / owner was, where he was from and when he arrived in the country. There again, why spoil a classic "booga booga" moment and thus deprive the "security services" a moment of publicity and the press a non-story!

a reply to: stumason

Although, when i was in the Army, strangely i was never once taught to look out for vans marked with 'IRA is great' or 'This IRA party is going to go with a bang'.

Curiously enough...the IRA planted the bomb, then phoned a telephone code instead of advertising on the bomb vehicle.

Not that many Middle eastern terrorists actions are listed before they hit either...plenty of gloating afterwards, but not much advertising on their way to the shindig though.

originally posted by: haman10

originally posted by: crazyewok
I think it was more to do with it being a van parked out the science museum.

The science museum is a HUGE tourist attraction in one of the busy parts of London. In fact parking is pretty hard and controlled round there.

Parking strange vans in that area normally gets someone attention even as far back as the 90's. Car bomb are a common occurrence in London once.

The fact the UK is at high alert does not help matters.

Brother , lets be honest here , the main cause of that "security" freakout was the fact that the van had a "Iran is great" label on it .

now i know that brits are very tolerant people :

well lets just bring a quote from wikipedia :

Islam is the second largest religion with results from the United Kingdom Census 2011 giving the UK Muslim population in 2011 as ~2,706,066, ~4.5% of the total population. The vast majority of Muslims in the United Kingdom live in England: 2,660,116 (5.02% of the population).

I'm just pointing out to the amount of propaganda that is being thrown on a daily basis on Iran . when was the last time an Iranian blow sth up ? well , "never" would be the proper answer .

These kind of incidences really hurt . they really really hurt .

Honesty I think your reading to much into it.

When it comes to strange cars and vans that part of London is very very strict.

I'm a white male and even I when parking outside a embassy in that area got asked by a policeman on my business in the area. Westminster is a terrorist wet dream and that whole area is anal about security.

a reply to: crazyewok

I wonder how police in say New York would have responded to an illegally parked van with "Iran is great" painted on it?
Just a smashed window or worse do you imagine?

originally posted by: grainofsand
a reply to: crazyewok

I wonder how police in say New York would have responded to an illegally parked van with "Iran is great" painted on it?
Just a smashed window or worse do you imagine?

HA

Likely shot the owner and took the van of to be destroyed!

a reply to: crazyewok

My thoughts exactly.
A smashed window is hardly the end of the world, just a bit of a stinger for the family on their 500 Euro a month travel budget.

originally posted by: grainofsand
a reply to: crazyewok

I wonder how police in say New York would have responded to an illegally parked van with "Iran is great" painted on it?
Just a smashed window or worse do you imagine?

Almost had my car blown up by the security services years ago...parked it near to an Army recruitment centre and they thought there was a bomb inside...half a dozen of the largest blokes i'd ever seen surrounded my Mrs and I as we crossed the road going back to the car.

The head honcho told me they had already called the bomb squad out and were planning a controlled explosion...i felt such a berk, as i had joined the Army at that very same recruitment centre years before.

And that wasn't even in central London, but a South London town.

a reply to: MysterX

Haha that was a close one
...at least the big dudes just surrounded you, didn't throw you both to the ground shouting things like "I'm gonna light you up" or such like while drawing a gun to your face.

a reply to: grainofsand

Lol...yeah, that would have been a different kettle of fish altogether...luckily for me, they saw the funny side of it when i did a massive facepalm on myself in the middle of the road...still cringe at how stupid i was that day!