I was wrong and I was right.

If this was Al Qaeda, then credit where credit is due: two attacks in two weeks implies that they have more manpower and explosives in London than I might have thought, the bastards. But, if reports so far are correct, then JB was uncannily accurate in his assessment of their abilities:

Al Qaeda are almost as crap at terrorism as the UVF — the Loyalist terrorists who always seemed to go into a Catholic betting shop & open fire, only for the guns to jam.

According to one Ivan McCracken, who was on the train and spoke to a first-hand witness,

a man was carrying a rucksack and the rucksack suddenly exploded. It was a minor explosion but enough to blow open the rucksack.

The man then made an exclamation as if something had gone wrong.

Feh.


Update:

This is odd. It looks like none of the bombs even contained any explosives, but, if the report I quoted above is accurate, it also looks like at least one of the bombers expected a huge explosion and was surprised by his own non-suicide. Let's hope they can keep up this level of comical ineptitude. Or alternatively, let's hope MI6 can keep up a brilliant line in selling fake explosives.