Thursday, August 10, 2006
Details emerge on alleged plot
to bomb airliners
Officials: Leader still at large in Pakistan, test run was
planned for weekend
NBC News
LONDON - British authorities said
Thursday they thwarted a terrorist plot to simultaneously blow up 10 aircraft
heading to the U.S. using explosives smuggled in hand luggage, averting what
police described as “mass murder on an unimaginable scale.”
Officials
told NBC News that the alleged mastermind of the plot is still in Pakistan and
has yet to be captured.
Some plotters had already purchased tickets on a
flight to stage a test run planned for this weekend. The test run would have
determined how easily the plotters could have gotten their materials past
security and on board the planes.
The actual attack would have followed
within days.
Police arrested 24 people saying they were confident they
captured the main suspects in what U.S. officials said was a plot in its final
phases that had all the earmarks of an al-Qaida operation. However, ABC News
quoted unidentified U.S. officials who had been briefed on the plot as saying
five suspects were still at large and being urgently hunted.
President
Bush called the plot a “stark reminder” of the continued threat to the United
States from extremist Muslims.
Senior U.S. intelligence officials told
NBC News that the plot was on British officials’ radar for about two weeks and
that several of the people involved had been monitored for several months when
this plot came into view.
Asked whether there were a significant number
of suspects involved in the plot still on the loose who could still carry out an
attack, the official said, “They didn't get them all.”
The alleged
plan
Britain disclosed no details about the plot or those arrested,
although one police official indicated the people in custody were British
residents, most of whom lived in east London. A French official in contact with
British authorities described the arrested as originating from predominantly
Muslim Pakistan.
British authorities said the suspects were arrested in
London, its suburbs and Birmingham following a lengthy investigation, including
the alleged “main players” in the plot.
Searches continued in a number of
locations, and police cordoned off streets in several locations.
At least
one of the plotters attended a terrorist training camp in Pakistan, and more
than one of the accused prepared a martyrdom tape, a counterterrorism official
told NBC News.
Officials raised security to its highest level in Britain
— suggesting a terrorist attack might be imminent — and banned carry-on luggage
on all flights. Huge crowds backed up at security barriers at London’s Heathrow
Airport as officials searching for explosives barred nearly every form of liquid
outside of baby formula.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael
Chertoff said the terrorists planned to use liquid explosives disguised as
beverages and other common products and set them off with detonators disguised
as electronic devices.
A counterterrorism official with knowledge of the
plot and Thursday’s arrests told NBC News that the plotters, who ranged in age
from 17 to 35, planned to use false-bottomed sports drink bottles to bring the
liquids on board.
The terrorists on each plane would combine the
separated liquids mid-flight to create an explosive solution.
An American
law enforcement official who was briefed on the investigation said it appeared
the liquid to be used was a “peroxide-based solution” to be detonated by an
electronic device that was not specified, but could be anything from a
disposable camera to a portable digital music player.
The official spoke
on condition of anonymity because British authorities had asked that no
information be released.
Alerts raised worldwide
News of the
arrests and extreme security measures in London, a major international aviation
hub, sent ripples throughout the world. Heathrow was closed to most flights from
Europe, and British Airways canceled all its flights between the airport and
points in Britain, Europe and Libya. Numerous flights from U.S. cities to
Britain were canceled.
Washington raised its threat alert to its highest
level for commercial flights from Britain to the United States amid fears the
plot had not been completely crushed.
The alert for all flights coming or
going from the United States was also raised slightly.
Two U.S.
counterterrorism officials said the terrorists had targeted United, American and
Continental airlines.
They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the
sensitivity of the case.
A U.S. intelligence official said the plotters
had hoped to target flights to major airports in New York, Washington and
California. A counterterrorism official said the plot involved 10
flights.
‘Stark reminder’
Visiting Green Bay, Wis., to raise
support for a Republican candidate, Bush said that the foiled plot was a “stark
reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists.” Despite increased
security since Sept. 11, he warned, “It is a mistake to believe there is no
threat to the United States of America.”
ABC News quoted sources as
saying Western intelligence agencies had identified three of the alleged
ringleaders. It said two were believed to have traveled recently to Pakistan and
later had money wired to them from Pakistan, purportedly to purchase airline
tickets for suicide bombers.
While British officials declined to publicly
identify the 24 suspects, French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said in Paris
they “appear to be of Pakistani origin.” He did not give a source for his
description, but said French officials had been in close contact with British
authorities.
Pakistan’s government said later its intelligence agents
helped Britain crack the plot and had arrested two to three
suspects.
“Pakistan played a very important role in uncovering and
breaking this international terrorist network,” Foreign Ministry spokesman
Tasnim Aslam said, but she declined to give
details.
