London bombings kill 40, injure hundreds more

Four bombings vibrated throughout London and rattled the capital city's mass transportation system Thursday, destroying three subway stations and ripping apart a double-decker bus during morning rush-hour traffic. \nOne day after London won the bid to host the 2012 Olympics, about 40 people were reported killed and more than 700 were reported injured in the deadliest wartime attack since German Luftwaffe aerial bombings during the Second World War. According to the Associated Press, a group calling itself the "Secret Organization of al-Qaida in Europe" claimed responsibility for the mayhem.\nCoinciding with the G-8 summit opening in Gleneagles, Scotland, the group claimed on an Islamic militant website after the blasts that Denmark, Italy and all other "crusader governments" should expect similar civilian casualties "if they do not withdraw their troops from Iraq and Afghanistan." \n"Rejoice, Islamic nation. Rejoice, Arab world. The time has come for vengeance against the Zionist crusader government of Britain in response to the massacres Britain committed in Iraq and Afghanistan," the al-Qaida linked group said in the statement, translated by the Associated Press in Cairo.\nInternational government officials had not verified the authenticity of the group's claim by press time, nor had any government announced whether the explosions were caused from an unattended packaged device or from human suicide bombers.\nThe four blasts occurred within an hour across the city, beginning at 8:51 a.m. London time or 3:51 a.m. in New York, according to the Associated Press. British authorities immediately shut down the subway and bus lines that log 8.4 million passenger trips every weekday. Passengers stumbled from the London Underground subway system "covered with blood and soot."\n"We had a class at ten in the morning, so we walked up to the tube station around 9:20 a.m. and (London rescue personnel) were evacuating it," said junior Jonathan Tauber, one of about 40 IU students studying in London throughout the summer as part of the Institute for the International Education of Students. \n"We weren't sure what was going on -- all they said was that there was a power problem and all lines had to be shut down. The actual bombings were about five miles away but they shut down the entire line. We went back to the residence center and then saw on television what had happened."\nSir Ian Blair's, the Metropolitan Police commissioner, told the "Daily Telegraph" newspaper in February 2005 that terrorists connected with Al-Qaeda were attempting to carry out some "atrocity" in London. The "Secret Organization of al-Qaida in Europe" also claimed responsibility for the March 2004 bombings on four Madrid, Spain, commuter trains that killed about 200 people and injured more than 1,400 civilians. \nAfter those attacks, then Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens warned in the "Evening Standard" that bombings against England were "inevitable" at community pubs, clubs, shopping centres [sic] and other "soft targets." Many F.B.I. agents housed in London's U.S. embassy have avoided traveling on the underground subway system since that time, according to media reports.\nSenior Kathryne Dickerson said she is housed in Chelsea and attends school in Bloomsbury, blocks away from the bombed-out Russel Square station. She said IES program officials contacted all of the student's parents "right away" to inform them of the evolving situation. \n"Our program has an emergency protocol that they follow in situations like this and we have close contact with the U.S. embassy, so they asked us all to check-in. It all happened very quickly and all students with my program were accounted for within a few hours," Dickerson said. "It seemed all to familiar for most of us after 9/11, but the death counts weren't nearly as high and the media is very different here so there weren't any speculations as to terrorist links right away."\nAccording to the Associated Press, al-Qaida's wing in Iraq claimed Thursday it had killed Ihab al-Sherif, Egypt's top envoy to that country. The terrorist organization has claimed responsibility in at least six separate major attacks against Westerner's and other perceived Western sympathizers since the group bombed the U.S.S. Cole in 2000.\nBy the time most Americans awoke to the dawn of another Thursday and embarked upon their otherwise typical workday, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff had proposed raising the national terror threat level from Code Yellow, or "Elevated," to Code Orange, or "High," for all American community mass transit systems: regional and inter-city passenger rail, subways and metropolitan bus systems.\nJohn Hooker, director of Monroe County Emergency Management, said that although Bloomington and many of the city's surrounding counties were still on Code Yellow as of press time, police and other rescue personnel spent the day keeping their "eyes and ears open."\n"There is nothing that affects us because the warning is for mass transportation systems only, with special attention to passenger rail systems and commercial bus lines like Greyhound," he said. "We're just going along with our daily operations."\nRonnetta Slaughter, spokeswoman for IndyGo -- Indianapolis' inter-city metropolitan bus system, said the Homeland Security warning does apply to the Indiana's capital city buses but business was usual Thursday for most employees.\n"I think it's important to note that despite today's unfortunate event we take daily precautions to keep our customers safe," she said. "It's a choice to choose what type of transportation to take and we want our customers to feel safe. On a regular basis we inspect the buses coming in and out of our garage, we encourage our drivers to be on a heightened alert all the time for suspicious items or persons, we ask everyone to look for unusual activities and we remind all customers to remove all items when they exit the buses."\nPersonnel from Bloomington Transit, the local bus system, were unavailable for comment at press time.\nSimilar to most the other IU students studying in London during the summer, junior Todd Miltenberger said the city's streets remained empty and quiet for most of the day until the evening rush-hour home.\n"I was shocked because it happened so close to home -- one or two of the bombings happened very close to where we go to class," he said. "One of the tube lines bombed was the one I ride to class every day"