Al-Qaeda and London

I've spent the past few days thinking about the London bombings and how al-Qaeda appears to have changed over the past four years (ever since 9/11). Looking at the list of attacks that al-Qaeda has committed, it occurs to me that there might be a pattern. Al-Qaeda itself has generally focused on targets that offered the opportunity for very large numbers of casualties, or directly targeted U.S. interests, or had the potential to wreak havoc on the world economy. For example, al-Qaeda itself ran the operations against the U.S. Navy and the oil industry off the coast of Yemen (these directly impacted U.S. interests and the economy), but it was not al-Qaeda that conducted the Madrid bombings, but rather an "al-Qaeda inspired group." I think this pattern is born out in other attacks as well.

I'm still trying to figure out what that means, but I will get back to that later.