‘Homegrown’
The suspects arrested in Britain were
“homegrown,” though it was not immediately clear if they were all British
citizens, said a British police official who spoke on condition of anonymity
because of the sensitivity of the case. Police were working closely with the
South Asian community, the official said.
Raids were carried out at homes
in London, the nearby town of High Wycombe and in Birmingham, in central
England. Searches continued throughout the day, and police cordoned off streets
in several locations. Police also combed a wooded area in High
Wycombe.
Hamza Ghafoor, 20, who lives across the street from one of the
homes raided in Walthamstow, northeast of London, said police circled the block
in vans Thursday and that they generally swoop into the neighborhood to question
“anyone with a beard.”
“Ibrahim didn’t do nothing wrong,” Ghafoor said,
referring to a suspect. “He played football. He goes to the mosque. He’s a nice
guy.”
The suicide bombing assault on London subway trains and a bus on
July 7, 2005, was carried out by Muslim extremists who grew up in
Britain.
The police official said the plotters intended to simultaneously
target multiple planes bound for the United States.
“We think this was an
extraordinarily serious plot and we are confident that we’ve prevented an
attempt to commit mass murder on an unimaginable scale,” Deputy Police
Commissioner Paul Stephenson said.
First time red alert status
invoked
Prime Minister Tony Blair, vacationing in the Caribbean, briefed
Bush on the situation Wednesday. Blair issued a statement praising the
cooperation between the two countries, saying it “underlines the threat we face
and our determination to counter it.”
Chertoff, the homeland security
chief, said the plot had the hallmarks of an operation planned by al-Qaida, the
terrorist group behind the Sept. 11 attack on the United States.
“It was
sophisticated, it had a lot of members and it was international in scope. It was
in some respects suggestive of an al-Qaida plot,” Chertoff said, but he
cautioned it was too early in the investigation to reach any
conclusions.
It is the first time the red alert level in the Homeland
Security warning system has been invoked, although there have been brief periods
in the past when the orange level was applied. Homeland Security defines the red
alert as designating a “severe risk of terrorist attacks.”
“We believe
that these arrests (in London) have significantly disrupted the threat, but we
cannot be sure that the threat has been entirely eliminated or the plot
completely thwarted,” Chertoff said.
He added, however, there was no
indication of current plots within the United States.
‘Close to the
execution phase’
Chertoff said the plotters were in the final stages of
planning. “We were really getting quite close to the execution phase,” he said,
adding that it was unclear if the plot was linked to the upcoming fifth
anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
A senior U.S.
counterterrorism official said authorities believe dozens of people — possibly
as many as 50 — were involved in the plot. The official spoke on condition of
anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.
The plan involved
airline passengers hiding masked explosives in carry-on luggage, the official
said. “They were not yet sitting on an airplane,” but were very close to
traveling, the official said, calling the plot “the real
deal.”
Passengers in Britain faced delays as tighter security was hastily
enforced at the country’s airports and additional measures were put in place for
all flights.
Laptop computers, mobile phones, digital music players, and
remote controls were among the items banned from being carried on
board.
Liquids, such as hair care products, were also barred on flights
in both Britain and the U.S.
In the mid-1990s, officials foiled a plan by
terrorist mastermind Ramzi Youssef to blow up 12 Western jetliners
simultaneously over the Pacific. The alleged plot involved improvised bombs
using liquid hidden in contact lens solution containers.
The Bojinka
Plot
In June 1995, U.S. and Filipino authorities uncovered a plot very
similar to the one revealed Thursday in the U.K.
In that plot, called the
“Bojinka Plot,” bombs were to be placed aboard 11 jumbo jets and detonated by
timing devices as the planes flew over the Pacific Ocean, killing an estimated
4,000 people.
Most of the jets were to be American carriers
and most of the dead would have been Americans.
The bombs were
small, using a Casio watch as a timer and contact lens bottles filled with
nitroglycerine. They were to be secreted behind the wall panels in the plane's
lavatory.
The bombs would have been timed to go off over a number of
hours to heighten the terror.
The plan, also called the “Day of
Hate,” was conceived by Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the first World Trade
Center bombing, and his uncle, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of
9/11.
Only a fire in Yousef's Manila apartment thwarted it.
Mohammed later modified the plan, took it to Osama bin Laden, and it became the
blueprint for the 9/11 attacks.
Read more in the Daily Nightly Blog:
"'Very good reason' to believe it's al-Qaida"
- Robert Windrem, NBC News
investigative producer
Click or paste the links to view the
video:
NBC's Bob Windrem has new details about the terror
plot, including that several planes were targeted in the disrupted
plan.
European and American travelers face increased airport security following a foiled British terror plot.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14286173/displaymode/1107/s/2/
Attached
Photo:
A police officer stands guard on Walton Drive in London, England,
after it was closed off following a police raid on a house on
Thursday.
060810_londonPlot_hmed_3p.h2.jpg
