"Al-Qaeda planned to smash jet into Heathrow airport"

Sunday, October 9, 2005

Al-Qaeda's Heathrow jet plot revealed
By David Leppard
United Kingdom - The London Sunday Times


AL-QAEDA terrorists planned to hijack a passenger jet from eastern Europe
and fly it into a packed terminal at Heathrow airport, killing hundreds of
people, security sources have revealed.
 
The plot, which was taken so seriously that ministers considered shutting
down the airport, helps to resolve the long-standing mystery of why Tony
Blair ordered armoured vehicles and hundreds of troops to be sent to
Heathrow in 2003. 
 
It has now emerged that MI5 received detailed intelligence in February 2003
about a two-pronged plan to target Britain because of its decision to send
troops in support of America's invasion of Iraq. 

The second element of the operation, inspired by Osama Bin Laden, involved a
mortar attack on a departing passenger plane. It was organised by Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed, the Al-Qaeda operations chief and mastermind of the
September 11 attacks, the sources said. 

Details of the plot have been provided by British sources after the White
House issued a list of 10 Al-Qaeda plots foiled by America and its partners,
including Britain. 

Referring to what it called "the Heathrow airport plot", the White House
said that America and several partners had "disrupted a plot to attack
Heathrow airport using hijacked commercial airliners". 

At the time cabinet ministers, including David Blunkett, then home
secretary, said they could not divulge the nature of the threat but insisted
that it was "real". This weekend security sources gave fresh details of what
they described as a double plot to kill hundreds of Heathrow passengers and
punish Blair for Britain's role in Iraq. 

One said that an Al-Qaeda cell had been spotted carrying out reconnaissance
at an airport in eastern Europe, possibly in Poland, Latvia or Estonia. 

The source said: "The idea was to hijack the plane from somewhere that
didn't have the same level of security as airports in western Europe. The
plan was to fly it into a terminal at Heathrow where there would be a lot of
fatalities." 

The decision to send Scimitar armoured vehicles and 450 troops from the
Household Cavalry and the Grenadier Guards was the first time since 1994 -
when the IRA had tried to mortar the runway - that the army had been
deployed on home security duties. 

Blair was accused of staging a stunt to boost support for the invasion of
Iraq. Although the troop deployment was largely symbolic, security would
have been tightened up at East European airports, and, since 9/11, RAF
fighter jets have been on standby to shoot down hijacked passenger planes. 

Ministers could not disclose the nature of the threat for fear of
compromising intelligence sources. The only explanation until now was that
the troop deployment had been intended to thwart a possible mortar attack on
a departing plane. 

The new disclosures make it clear that this was just a part of a "twin
track" Al-Qaeda plan to take the world's busiest international airport out
of operation. 

Scotland Yard sources previously linked Andrew Rowe to that plot. He was a
"dedicated jihadist" and Muslim convert who was jailed last month at the Old
Bailey for terrorist offences. Rowe was arrested on a coach inside the
Channel tunnel and was found to be carrying coded instructions on how to
fire mortars. He was sentenced to 15 years after being convicted of two
offences of having articles for use in terrorism. 

Until his capture two years ago, Mohammed was a central figure in Al-Qaeda's
war on the West. He was inspired by the 1993 attempt to blow up the World
Trade Center in New York. Mohammed conceived the September 11 plot, which he
described as "far more successful than we had ever imagined". 

Last year The Sunday Times obtained transcripts of Mohammed's interrogation
in the months after his capture in Pakistan in 2003. They show that the
original plan for September 11 envisaged the hijacking of 10 planes, which
were to be crashed into targets on the east and west coasts of America. 

In the interrogation, Mohammed also referred to an unspecified plot against
Heathrow designed to punish Blair, whom he said Bin Laden called his
"principal enemy". 

He told his interrogators that Al-Qaeda operatives had been given money and
told to begin surveillance of Heathrow, assessing its weak points and
finding locations from which planes could be shot down.


 Do you have an opinion about this story?
Share it with other readers in our CAA Discussion Forums

http://www.californiaaviation.org/dcfp/dcboard.php


*****************************************