A previously unknown armed group, the Fatherland is First Popular Revolutionary Command (Comando Popular Revolucionario La Patria es Primero), has claimed responsibility for the July 6 assassination of former Guerrero state government secretary Ruben Robles Catalan, whose driver was also killed in the attack.

As this fairly comprehensive account from The Australian makes clear, the notion that the London attacks were carried out by a heretofore unheard-of "Secret Organization of the Jihad of al-Qaeda in Europe" originates from reports on the websites of Germany's Der Spiegel and the Italian news agency ANSA that a communique claiming responsibility in that name appeared on an unnamed Islamic militant website. The quoted rhetoric is entirely plausible:

Collected by Mazin Qumsiyeh:

http://www.masnet.org/takeaction.asp?id=2594
http://mpac.org/home_article_display.aspx?ITEM=790
http://icna.org/pr_london_attacks.htm
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050707/dcth034.html?.v=19
http://isna.net/index.php?id=35&backPID=1&tt_news=220

See our last post on the attacks.

Jul. 7, 2005 22:59 | Updated Jul. 8, 2005 1:08
Arab world shocked at London attacks

By ORLY HALPERN

Some in the Arab world expressed shock at the bombings in a city for which many felt great affection and which is home to numerous Arab exile groups, newspapers and businesses.

In another sign that the administration of Mexican President Vicente Fox is seeking to capitalize on the Zapatista rebels' new political direction to finally resolve the ongoing Chiapas headache, his government announced yesterday that it will release some 800 indigenous prisoners, finding that they were either innocent or had been manipulated into committing a federal crime, the daily El Universal reports July 7.

A large area of downtown Edinburgh was evacuated today when police found a "suspicious package" on a bus, the Scotsman reports. The alert was called off after police conducted what they callled a "controlled explosion" on the bus. Given the London blasts and continuing protests against the G8 summit in the Scottish capital, police are taking no chances. Meanwhile, the Scotsman reports that following yesterday's brief breach of the security perimeter around the Gleneagles resort, police have sealed off the protesters' encampment at nearby Stirling, trapping some 5,000 within the cordon.

Militant Cleric Says Attack on London ‘Inevitable‘
Sun Apr 18, 2004 04:33 PM ET

LISBON (Reuters) - Several Islamic militant groups are preparing attacks on London, making such a strike unavoidable, a radical Muslim cleric said in an interview published Sunday.

Well, the terror blasts in London seem to have done what months of OPEC hyper-production have failed to: bringing down the price of oil. The attacks precipitated the biggest one-day swing since Operation Desert Storm 14 years ago, prices briefly dipping nearly five dollars to $57.20 a barrel, although they recovered somewhat to still hang at over $60 a barrel, which would have been unthinkable just a year ago. What's interesting is that markets reacted to the London attacks in exactly the opposite way than they did to other major terror attacks of recent years such as 9-11 and Madrid's 3-11, which drove prices up. There may be factors other than the London attacks involved in the price plunge, but this still appears a sign of panic in high places. Radical swings almost always are: spikes driven by fear over the security of global reserves, plunges by fear over the stability of the global economy. This from Bloomberg today: