Maybe, maybe not. Not the work of "yobs," say the British police. And I know of one group within Britain that has declared war against it, and that is the jihadists. "Railway signals damage was sabotage," from EDP24, with thanks to A Friend:
Police investigating the cutting of railway signals between London and Norwich said tonight that it was a carefully planned pre-meditated act and not the work of young vandals.Thousands of passengers were affected by the damage today and late Thursday night.
More than 20 trains were cancelled while services between Liverpool Street and Norwich ran hourly with delays of up to 45 minutes on the mainline and 30 minutes on local services.
Engineers, working throughout the early hours to pinpoint the cause of the signal failure, discovered it was a precise act of sabotage and not the work of yobs.
The saboteur cut train signalling and fibre optic cables at two points near Newton Flotman, south of Norwich, and went to great efforts to throw investigators off the scent.
I would not be so sure. Since the catastrophic privatization of the British railways, the amount of dishonesty between companies, and of anger from staff, has been colossal. It would not surprise me if this turned out to be one of the following:
1) attempted train wrecking by a disgruntled current or former railwayman;
2) some sort of account-settling between piratical railway companies; or
3) deliberate sabotage by repair companies looking for extra contracts.
There are plenty of villains in Britain who are not Muslim, and governmental folly has done nothing to reduce them.
My dear Paolo,
I am not "so sure."
When I wrote "Maybe, maybe not," I meant it.
Cordially
Robert Spencer
Precision damage to signalling equipment strikes me as a rather more subtle technique -- intended to create commuter chaos and cost the operators money rather than loss of life -- than the usual mass-murder bombing activities that jihaddists embrace.
I can see disgruntled employees being happy to let it go at causing commuter chaos, etc., and a jihaddist savvy enough to sabotage signals might also know that engineers in Europe and North America pay strict heed to signals.
Even a small alteration in economic activity causes problems in a western capitalistic world. If a recession can be induced somehow, morale declines causing problems for the ruling party. In the UK this could lead to a pullout from Iraq, which represents a victory for the Jihaddists.
With the number of moslems in the UK now, we can expect some of these things to happen.
Expect to here more about this in the UK. Just found out some jihadi was busted in Manchester, the birthplace of my parents. The English got off relatively easy here, next time the bad guys might do a more thorough job. Too early to tell if it is Islamic terror, we have to remember the false positive of those poor Copts murdered in cold blood in NJ. I fear for the safety of Old Blighty though. God save the Queen!