General Chat

I feel sorry for the families of those arrested. If proved guilty of intending to carry out such a dreadful thing, how must the parents feel about the way they have brought up their children? They will live with it for the rest of their lives, and also the finger pointing and whispering behind their backs. We are not talking about children here, we are talking about adults. Jay

Still looking, you understand what I mean then, all those unanswered questions the parents will be left with for the rest of their lives........ I will never forget the wife of one of the July 7th killers - she said he was a good husband etc. etc. and she knew nothing of his intentions........he was blown up as well........

Bit close to home all of this - I live in Walthamstow where the majority of the suspects were from. None of the addresses were right by me, but I do know where they are - just over 5 mins drive from me. This area has a huge number of different nationalities and normally there are no problems, I just hope that this doesn't change as a result of these arrests. Maz. XX

many thanks for all your replys it just goes to show we dont realy know any one im also praying for a peacefull world bacardi xx

I remember when Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Rupper, was arrested. Friends, family, workmates were all in shock and couldn't believe it ...his wife STILL thinks he was innocent. Let's face it, we are not talking about 'ordinary' criminals here, we are talking about fanatical terrorists, who fortunately are a tiny minority of our population. Yes, I feel sorry for their innocent families and no, I would not expect their families to necessarily know what they were up to. Lots of people lead double lives with great success. The more you have to hide and the cleverer you are, then the more successful you are at hiding it! Innocent till proved guilty does not mean that you cannot name a person either, so I don't see a problem with that. I get the impression that this was a long surveillance job. I cannot for the life of me see what the Authorities have to gain by arresting the WRONG people and therefore tend to think they have the right people. OC

Cannot understand why names and addresses were released by the banks etc - shouldn't information be confidential, and won't anything released like this, possible interfere with future court case if applicable. What are the banks trying to prove? I like others are concerned over what is happening, but will wait to hear more before I pass judgement.

every terrorist is someone's daughter or son - doesn't forgive what they do through their own free will and if anyone else experienced the loss of a close one by the actions of these people I am sure they would agree

You have to try and understand the mindset of these 'fundamentalists' To die as a martry is a good thing as you are guaranteed a place in paradise where [if you are a man] you will be served by virgins 24/7 whereas if you are a female, you have the privelage of being one of these virgins. In extreme fundamentalist Islamic countries, parents/families of these 'martyrs' are very well looked after financially. You only have to look at palestine when it was ruled by yassa hairyfeet.

When the Bank of England freezes someone's assets they have to inform the other Banks. I don't know how public this information should be, but in this day and age the Media have ways of finding out. The greatest asset of a Terrorist is Secrecy. An unguarded comment to a relative could ruin plans which could have been months in their formulation so I am not surprised that people were unaware. I hope the Authorities are making every effort to capture the individual(s) who have been preaching Jihad to these young people and twisted their minds to even consider such an act, let alone be prepared to carry it out. This is not a pop at Muslims, but we have heard of so many 'Clerics' leading youngsters down this path.

Too Right Jim!! I am disgusted that the religious leaders have not really come out and said that this is wrong!! They skirt around it making half an apology.this is not acceptable,they are either against it or for it,you cant be sitting on the fence in this situation, the problem is most of these leaders are not British born Muslims,they teach a very radical form of Islam! My opinion is that more muslims should come out and condemn these radicals,how can they expect people to sympathise if they dont condemn it!! Yes,Im afraid if your Muslim you will be under suspision, they will have to get use to it,blame their own people not the British Government!!

Mind you, the same could be said of the Catholic Church. When we think of the Spanish Inquisition etc, and even through the Troubles in Ireland I never heard any mention of the Pope condemning the violence. We need a united voice from ALL Church leaders, be they Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Shinto or Pagan.

Yes they are, Errol. But surely that doesn’t automatically make the families responsible for the deeds or intentions of the terrorists. I have no children, so it is something that can never happen to me, but I don’t believe it is right to imply that the families MUST be guilty in some way. Some of them may have seen or heard something suspicious, but I don’t think parents go round analysing every little detail of their adult children’s lives. As for the Yorkshire Ripper, I can see that his wife at the time had no reason to doubt him. He was a lorry driver and away from home a lot. I thought she divorced him and that he had remarried whilst in Broadmoor? Are we talking about his second wife? Jay

The Spanish Inquisition was a terrible part of our History,and yes you could compare it to the way these extremists behave, the difference is most religions have evolved, Im afraid that these extremists want to keep everyone in the year B.C ,they dont want to give an Inch!!

Janet Yes - Sonia Sutcliffe DID divorce her husband eventually, but from what I have read, she still thinks he is innocent and they correspond on a regular basis. I only used this as an illustration of how love can be blind, and that blind love includes the love of one family member for another. Today (Sat morning) there have been a number of Muslim clerics on TV condemning this latest APPARENT threat of terrorism. Jim has reminded me of the 'Irish Troubles' when young men were recruited and whipped into a frenzy enough to make them plant bombs etc. These young men are always the puppets of cynical and truly evil OLD men and I dare say its the same with Islam - a few fundamentalists at the top can brainwash hot-headed young men into doing these awful things whilst managing to keep their OWN hands completely clean, you notice. OC

O C Thankyou for that snippet about Sonia. Didn't know she kept in contact. I know another lady kept in touch with him and wanted to marry him - I thought there had been a marriage, so perhaps he has two ladies concerned for his welfare. So agree with your comments about how these young men are fired up and channelled by others, who are clever enough to always keep themselves out of trouble. Jay

I seem to remember a few years ago ,that people said the same sort of thing about Fred West and his missus and ian Brady and his girlfriend,thing is ,the police can't take the chance,and not long ago they made the mistake [twice ] in interviewing a murder suspect ,and letting him go. Did the muslims complain about that?.i think we should give them a chance to get it right this time.Fred.

my eldest son is muslim.he converted when he was 18yrs old,he is now 29.and he lives in high wycombe!!! he is disgusted with the whole fiasco! the koran doesnt preach terrorism.it preaches PEACE i know,cos i have read it. i live in high wycombe and my brother lives in micklefield road where one of the suspects lived.it is frightening. there are so many narrow minded people about today,as my 2nd eldest son found out last night. he went out to the local clubhouse as normal,where he worked as a barman for 5 yrs. as soon as he walked in the room went quiet.he was surprised to say the least. suddenly he was approached by a so called friend who asked if his brother had been arrested yet!!! leigh asked him what he meant. well,you can guess what they said.they called my stuart a terrorist because he was muslim!! leigh is 27 yrs old but he came home in tears.it broke my heart they kept laughing and saying that leigh wouldnt know ,even if stuart was plotting a bombing. why arent catholics all accused of being IRA bombers?? it makes me sick!!! as for the people that have been arrested,i dont think the police have got it wrong.they have been watching them for a year now,and their families wouldnt even know if they were plotting something.they are too clever.they arent going to go bragging are they?they are bound to act normal to stop suspicion susie

Susie,Its awful that your son has been treated this way,Unfortunatly some people are so narrow minded and bigoted that they cant see beyond their own little word,I hope he and his family are ok. It must be awful being a honest and good muslim at the moment, I just wish that the religious leaders would come out and condemn what has happened, then maybe the good muslim people could feel more at ease. Roxanne x